# Someone should start a class action lawsuit against TiVo!



## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

I am so fed up with this company I'm just about done with them!

I purchased TWO TiVo Series 3 HD boxes with lifetime service back in 2008. Sold one of the boxes/service about a year later when I downsized my apartment. Last year my remaining box died on me out of nowhere and when I phone TiVo about it, the girl admitted to me that all the drives in the Series 3 boxes were cheap and had manufacturing issues. Yet they still charged me 150 bucks to get a refurb even though they flat out admitted their stuff was cheap!

So my box dies in under 2 years, it's never been dropped or anything, just sits on the shelf minding it's own business, I spend all that money for equipment and lifetime service for this crap?

So now the refurb has now died on me as well...I've only had it a few months...it just died tonight! the box keeps rebooting itself randomly whenever it feels like it...another hard drive failure alert which is about to happen any day now.

I'm seriously ticked off that they do not support these boxes and replace them with the new Premier boxes, when they flat out admit their Series 3 equipment was cheap and not manufactured properly. But I'm not spending another dime on with this company, they have played me for the last time!


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## tgbroom (Feb 5, 2005)

Hard drives fail. period. all of them do, at some point. obviously you are frustrated, emotional and pissed. I have 3 - series 3 and all of the hard drives have failed and were easily replaced with hd's from weaknees, it is a piece of cake. they have been running strong since replacement and I put bigger drives in them which made for a nice upgrade. There is no better DVR than TIVO, and I have had frustrations with company from time to time for different corp decisions on products, but you really can't blame them because some cust serv person said that they hd's were cheap. they run 24/7/365 and they are not scsi, they work their @ss of all the freaking time when you are sleeping. Take deep breath, order new hd and get back to enjoying your S3.
Good Day.

Tim


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

With all due respect...

The original HD started failing after the first year of ownership, a good quality hard drive does not fail that quickly!

The refurb hard drive is only a few months old, do you also think enough time has passed for that hard drive to fail as well?

I have hard drives (both internal and external) that I've had for years and they are still running with no problems, but TiVo hard drives that you pay 300 bucks for (unit included) as well as another 300 for lifetime does not?

Seriously, you are defending this?

I'm not spending another dime on this crap company! There are many reports on the internet about how expensive TiVo is (regarding their hardware fails way to quick), yes you are damn right I'm "frustrated"! Basically I paid 150 bucks for a refurb that lasted me 3 months...LMAO...seriously man...again you are defending this?

Give me your cc number while you are at it so I can buy that new drive that you so desperately want me to own!

Unbelievable!

P.S. I have friends who have the series 2 (box before HD came out), they don't have any issues with their devices and still have the original hard drives in them...the things are like 5 plus years old! Now do you really want to keep defending TiVo regarding the Series 3? I can't believe I've spent over 1300 bucks to record TV for the past two years and can't even get equipment that lasts. Maybe they should dump the damn hard drives and switch over to flash drives or something, it's obvious hard drives do not last in TiVo's... Oh yea and they still can't seem to integrate built in Wi-Fi in the new Premier boxes? LOL...this is 2011, everything has built in Wi-Fi but TiVo still can't manage to pull it off? LMAO!!!


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Basically I paid 150 bucks for a refurb that lasted me 3 months...


The TiVo DVR Limited Warranty policy doesn't have any exclusions for refurbished products. Send it back for a replacement.

Edit: FWIW, my Series 3 harddrive failed after 4½ years. A recently purchased 2TB drive for my PC failed after 27 days.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> I have hard drives (both internal and external) that I've had for years and they are still running with no problems


But I bet you don't have them being constantly written to 24/7/365. Hard drives in Tivos never get a break unless you unplug them.



Dayvidpriddy said:


> Maybe they should dump the damn hard drives and switch over to flash drives or something


Bad idea. See the above comment about the hard drive being constanly written to.
Flash (SSD) drives have a finite number of times they can be written to before they fail. Putting one in a Tivo is not recommended.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

OP, what does TiVo say about your premature failure of the refurb unit? (You have asked, right?)

The common wisdom that exists at least on this forum is that Series 3 drives failing after 1 or 2 years of service is not abnormal. Whether this is true of all similarly sized drives in all other DVR's is an interesting question.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> I have hard drives (both internal and external) that I've had for years and they are still running with no problems, but TiVo hard drives that you pay 300 bucks for (unit included) as well as another 300 for lifetime does not?


Your $300 investment doesn't make TiVo immune the same failures that affect every other electronics device. Usually devices fail when they're still relatively new, or they fail when they're much older. Look up "bathtub curve."

I've worked with thousands of hard drives costing ten times what a TiVo costs and they're subject to the same failure curve as every thing else. You can reduce it with expensive testing and burn-in, but it's almost impossible to eliminate.

Refurbs are a little different case. I suspect refurbs sometimes fail because of a latent problem that caused the original device to be returned, but wasn't detected by testing during the refurb process. Again, this is a risk with all refurbs.

I like you're idea of a class action suit, though. I don't think anyone has ever suggested that. You should really run with it.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

nrc said:


> I like you're idea of a class action suit, though. I don't think anyone has ever suggested that. You should really run with it.


Not really worth it. Even if he/we won the case, the lawyers would get most of the settlement money.


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## JohnnyCruzr (Mar 19, 2009)

*Class action lawsuit means:*

TiVo pays millions in the settlement.

The lawyer keeps millions of what HE won.

Every consumer in the settlement gets a $3.00 check.

EVERY TiVo customer pays more in monthly subscription fee's to pay for the settlement (including the ones who got the $3.00 check)

So who's the only winner in a class action lawsuit? The lawyer. And I'm not a lawyer, so count me out.


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

dlfl said:


> OP, what does TiVo say about your premature failure of the refurb unit? (You have asked, right?)
> 
> The common wisdom that exists at least on this forum is that Series 3 drives failing after 1 or 2 years of service is not abnormal. Whether this is true of all similarly sized drives in all other DVR's is an interesting question.


Having a hard drive fail after 1-2 years is NOT abnormal? I totally disagree with that statement! While it does happen it is my NO MEANS the "norm." I'm calling them up this evening to find out if they are going to replace this for me, this death happened last night and they were closed. I'll post back when after.

BTW...the lawsuit statement was just to get peoples attention on here...yea right like I'm going to waste my time doing that? NOT! But in general there are TONS of complaints about the Series 3 boxes, there is definitely a defect somewhere that's causing all of these issues cause they were not happening like this in the boxes before the Series 3.


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## telcoman (Dec 27, 2007)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Having a hard drive fail after 1-2 years is NOT abnormal? I totally disagree with that statement! While it does happen it is my NO MEANS the "norm." I'm calling them up this evening to find out if they are going to replace this for me, this death happened last night and they were closed. I'll post back when after.
> 
> BTW...the lawsuit statement was just to get peoples attention on here...yea right like I'm going to waste my time doing that? NOT! But in general there are TONS of complaints about the Series 3 boxes, there is definitely a defect somewhere that's causing all of these issues cause they were not happening like this in the boxes before the Series 3.


I have three series 3 Tivo's for over three years with no problem.
Two of them were moved recently into an audio cabinet from the top of my Sony TV as I expect to get a flat screen soon.
Inside the cabinet I placed a thermometer which was reading over 85 degrees.
I now leave the cabinet open so the temp is down in the mid seventies.
My question to you is are your TIVO's in an enclosed cabinet?

Heat causes many electronic failures


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

I'm on the phone right now with TiVo, they claim there will be a fee to replace the refurb...no surprise there!

No my box is NOT enclosed whatsoever.

UPDATE: One supervisor later and I got it changed out for free...lucky me and thanks for the advice on here guys...I was surprised they would do this for free!


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Yet they still charged me 150 bucks to get a refurb even though they flat out admitted their stuff was cheap!


The refurbished unit probably doesn't have a new hard drive in it either. It's easier and cheaper to just buy a used Tivo HD without service and swap the hard drive yourself. You can easily find one for under $50. If the problem turns out to be the power supply, you can swap that out too.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

If you knew how many times "class action" came up here, you wouldn't think of it as an attention-getter. It's more like a running joke.


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## Lensman (Dec 22, 2001)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> I'd love to see if we could contact her and ask what was "cheap" about the HDDs in the series 3 boxes. I'm unaware of any modern 3.5" drives that are significantly different from any others - WD, Hitachi, Seagate, they're all equally good at the consumer level. (And for any of you know-it-alls who've had drive problems, please substitute "equally bad" for "equally good") Each of those companies has had bad batches that have resulted in higher failure rates causing a flurry of consumers and pro-sumers to say "I don't trust Seagate" or "I don't trust WD".
> 
> Bottom line: She just made that up to try to make you feel better and failed miserably or she was misinformed.
> 
> BTW: I recommend Hitachi drives. I've always had good experiences with them. Too bad they've just gotten bought out by WD.


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> If you knew how many times "class action" came up here, you wouldn't think of it as an attention-getter. It's more like a running joke.


And the people posting about doing it are the butts of the jokes.

Sorry it happened to the OP but if he had come here first, he would have seen how simple it would have been to do a self upgrade and have a better DVR with more capacity.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

janry said:


> And the people posting about doing it are the butts of the jokes.
> 
> Sorry it happened to the OP but if he had come here first, he would have seen how simple it would have been to do a self upgrade and have a better DVR with more capacity.


The OP is right. He shouldn't have to come here first, pay MORE out of his pocket for a self upgrade, and then have a "better" product when the one he bought to begin with should work properly.

As somebody who has purchased literally thousands of Fiberchannel, iSCSI, etc drives costing far more than a consumer grade drive as well as low end eSATA drives (frankly as well as MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, IDE, EIDE and pretty much every other alphabet soup drive in the past 25 years) I also consider the idea that "drives fail" or "it's normal" as crap. Equally BS is the idea that the Tivo is somehow unique in that it is constantly writing to the drive. Tivo doesn't make their own drives, but they are responsible for its performance, as well as the environmental factors which can dramatically affect the lifespan of the drives. And most importantly, it's a core component of their product. If they're not going to support it, they're in the wrong business. Period.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

wmhjr said:


> The OP is right. He shouldn't have to come here first, pay MORE out of his pocket for a self upgrade, and then have a "better" product when the one he bought to begin with should work properly.
> 
> As somebody who has purchased literally thousands of Fiberchannel, iSCSI, etc drives costing far more than a consumer grade drive as well as low end eSATA drives (frankly as well as MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, IDE, EIDE and pretty much every other alphabet soup drive in the past 25 years) I also consider the idea that "drives fail" or "it's normal" as crap. Equally BS is the idea that the Tivo is somehow unique in that it is constantly writing to the drive. Tivo doesn't make their own drives, but they are responsible for its performance, as well as the environmental factors which can dramatically affect the lifespan of the drives. And most importantly, it's a core component of their product. If they're not going to support it, they're in the wrong business. Period.


So in ALL your grand experience buying all levels and types of drives. you've never experienced premature or early failure? Even in systems that constantly use and tax drives the way TiVos do? Since it can be assumed by your statement you've used such systems in your vast years of experience.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Langree said:


> So in ALL your grand experience buying all levels and types of drives. you've never experienced premature or early failure? Even in systems that constantly use and tax drives the way TiVos do? Since it can be assumed by your statement you've used such systems in your vast years of experience.


No, in my "grand" experience I'll say a few things - which frankly I already said but you'd prefer to ignore rather than actually taking my points accurately. It's why I rarely post here. Far too many fanboys in love with Tivo and overly defensive of Tivo even when there are obvious issues with their product, service, or both.

1) There are many many systems which tax drives equally if not more than the Tivo. In addition, there are even ways in which Tivo could have implemented strategies which would allow users to effectively put the constant read/write "to sleep" other than downing the system knowing that the process of bringing it back online takes so ridiculously long. Can you say "You're almost there" for about 15 minutes?

2) That notwithstanding, Tivo depends on those drives for the very core functionality of the product. Which leads to:

3) Tivo either needs to support their product - which INCLUDES those drives - or get out of the business. The product is worthless without the drive. Drive failure is a critical failure mode. Therefore, there needs to be mitigation in the event of failure as well as better support.

What spawned my response with the frankly unfriendly comment that I quoted where the OP was effectively blamed for not paying more money out of his pocket to "improve" a product that he already paid for.


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## wedgecon (Dec 28, 2002)

Google did a large study on hard drive failure rates and found that:

About 7% of hard drives fail in the first year.
About 8 % fail in the second year.
About 9% fail in the third year.
About 6% fail in the fourth year.
About 7% fail in the fifth year

So almost 40% of hard drives fail within 5 years. The only rule about hard drives is not if they will fail only when. 

Drives are cheap enough now that the DVR's really should have RAID standard.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

wmhjr said:


> No, in my "grand" experience I'll say a few things - which frankly I already said but you'd prefer to ignore rather than actually taking my points accurately. It's why I rarely post here. Far too many fanboys in love with Tivo and overly defensive of Tivo even when there are obvious issues with their product, service, or both.
> 
> 1) There are many many systems which tax drives equally if not more than the Tivo. In addition, there are even ways in which Tivo could have implemented strategies which would allow users to effectively put the constant read/write "to sleep" other than downing the system knowing that the process of bringing it back online takes so ridiculously long. Can you say "You're almost there" for about 15 minutes?
> 
> ...


1) not a fanboy, but I am a tech who's dealt with systems that use drives for less than an active TiVo, some lasted 5+ years, some lasted <month and everything in between.

2) I personally don't want a "sleep" function, the Comcast Motorola boxes do it and it's annoying as hell since the write buffer is empty until it wakes up.

3) They do support it, but free drive replacement for the life of the TiVo is not an option.

4) what other system taxes consumer level drives 24/7/365 constantly reading and writing?

I have a MyDVR Expander that failed at 25 months, should I expect WD to replace the drive because it's the core functionality of the unit and damnit it should be built to last and if it fails they should send me a new one, for free?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> BTW...the lawsuit statement was just to get peoples attention on here..


so basically you just want to rant and blow some smoke while doing so. You have a legit beef but are not making many friends on the forum with your approach and basically diluting your real message with thread crap, Have fun with that...


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## patnmike427 (Sep 9, 2002)

My nickel's worth:

To the OP:

1--Did you have the TiVo plugged into even a cheap surge protector? Obviously we don't know if your refurb had its original drive in it...but TWO units in one year? (Pun intended) Talk about lightning striking twice!

That is exactly why my Premiere, my 47" LCD HDTV, and my $800 Sony A/V receiver are plugged into a $300 power conditioner.

To wmhjr:

1--Talking "alphabet soup" means nothing; to this 30+ year geek, it simply means you either worked in a server room or can look 'em up in Wikipedia.

2--"I also consider the idea that "drives fail" or "it's normal" as crap." Really? If you're as smart as you appear to be , then you'll know what the term "five 9s" means. Granted, it only sort of applies here; but, my point is that there is not-PERIOD-a single mass-produced item of ANY kind that can approach those numbers in terms of absolute perfect quality.

3--Again, if you have a clue, consider the manufacturing environment of any hard drive; re-read #2 again.

4--Finally, I have had a wide variety of drives fail...from high-end, big-dollar SCSIs to cheap consumer drives...and every manufacturer has gone through phases of putting out crappy drives; Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi (the IBM Deskstar fiasco ring any bells?).

5--"Drive failure is a critical failure mode." Umm, do I need to remind you that TiVo is a DVR, whose purpose is to record TELEVISION programming??? It is not-REPEAT, NOT-a business-critical data server! Your life will not end if your TiVo bites the dust...yeah, it might suck, but c'mon-"critical" failure? Spare me the hyperbole!

"Therefore, there needs to be mitigation in the event of failure..." Such as-? RAID 1? RAID 5?

Epic FAIL.


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

wmhjr said:


> The OP is right. He shouldn't have to come here first, pay MORE out of his pocket for a self upgrade, and then have a "better" product when the one he bought to begin with should work properly.
> 
> As somebody who has purchased literally thousands of Fiberchannel, iSCSI, etc drives costing far more than a consumer grade drive as well as low end eSATA drives (frankly as well as MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, IDE, EIDE and pretty much every other alphabet soup drive in the past 25 years) I also consider the idea that "drives fail" or "it's normal" as crap. Equally BS is the idea that the Tivo is somehow unique in that it is constantly writing to the drive. Tivo doesn't make their own drives, but they are responsible for its performance, as well as the environmental factors which can dramatically affect the lifespan of the drives. And most importantly, it's a core component of their product. If they're not going to support it, they're in the wrong business. Period.


Tivos are meant to be for the masses. It is a consumer product and priced accordingly, and even below cost according to many. To put a drive in one that will never fail would be drive the cost beyond what most are willing to pay. To do that would certainly make TiVo fail.

That being said, I've been using TiVos for about ten years now. Of my 3 TiVos, I have never had a drive fail. I have however replaced two drives for increased capacity. Those two drives probably would have failed eventually.

Sorry, but drives fail in even far more expensive computers. Might as well learn to live with it.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

Ok... we can all agree that drives fail. Also, that "the Drive" is key, and has been an issue for many for a very long time.

I think we can also agree that Tivo could make the process of replacing one a lot easier than returning the unit (yes I know you can buy a pre-formatted drive from several opportunists for absurd markup, or obtain third party hacks to format your own). But Tivo's miniscule OS can easily be fit on a few dollars worth of flash and auto-format a new drive when plugged in and powered up.

So why hasn't it been addressed? Is it because they don't have the technical expertise to implement it? It seems all they know how to do these days is write lame, buggy add-ons, and use a fat, bloated, proprietary runtime for a "new" interface (so they can more easily script it instead of coding it - yet it still remains unfinished).

Or is it because they don't want to? Tivo is really good at selling you overpriced add-ons. Gotta buy their wireless adaptor, and only their "licensed" external drive (which has a miserable failure rate). Allowing the customer to easily pop in a bigger drive would pretty much kill the add on drive licensing and overpriced XL models. And could it be that they see the whole replacement/refurbishment process as a profit center? Would simple PnP drive replacement throw their whole 'product lifetime service' into red ink?

Personally, I think it is a little of both. Why would Tivo want to invest resources in improving a product when that improvement would mean fewer replacement and lifetime subscription transfer fees? Seems their whole lifetime model is designed around a large number of these units failing prematurely when compared to other CE devices.

Of course they could do it just to improve the customer experience. Yeah, right! (c;

Whatever the reasons, the bottom line _*is*_ that Tivo's current storage limitations are, like much of Tivo, pretty lame by today's standards. But I think if we EVER want to see better hardware from Tivo they will have to kill off lifetime service.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> ........the lawsuit statement was just to get peoples attention on here.......





wmcbrine said:


> If you knew how many times "class action" came up here, you wouldn't think of it as an attention-getter. It's more like a running joke.





ZeoTiVo said:


> so basically you just want to rant and blow some smoke while doing so. You have a legit beef but are not making many friends on the forum with your approach and basically diluting your real message with thread crap, Have fun with that...


At this point it appears the OP's goal of getting people's attention has worked. 

It is easy to get the impression that TiVo Series 3 drives have too high a failure rate, what with all the posts of that. However the statistical significance is totally unknown. With millions of units in the field, the hundreds of posts might represent a miniscule failure rate. Tivo is the only entity in a position to compile meaningful statistics -- I wonder if they do? Even their statistics would be questionable since obviously some percentage of failures are handled independently of TiVo.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

solutionsetc said:


> I think we can also agree that Tivo could make the process of replacing one a lot easier than returning the unit (yes I know you can buy a pre-formatted drive from several opportunists for absurd markup, or obtain third party hacks to format your own). But Tivo's miniscule OS can easily be fit on a few dollars worth of flash and auto-format a new drive when plugged in and powered up.


Not only that, it would probably boot much faster than the ridiculously long time it takes to get a Premiere up and running now. I think the Moxi and pretty much every cable HD DVR does this - if a drive fails, you just put in a new one and the box sets it up for you, because it's only used for recordings, guide data, etc.

Tivo continues to live in the past in a lot of ways, for whatever reason. And back on topic, OP is just another drive-by ranter.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

janry said:


> ... Of my 3 TiVos, I have never had a drive fail. ...


I haven't really had drives in TiVos "fail", in that they were no longer usable as drives in anything, but I've had plenty get something on them scrambled (wrong checksum, bad header, etc.), despite UPS and surge protection, so that the recordings were no longer available or recoverable and the drives would need to be re-written from a backup to be usable in the TiVo again.

That's what I hate about Tivos.

If it happens with a computer drive you have a decent chance of recovering with testdisk or something, or putting it into another computer and copying off your stuff.

Not with a Tivo, though. You're just screwed.

I've decided the best approach is to use Tivo Desktop on a dedicated computer with a big hard drive and store recordings there instead of putting a big drive in the TiVo.


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## replaytv (Feb 21, 2011)

I like the idea of a sleep function. Why have a hard drive record all the time? That is some tough use on one to be recording 24/7/365! 
U can force the Tivo so it doesn't record by putting it the change settings modes, but it is a pain, and it may interfer with scheduled recordings. 

Many people don't realize that the unit still records when U put it in standby. 

A friend borrowed a Tivo and was unplugging the Tivo when not used. That was the end of that lending.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

replaytv said:


> I like the idea of a sleep function. Why have a hard drive record all the time? That is some tough use on one to be recording 24/7/365!
> U can force the Tivo so it doesn't record by putting it the change settings modes, but it is a pain, and it may interfer with scheduled recordings.
> 
> Many people don't realize that the unit still records when U put it in standby.
> ...


There's no way for the TiVo to know if you're watching TV or not, so it has to be buffering the signal all the time.

Standby disables output, and guards against most accidental remote pushes, but the Tivo needs to be running so that it can record anything it's scheduled to and so that it can contact the mothership to download the guide data.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

JohnnyCruzr said:


> *Class action lawsuit means:*
> 
> TiVo pays millions in the settlement.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately that sums it up. I have been lucky with hard drives in TiVos over the years. I have had maybe three failures and have been using TiVo since October 2000, usually with 2 or 3 running. No failures yet with my TiVoHDs.


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## takeshi (Jul 22, 2010)

JohnnyCruzr said:


> Every consumer in the settlement gets a $3.00 check.


If they're lucky. It's not unusual to get a coupon as a "settlement".



Dayvidpriddy said:


> Having a hard drive fail after 1-2 years is NOT abnormal?


Read post 5 again. Constant use of a drive will have an affect on failure rates. Do you actually have real numbers on failure rates on Tivo drives or are you relying solely on your experience, which is statistically insignificiant? Or forum posts which aren't statistically relevant either (considering the nature of discussion forums)?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

solutionsetc said:


> Ok... we can all agree that drives fail. Also, that "the Drive" is key, and has been an issue for many for a very long time.
> 
> I think we can also agree that Tivo could make the process of replacing one a lot easier than returning the unit (yes I know you can buy a pre-formatted drive from several opportunists for absurd markup, or obtain third party hacks to format your own).


the real question is WHY would TiVo want to male it too easy? TiVo has no business interest in a S2 DT with lifetime going for the next 50 years. Folks with Monthly subs? TiVo would rather they upgrade to the latest model so TiVo can benefit from more subscribers on the latest 3rd party content capable box.

This forum really gets into its group think at times and that group think here seems to think TiVo is trying to make a box that the average user could keep going for more than 4 or 5 years


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

takeshi said:


> Read post 5 again. Constant use of a drive will have an affect on failure rates.


read the Google study in its own use of hard drives. They found that drive fail rates had no significant statistical difference based on usage rate.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> read the Google study in its own use of hard drives. They found that drive fail rates had no significant statistical difference based on usage rate.


Do you have a link to the Google study? Does it apply to the "server grade" drives Google uses vs the cheaper drives used by tivo? Does it apply to drives in a unit that many customers put in an area with poor ventilation? Does it apply to drives used in an environment where simultaneous read and writes are going on 24/7?

I certainly don't think the failure rate in drives put in a tivo rise to the level of a class action lawsuit. Anecdotal evidence suggests drives used in a tivo don't last as long as drives put in a PC.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lew said:


> Do you have a link to the Google study?


umm, you can Google for it 

and yes - If you know how Google works they have large farms of inexpensive hardware, including hard drives -- A LOT of hard drives. Find the study and read it, a lot of good info in it


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Yes it was easy to Google a Google report. 

Here is the conclusion section:


> In this study we report on the failure characteristics of
> consumer-grade disk drives. To our knowledge, the
> study is unprecedented in that it uses a much larger
> population size than has been previously reported and
> ...


Very interesting!

Figure 2 is a bar chart of % failure rate vs. drive age. For years 2 thru 5, it averages about 7% per year. This roughly indicates that 28% of drives fail within 5 years age, and this ignores infant mortality failures also plotted in the figure. This seems believable to me and also seems consistent with the large number of drive-failure posts we get in this forum, even though it roughly indicates that some 70% of drives will last more than 5 years.


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

Just a data point.. I've been running my S3 since they first came out without any problems or hard drive failures yet! No complaints here. My parents have been running a Tivo HD almost as long and also have no problems with Tivo hardware. I've got dormant S1s and an S2 -- I think one of the S1s had one HD failure (easily replaced). 

What I'd like to see is a Tivo with an SSD for all the settings, guide data, wishlists, and season passes, etc so that if/when the main HD fails, all you lose are the shows.. pop in a new HD and away you go.


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

I wouldn't know anything about Tivo and their orginal drive's failure rate. With all three of mine as soon as I received them I swapped out the original for a larger drive.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

I don't think usage has anything to do with whether the drive is expected to fail or not, but the warranty on the drive is definitely lacking. 90 days on the TiVo (Kind of a fail BTW) and 1 year on the drive. After all the drive is the only moving part. Otherwise they should offer a 1 year parts and labor period, because if you get a dud it's going to become evident in the first year.



> From 90 days after the date of purchase through to the end of your initial commitment to the TiVo service, your DVR will be replaced with a repaired, renewed, or comparable product (whichever is deemed necessary by TiVo) if it becomes defective or inoperative. You will be responsible for all labor and shipping costs (including applicable taxes, if any). Contact Customer Support at the phone number found in the "Troubleshooting" chapter of the Installation Guide to obtain your cost (labor costs) for exchange.


It would be nice if they offered a self repair option so you could avoid labor costs.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

brettatk said:


> I wouldn't know anything about Tivo and their orginal drive's failure rate. With all three of mine as soon as I received them I swapped out the original for a larger drive.


I waited a year on almost all of mine before doing this, except for the HD. Since I only record analog the drive in it is fine.


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## leeherman (Nov 5, 2007)

For what it's worth, I have four Tivos (an S2, two HDs and an S3). None of the internal drives have failed.

The 500 gbyte WD expander connected to my S3 failed after a year or so and I replaced it with a 1TB model. I also have 1TB expanders connected to my HDs and have had no problems yet.

Drives DEFINITELY fail, and seemingly moreso with today's larger capacities, and perhaps as a result of higher CPU power, both resulting in higher operating temperatures. I have old, lower capacity drives which have lasted for years, but have lost 500 gbyte and up drives in less than a year. I keep RAID on both my primary desktop PC, my Tivo/iTunes server, and my network attached storage to try to mitigate against failure.

Anything I've recorded on a Tivo that I wish to keep ends up moved to my NAS and is therefore reasonably protected. My biggest exposure is a failure in cases where I simply haven't watched something, and it's not like I'll live or die by missing American Idol.

LH


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## cbrofm (Jul 4, 2006)

Here's the email address to the CEO's office.

http://consumerist.com/2010/03/reach-the-ceos-office-at-tivo.html

A nice, but relatively clueless person will call you back to try to make you feel better. 

She did confirm, in a roundabout way that my issue with my DVR expander was probably due to cable issues. BFD. A nice post from one of the subscribers here already told me that.

Call back within 6 working hours. Now have a nice name and address to add to my collection.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

cbrofm said:


> Here's the email address to the CEO's office.
> 
> http://consumerist.com/2010/03/reach-the-ceos-office-at-tivo.html
> 
> A nice, but relatively clueless person will call you back...


So it's *not* actually the email address to the CEO's office, but rather the email address of a relatively clueless person? How effective would going this route be? It seems like a waste of time to me.


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

I finally got my replacement box today from TiVo...dead on arrival! This is just unbelievable to me...I'm calling them tomorrow and requesting a new Premier retail box free of charge. I've spent over 1500 bucks with this company over the past 2 years and enough is enough!

The TiVo HD boxes are garbage and do not last...PERIOD! I know people who have the series 2 boxes...never a problem...I know people who have the TiVo HD box...nothing but problems and I know people who have the new Premier box...no problems there! It's obvious the model of box that I own should have been recalled a long time ago!

I'm really pissed off right now! Two weeks wasted to recieve a replacement unit...and for what?


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

ZeoTiVo said:


> so basically you just want to rant and blow some smoke while doing so. You have a legit beef but are not making many friends on the forum with your approach and basically diluting your real message with thread crap, Have fun with that...


Sweety, I' not trying to "make friends" on a TiVo discusion board...get real!


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

a quick note about hard drive failures lol...

I've had probably 24 computers in my life so far and not one of the hard drives in the systems EVER failed!

I have a few external hard drives as well...some I've had since 2005...THEY STILL WORK!

The only hard drive I've ever had issues with are the drives in the TiVo HD boxes...it is what it is...their products are total junk and have no life span. I mean spending 600 bucks for one unit and lifetime service plus (for Wi-Fi adapter and premium remote) for a device that lasts a year or so??? Oh yea and I've bought two sets of these so that's where the total price tag comes from. Are you kidding me??? Anyone who sits here on this thread and attempts to say that is "normal" are just plan idiots!

TiVo will never see another dime of my money...EVER AGAIN if they don't fix this!


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> a quick note about hard drive failures lol...
> 
> I've had probably 24 computers in my life so far and not one of the hard drives in the systems EVER failed!
> 
> ...


 You must have missed the results of Google's extensive study given in post #37. Or do you think the experience of one person proves more than a rigorous study involving thousands of drives?

Do you think TiVo has a special deal with Western Digital where they get custom poorly made drives -- worse than what others buy? Please!

Don't hold your breath waiting for TiVo to "fix this".


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Sweety, I' not trying to "make friends" on a TiVo discusion board...get real!


Neither am I and I am NOT trying to be your sweety either, eewww. You just simply have a bad way of communicating your message in a forum and thus most folks will blow you off without giving your post any real consideration. I give you this thread as proof.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I believe a DVR application is harder on drives than the typical PC application but David Priddy has had bad luck is the only suggestion I can come up with for that type of disparity. I suspect temperatures and constant writing and accessing data with a DVR create a shorter lifespan on average. No PC HD failures and 3 or 4 TiVo HD failures over the last 11 years for me isn't conclusive of anything since I usually have 2 or 3 TiVos running but having removed the TiVo drives believe the quality of the drive is not an issue at all.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Chris Gerhard said:


> ....... I suspect temperatures and constant writing and accessing data with a DVR create a shorter lifespan on average. ......


No correlation with either of these variables was found in the Google study. They were surprised since they expected them too.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> I finally got my replacement box today from TiVo...dead on arrival! This is just unbelievable to me...I'm calling them tomorrow and requesting a new Premier retail box free of charge. I've spent over 1500 bucks with this company over the past 2 years and enough is enough!
> 
> The TiVo HD boxes are garbage and do not last...PERIOD! I know people who have the series 2 boxes...never a problem...I know people who have the TiVo HD box...nothing but problems and I know people who have the new Premier box...no problems there! It's obvious the model of box that I own should have been recalled a long time ago!
> 
> I'm really pissed off right now! Two weeks wasted to recieve a replacement unit...and for what?


I'd be pissed too if I were you, but the Tivo HD boxes are NOT garbage and most last just fine. You're a victim of bad luck and Tivo's suspect record when refurbing returned boxes, that's all.

You're a great ranter - start your class action lawsuit and see where it gets you, we'll break out the popcorn and watch.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> ...the Tivo HD boxes are NOT garbage and most last just fine. You're a victim of bad luck *and Tivo's suspect record when refurbing returned boxes*, that's all...


So the Tivo machines are mostly OK, it's TiVo the company that one shouldn't trust?


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## jtreid (Jan 12, 2006)

I tried not to get into this, but you need to understand a few things your basing your conclusions on.


Dayvidpriddy said:


> I know people who have the series 2 boxes...never a problem


The only Tivo drives that have ever failed on me were in series 2 Tivos and I've had three of them fail.


Dayvidpriddy said:


> I've had probably 24 computers in my life so far and not one of the hard drives in the systems EVER failed!


I, on the contrary, have owned about 6 computers in my life and have had hard drives fail in two of them.


Dayvidpriddy said:


> I have a few external hard drives as well...some I've had since 2005...THEY STILL WORK!


I have had one external drive and it failed in less than one year.


Dayvidpriddy said:


> The only hard drive I've ever had issues with are the drives in the TiVo HD boxes.


I have had an S3 since they came out without a failure. I've had a TivoHD for more than two years and the hard drive has never failed.

So based on your reckoning, I would say the Series 2 are crap and my PC is crap. Further, using your reasoning, I would say the TivoHD and the Series 3 are great. So you understand that your reasoning is just plain knee jerk and based on your small sampling of data. It's just a plain bad conclusion.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I am not going to comment on anyone persons post just not worth it however I will comment in Hard drives and TiVos in general. TiVo uses brand name drives just like every other manufacture of a product with a hard drive. We are down to a hand full companies that make hard drives there are no "off brand" hard drives. 

Hard drives are mechanical and they fail - just a fact of life. How long they lasts varies greatly. My last 3 work computers/laptops all had drive failures at around 3 years. 

Heat and poor power are possible reasons some hard drives fail faster than other drives. When I was in an IT shop a few years back one Dell desktop design didn't cool the drives well enough - we had about 300 of them in the area I worked in - the drives failed within 1-2 years in 95+% of the computers. 

To maximize your chances of a drive living to an old age in a TiVo you need to have the TiVo in a well ventilated cool area and have it plugged into a good UPS. You may still be unlucky but that is just the way it goes. 

Thanks,


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...

My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!

I ****ing rule!


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## Dayvidpriddy (May 15, 2010)

dlfl said:


> You must have missed the results of Google's extensive study given in post #37. Or do you think the experience of one person proves more than a rigorous study involving thousands of drives?
> 
> Do you think TiVo has a special deal with Western Digital where they get custom poorly made drives -- worse than what others buy? Please!
> 
> Don't hold your breath waiting for TiVo to "fix this".


Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn about "Google's study", Google didn't pay for my TiVo...I did!


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> I finally got my replacement box today from TiVo...dead on arrival! This is just unbelievable to me...I'm calling them tomorrow and requesting a new Premier retail box free of charge. I've spent over 1500 bucks with this company over the past 2 years and enough is enough!
> 
> The TiVo HD boxes are garbage and do not last...PERIOD! I know people who have the series 2 boxes...never a problem...I know people who have the TiVo HD box...nothing but problems and I know people who have the new Premier box...no problems there! It's obvious the model of box that I own should have been recalled a long time ago!
> 
> I'm really pissed off right now! Two weeks wasted to recieve a replacement unit...and for what?


I think it's cheaper and easier to buy a used one on line. If your Tivo is a lifetime unit, then you can swap parts until yours is fixed. If you Tivo has a monthly subscription, they you can just switch over to the used Tivo or swap parts if you still need to. I think the odds are much better to get a working Tivo with one transaction this way.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Folks with Monthly subs? TiVo would rather they upgrade to the latest model so TiVo can benefit from more subscribers on the latest 3rd party content capable box.


They surely want those with lifetime S2s to upgrade, but I would think someone still paying a monthly or yearly subscription on an S2 would be a profit center for Tivo.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...
> 
> My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!
> 
> I ****ing rule!


My, what a delusional world you live in.

Enjoy your Premiere.

Can't wait to see the threads, and remember, you got what you asked for.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...
> 
> My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!
> 
> I ****ing rule!


Please let us know how you like the new HD interface.


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## David Platt (Dec 13, 2001)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...
> 
> My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!
> 
> I ****ing rule!


Translation of this thread:

"TiVo sucks! They're awful! I'll never use them again!!

Can't wait to get my new TiVo!!"


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...
> 
> My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!
> 
> I ****ing rule!


Is it because you have tiger blood?


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## OCSMITH (Mar 16, 2006)

David Platt said:


> Translation of this thread:
> 
> "TiVo sucks! They're awful! I'll never use them again!!
> 
> Can't wait to get my new TiVo!!"


LOL :up:


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Dayvidpriddy said:


> Take lessons from the "Priddy" boys and girls...
> 
> My NEW/SEALED Premier box is on it's way! I threatened to call corporate and had the manager in customer service "owned" in a matter of minutes!
> 
> I ****ing rule!


I see my initial impression of you was indeed correct


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## JZ1276 (Aug 21, 2008)

Tivo should offer the customer a lifetime warranty on the unit when they are first purchased. That, or, being that the hard drives are usually the first part to malfunction, they should offer a free 1-2 yr warranty.
Anyway someone mentioned on the first page that a Tivo HD can be bought used for less than $50 with no service and parts could be swapped from it. I was wondering, which part is the lifetime service info saved on? The motherboard? There has to be a way to swap that out, no?

and BTW, I can understand why the original poster is angry and i'd be also but I've had my Tivo HD now for about 3 years and never had a problem except with the HDMI port and that was my fault. Faulty electric killed it.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

JZ1276 said:


> Tivo should offer the customer a lifetime warranty on the unit when they are first purchased. That, or, being that the hard drives are usually the first part to malfunction, they should offer a free 1-2 yr warranty.
> Anyway someone mentioned on the first page that a Tivo HD can be bought used for less than $50 with no service and parts could be swapped from it. I was wondering, which part is the lifetime service info saved on? The motherboard? There has to be a way to swap that out, no?


When a customer purchases a lifetime subscription it is tied (in a database at TiVo) to the Tivo Service Number. This number is stored on a chip on the motherboard. If you have your own hot air rework station, you might be able to transfer that chip to another motherboard from the same model Tivo.


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