# hard drive replacement



## Mike95688 (Jun 24, 2015)

I have a Tivo Premiere TCP746320 that is giving me the welcome screen, the GSOD, then back to the welcome. I think this is a hard drive problem. I need to know what hard drives are compatible and the best way to recover the data. I know some of this is available in other forums, but please help


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

My preference in order is WD A/V, WD Green (may need wdidle3 timer adjusted) / WD Red (may need TLER disabled which is controversial at this time). Size wise you can go up to 4TB but anything over 2TB may require an intermediate drive for full expansion.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Mike95688 said:


> I have a Tivo Premiere TCP746320 that is giving me the welcome screen, the GSOD, then back to the welcome. I think this is a hard drive problem. I need to know what hard drives are compatible and the best way to recover the data. I know some of this is available in other forums, but please help


The other common thing that causes a TiVo to fail is "capacitor plague" in the power supply. Read some threads here that mention "capacitor" to rule that out before you conclude that it's the hard drive. But if it is the hard drive, then time is critical. Search for threads here discussing "ddrescue". If you remove your old drive and connect it (and a new drive of the same size) to your computer, ddrescue probably gives you the best chance of copying your recordings. Read "How To Clone Your Failing TiVo Drive With ddrescue" which is a sort of TiVo-specific tutorial. If you have a Gigabyte motherboard, search here for issues with those. After you rescue the data from the failing drive, you can relax a bit and consider options for migrating to a larger drive so you have more recording space.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Capacitor plague has not been common on the Premiere. I have not seen one reference to that happening. S3 and S2s, yes, agreed.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I'd suggest testing the hard drive in a PC with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility.

If it fails, buy a new drive.
Clone them with
ddrescue
from a boot CD.


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