# Tivo Death?



## footballdude (Apr 16, 2004)

My wife calls me at work and tells me the DirecTivo won't come on when she pushes the power button. I tell her to unplug it and try a reboot. It gets to the 'powering on' screen but never gets any further. Anyone have something similar happen? I have a number of shows on the drive I don't want to lose.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Hard Drive failure.... 99% of the time.

Unplugg it, let it sit for about 15 minutes. Try again.
If still a no go....

You will need to investigate some of the options recover the damaged drive (spinrite for example) and get the contents to a new drive...

But if you are at this point already.... not good.
Sorry


----------



## dtremain (Jan 5, 2004)

footballdude said:


> My wife calls me at work and tells me the DirecTivo won't come on when she pushes the power button. I tell her to unplug it and try a reboot. It gets to the 'powering on' screen but never gets any further. Anyone have something similar happen? I have a number of shows on the drive I don't want to lose.


Your Directivo has a power button? I assume you mean the "Standby" button?

I've never been a fan of using "standby" except to let an OTA or cable signal through. It's a little late now for this unit, but that hard drive is meant to be allowed to run.


----------



## footballdude (Apr 16, 2004)

dtremain said:


> Your Directivo has a power button?


Perhaps better known as the Standby button. The little DirecTV logo.


----------



## footballdude (Apr 16, 2004)

ebonovic said:


> Hard Drive failure.... 99% of the time.
> 
> Unplugg it, let it sit for about 15 minutes. Try again.
> If still a no go....
> ...


If I pull the drive from the DirecTivo and plug it into my PC, will I be able to get at the shows? I can get DirecTV to send me a new unit if I stomp my feet and yell enough, but I'd like to recover the stuff I haven't watched.


----------



## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

footballdude said:


> If I pull the drive from the DirecTivo and plug it into my PC, will I be able to get at the shows? I can get DirecTV to send me a new unit if I stomp my feet and yell enough, but I'd like to recover the stuff I haven't watched.


Unless your unit was already hack to turn off encryption then there will be no way to recover the shows. Depending on how the drive has flaked out you may be able to resurect the current unit. You will have to get a new drive and copy all the contents off the old drive and use an Instant Cake image to restore the OS and TiVo software. Check on the underground forum for details.


----------



## Bob_Newhart (Jul 14, 2004)

In a situation like this if it turns out to be the hard drive, is the best (and least expensive) option to get another drive from weaknees or someplace? This is assuming that you purchased the unit outright in the beginning.


----------



## BK89 (Oct 11, 2005)

Getting a drive from Weaknees would be the easiest solution but not the cheapest. You can get up to a 300 gig drive these days for under $100 dollars. If you are comfortable changing a hard drive in a PC, I would suggest getting the "Instant Cake" disc for your model Tivo. You download the .ISO and burn it to CD for $20. Will walk you through setting up your new drive for Tivo, was very easy. And if you go that route - you might as well run the "Zipper" also to unencrypt your recordings on the new drive (as well as a ton of other great stuff - like networking). Look on the Underground section for the thread "hacking your dtivo just got a whole lot easier", those guys are very helpful and patient with noobs.


----------



## footballdude (Apr 16, 2004)

I was thinking, maybe I could put in a brand new drive and resurrect my box, then put the old disc in as a second drive. Maybe I'd be able to see at least part of the old shows that way?


----------



## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

If the old drive has failed or is failing, you definitely don't want to add it as a second drive to your DTivo. When you setup a dual drive system, the 2 drives are 'married' together, which means if one drive fails, the other one is rendered useless as well.

It's just TV programs, they'll always be reruns to catch up on.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Nope, doesn't work that way.

If you get a new drive, then add the OLD as the 2nd... it will basically be formated.

If your drive is damaged, the only option is to try to repair it enough (using a program like spinrite) so you can move the contents to a new drive, and then use the new drive.


----------



## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

Open up your TiVo and determine what make of drive it has (Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, etc).

Go to the drive maker's web site and download the hard disk diagnostic utility diskette for that model of drive.

Remove your hard drive from your home computer, and install the TiVo drive in your home computer.

Boot from the hard drive diagnostic diskette and run a complete read scan of the hard disk. IMPORTANT!! MAKE SURE YOU READ THE SCREENS COMPLETELY SO THAT YOU DON'T PERFORM A WRITE SCAN!! A write scan will erase all data on the hard drive.

At the end of the diagnostic scan, if it tells you it detected errors and asks if you want to repair them, say YES to repair them.

Reinstall your hard drive in your TiVo and see if it boots now. If you get a green screen, don't worry, just let it run for an hour or two without interfering.

If it still won't boot, you either have to try copying the old drive to a new one, or buy a CD with a fresh software image that can be installed on your TiVo drive.


----------



## sin4jon (May 27, 2005)

Well my HDD has I believed failed. I started getting sluggish performance and couldn't download the guide. So I called tech support at 1 am this morning and after an hour I am having a new unit shipped out under my warranty. So this Phillips DSR 704 might be up for sale. I took the HDD out and put it into my portable HDD enclosure and it shut down my XP. I rebooted and and running fine SO DON"T TRY THIS!!!! I should get my new unit in a couple of days so I will repost about this unit for sale.


----------



## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

since he apparently has nothing to lose, why not try seating and unseating the hard drive cable (while unplugged of course)? that's cured my T60 a time or 2. Of course i have 2 drives in there and they are tiiiiight as heck up against the front panel and are more apt to be loose.


----------



## Mavrick22 (Feb 7, 2006)

newsposter said:


> since he apparently has nothing to lose, why not try seating and unseating the hard drive cable (while unplugged of course)? that's cured my T60 a time or 2. Of course i have 2 drives in there and they are tiiiiight as heck up against the front panel and are more apt to be loose.


You mean yourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr  supposed to unplug first!

Sorry I just could not Resist.


----------



## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

well i supposed you could try playing inside an electrical device while plugged in...set up a camera so we can see how that goes


----------



## footballdude (Apr 16, 2004)

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. It was indeed a bad hard drive, which I replaced with a new one from Weak Knees. I just wish this hadn't happened when I was about two weeks behind on the shows I watch.


----------



## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

Many of us keep a spare hard drive preloaded with the DTivo software just for such an event. My old 160gb drive is a backup to my 300gb when it fails.


----------



## ChadTower (Aug 24, 2005)

I've been out of the loop for a long time and am now returning because I have this issue with my T60.

I thought the Series 1 could only handle up to 120G on any single disc? Has that changed?


----------



## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

i know i put 160s in mine because they were so cheap...and it saw 137....check upgrade forum to see if that changed


----------



## edwa (Jul 29, 2006)

In the latter half of March I finally got a big HD screen an upped my service to HD Tivo. Now for the second time a power outage has killed the HR10-250. 

I find it hard to believe these things are that sensitive. By the way, both units were plugged in to a ZeroSurge.

Both times neither the Std Def Samsung Tivo (SIR-S412OR) or the std rcvrs that are in use in the rest of the house were effected. AND they were plugged straight into the wall.

Anyone else have this experience? Have any explanations? Earl?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

edwa said:


> In the latter half of March I finally got a big HD screen an upped my service to HD Tivo. Now for the second time a power outage has killed the HR10-250.
> 
> I find it hard to believe these things are that sensitive. By the way, both units were plugged in to a ZeroSurge.
> 
> ...


You should have them plugged into a UPS, not a surge suppressor. When power flashes off/on this is usually what kills a DVR.

A cheap UPS is around $40 at Wal-Mart. Cheap insurance.


----------



## edwa (Jul 29, 2006)

Dkerr24,

Yeah, in retrospect you're right. I had been reluctant to plug the DVR into the the big Belkin UPS that I have for the JVC PRO screen as I had read that the majority of them have line conditioning along with the battery (like mine). The line conditioning I had read can interfere with PQ. Unless I misunderstood that.

Still, it doesn't explain why my Std Def DVR has never suffered the same fate. In our 3 years of living in THIS house we've had at the least a dozen power outages - that's including brown outs.

Thanks,
Ed


----------



## edwa (Jul 29, 2006)

I've been mulling this over today and I have to ask another question on the UPS. The power outage was about 4 hours long at a time when nobody was home. Since the DVR doesn't power off and stays in standby mode the UPS will probably run out of juice before the power returns. 

So, I'd still have the same problem, no?


----------



## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

yep... a 4 hour power outage would kill any UPS. Nothing short of a diesel generator with auto activation would have helped in that case.


----------



## imagegeek2 (May 24, 2006)

Hi Guys,

My 1.5 year old instantcaked 160g died a few months ago - looks like drive failure but seemed to occur about the same time those upgrades came through. Can someone send me a link to a sat-t60 image + cachecard, turbonet?

Thanks Heaps!


----------



## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

Dkerr24 said:


> yep... a 4 hour power outage would kill any UPS. Nothing short of a diesel generator with auto activation would have helped in that case.


Really? wow. I'd have to research but thought someone ran an actual test on here one time.

What's the calculation to do the math?

this isnt the exact one I have but i'm curious how long 2 HDtivos would run on this

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=171958

(i have no idea what they base the 80 minutes on)


----------



## SmackDaddy (Jul 27, 2001)

Why would the power outage (or the UPS losing power) be any different than unplugging the unit? A power spike I understand...I'm having a hard time believing a power outage is "bad" for the unit.


----------



## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

I am not sure what causes the problems but if you go talk to anybody who is a network admin they will concur that powering down a hard drive that is on all the time will sometimes take them out. I suspect that as the platters cool they warp and hit the head when it is re-spun up (most high capacity drives have glass platters). 

My admin at school felt it was because the bearings cool they contract and the shaft wobbles a little until they heat up and expand. So no matter the reason it is some-what common. I run a 1400va UPS on my dual TiVo set-up and have a 550va on my single TiVo set-up. Both sets will run for about an hour to hour and half when the power goes out; so even that much is a help as your goal is not to let the drives cool off (IMHO). 

mark


----------

