# "Clear and Delete' a Cure-all???



## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

My brand new HR10-250 was installed Monday, Jan.9th.

Tuesday mid-day, the 10th and again on Wednesday the 11th, I caught it "Powering Up . . . " restarting all by itself.

Thursday evening my Season Pass for Jay Leno (11:35 pm -12:35 am, normally, as you probably know) resulted in two 'partial' recordings, 11:43 - 11:58 and 12:15 - 12:35. Does that sound like two restarts in a row, one just before and the other, mid-show?

My Tech Support call resulted in; That sounds like a Hard Drive problem. The hard drive will have to be *Re-formatted (???)*

Wow! He then explained *"How I would do that myself." * Again Wow!

The explanation was a "Clear and Delete" Reset. (Which of course wipes out any existing recordings and Season Passes, Grrrrr!)

Question 1: Is that a Cure-all for the 'persistent' Restart problem I'm having?

Question 2: Is it really a re-format? If so what happens to the lba48 kernel?

(Last Question: Is the HR10-250 possibly 'Smarter' than the older TiVos, Restarting on its own just to CLEAR any of my "Select-Play-Select" codes including the notorious "30-second jump?")


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## Guindalf (Jun 13, 2001)

Clear and Delete is a "return to factory specs" and not a real format. It clears out all recorded shows and sets up the software as it was when it left the factory. It is not possible for a hard drive containing the software to completely reformat without erasing said software.

A "Cure-All" is NOT what I'd call a C&D. It certainly should help if there are software glitches, but no amount of reinstalling will cure a hard drive failure. Kinda like changing the oil in a car when the head gasket is blown!

No, the HR10 is not "smart" enough to know you've entered S-P-S codes - or mine and a LOT of others would be doing the same thing!


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

Thanks Guindalf, for your quick reply! 

We only have about 5 recordings to watch before I follow the Tech Support C&D instructions, but about 25 Season Passes to recreate if/when I do it.  (Which I planned on doing Sunday afternoon when all is 'TiVo quiet'! I was told it would take about 4 hours.)

In your experience does C&D sound like a logical solution to my contining 'Restart' problem?


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## Guindalf (Jun 13, 2001)

If it's a hard drive problem, then no, it won't help (see my change oil analogy), but it's where to start. I would suggest you run the C&D just before you go to bed tonight. Saves being without it for several hours. If it still doesn't fix the problem, then I'd be on the phone comlaining.


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

That's exactly what I thought, but will do it tonight. At least I can then say I followed their instructions!

Thanks again, Bert Berry


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## raven540 (Jun 12, 2004)

I am having the same problem. Mostly during HD NFL broadcasts. I am time shifting (watching them about a half hour after real time) skipping the commerical and boring stuff. All of the sudden "Welcome Powering Up. Tech support absolutely no help.


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## Klydeman (Dec 27, 2005)

My HR10-250 that is about 15 months old now. Has an upgraded 300GB Seagate Drive and worked, pretty much flawlessly for 15 months, in 1 day started the "Power up Reset" over the course of several hours. And the thing with partial recordings. I did a Clear & Delete, and for about 3 weeks has been back to working fine. (Knock on wood.)

There is lots of speculation in some other threads as to the cause. Some think hard drive failing, others think possibly a software upgrade that is causing re-boots. If the C&D does not fix the problem, one should definitely look into the hard drive.

This is the original thread...(I'm having trouble pasting the full link but here it is)
/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=3289443#poststop

What I know is that the Clear & Delete may take more than 4 hours. If it runs upwards of like 12 hours , there probably actually is something wrong with the hard drive.

Also, getting back up and running, resetting Season Passes and things, may not be possible for up to 1-week after a Clear & Delete. Channel Programming downloads from the Satellite and can take the above mentioned time to get 1-2 weeks out of 'Guide' data. Some stuff starts coming down right away, but it does take time.


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

I've found out about that rescheduling problem today! 

The unit will be one week old, tomorrow! I ran the C&D last night before we went to bed so I don't know how long it did take. (The screen said it was going to be one hour???)

Anyway, this morning I ran the 'Guided Setup' and then started replacing Season Passes. HA! I was lucky enough to set tonight's shows! My wife would not be a happy camper if we missed the first two hours of 24! So I forced a Daily Call. When it finished downloading, it said "Loading Data 45 minutes." But all of a sudden it switched back to Channel 201 DirecTV Basics. Checking the schedule later, the call hadn't seemed to help one bit.

(Amidst all this setup nonsense, the thing rebooted itself again so I called Tech Support and they're shipping me out a new HR10 under warranty! Hooray!)

P.S. I just now forced another Daily Call and now NBCW has a full week of scheduling while CBSW doesn't even have CSI Miami, another of her favorites for tomorrow night?


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

As I was just now telling Klydeman, shortly after I completed the 'Guided Setup,' the darn thing rebooted again! So I did call Tech Support. 

After answering a bunch of questions about "Is the power cord plugged in tight? etc., I was told they're shipping me out a new machine under warranty!

Thanks for your help!


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

Is your HR10 still within warranty? (Having said that, I have no idea how long it is.) Mine is less than a week old.

Anyway after running the C&D last night and spending most of this morning running the 'Guided Setup,' and working on Season Passes, etc., the thing rebooted again. 
I called Tech Support back and they're shipping me out a replacement, under warranty!


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

Was a magic trick for me with a little help from Instant Cake.

I got the stutters, slow-no response from the remote, all the "bad hard drive" symptoms. (Very old unit, one of the early one's) Clear and delete was still running 26 hours after it started. Since it was snowing and I didn't want to go out for a hard drive, I downloaded instant cake from ptv upgrade and applied it to the original drive. Machine came up, did the required clear and delete, only took 1 hour this time and the machine is as good as new. All I can think is that fragmentation or database corruption must creep up on it, but after the rebuild it is like having a new machine! The software revision installed by instant cake was the latest 3.1.5f.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Many times, a C&DE will just hide a hard drive failure for a little while. It rarely fixes anything.

You'll be posting back on this thread in a couple weeks saying how your problem has returned, and DirecTV is sending you a new unit (or if you're handy, how you're putting a new drive in yourself).


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## berryb (Jun 22, 2002)

Didn't take two weeks! Sunday morning after the c&d, I went throught the usual setup and not too much later the dang thing restarted again right in the middle of setting up some recordings for Sunday evening!

I called Tech Support and they ARE sending that new unit.

I guess I want the warranty to run out BEFORE I open the unit, though! I've been saving a W/D 250 GB for about two years to replace my 80 & 100 Gb's I stuffed in my DSR6000 three years ago. The combination of the two ran very hot and I went to drastic cooling measures to combat it. But lba48 wasn't ready for Prime Time back then so the 250 sat in it's box.

Recently I picked up another W/D drive, this time a 300 for an even better price than I paid for the 250. I bought InstantCake and tried it out first on one drive then on the other, both times ending with the same problem. the program stuck at "Restoring 1337 of 1365 Mb." I never did resolve it and the only help I could find on the PTVupgrade Forum was maybe it was an "AMD motherboard problem"???

About that time I heard of the $200. rebate on the HR10 so the DSR6000 is on hold while I wrestle with one problem at a time! 

Maybe I should keep one for the new box when it's warranty runs out! Which drive should I save for the HR10?

Thanks for your comments! Bert


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

I actually ran diagnostics on the drive before redoing the image with instant cake. It came up clean, so I am assuming I had a logical, not a physical problem on the disk.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

AbMagFab said:


> Many times, a C&DE will just hide a hard drive failure for a little while. It rarely fixes anything.
> 
> You'll be posting back on this thread in a couple weeks saying how your problem has returned, and DirecTV is sending you a new unit (or if you're handy, how you're putting a new drive in yourself).


If that is true, then the moral of the story is to immediatley go ahead and get your affairs in order when you see this kind of trouble. IOW, order a drive, and stop archiving new shows as much as you can, and clear the old ones out.


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