# Latest Software Update Broke my Hard eSATA Drive Hack on Bolt



## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

I awoke today to a Tivo Bolt with 4 flashing lights. Apparently the firmware update didn't like the fact that I have a 6TB WD Red eSATA drive connected to the internal SATA port of the Bolt.

My next steps will be to reconnect the SATA connection to internal 500GB factory installed drive to see if I can at least get back to watching live TV, Netflix, and Plex. If that works I may get adventurous and try reconnected the external eSATA 6TB again. Either way it looks like I will need a refresher in opening up the Bolt after a year without issues. I hate the thought of losing my recorded shows but it looks like I probably will need to reformat the 6TB with MFS tools.

Primaryforce


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

I wonder if this is hard drive model specific issue? I saw another post about a Seagate HD in a Roamio having the same problem. I upgraded to the new software ok in my Roamio with a bigger WD HD.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

Have you tried a shorter cable? Sometimes my eSATA signals are iffy and minor changes in power config cause them to have issues.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

sfhub said:


> Have you tried a shorter cable? Sometimes my eSATA signals are iffy and minor changes in power config cause them to have issues.


Good suggestion. I had issues when I first upgraded my Bolt to use an external eSata enclosed and it turned out to be the eSata cable. I ordered a new cable from Amazon that will be here Sunday. Hopefully this resolves the problem.

Thanks, 
Primaryforce

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Primaryforce did you try what jmbach suggested with any success?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

I have tried a new eSata cable and am in the final hour of low level formatting and verifying my 6TB WD Red. Unfortunately, I still don't think this drive will be recognized by my Bolt and I will be looking for recommendations for a 3TB 3 1/2".


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Hope it works.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

I know you aren't using the "official" eSata unit, but I wonder if this is related to this?
Tivo no longer supports external hard drives (2017-June) ?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

Well I am about ready to give up since after doing the manufacturing successful low level write of zeros and read verify, the 6TB again resulted in the 4 flashing lights. As an experiment, I plugged a 1TB Seagate formatted drive in the external enclosure but this also resulted in the 4 flashing lights. Now I have 3 different eSata to eSata cables and all of them failed to resolve the issue. Now I am down to either the eSata cable or the enclosure as being my problem. Before I throw any more money at solving my problem I would like to hear from others that have connected their 4, 6, or 8TB WD to the Bolt with the latest firmware. It is just strange that my setup failed with the new firmware. I may have to do an alternative mod by connecting the hard drive directly to the TiVo board with a single short Sata cable.


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## CaseyJ (Apr 26, 2017)

To me, it appears that this problem affects us with an external drive in an enclosure replacing the original drive.
Gor88 reported some success by eliminating the esata cables and using a sata cable instead. 20.7.2 has arrived!
And a few posts after that he reports odd results that have a combination of data from the original drive showing up on the replacement drive. I think this is due to the reinstallation of the original drive then swapping back to the replacement. Anyone have this problem that hasn't reinstalled the original drive willing to give it a try?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

Success! My 6TB WD Red is up and running with my Bolt. Apparently the Bolt didn't like trying to connect through the multiple connectors and cables to access the external hard drive but a single SATA cable directly from the motherboard to the external drive resolved the issue. I still had to connect to the TiVo server twice to resolve the V312 error with Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Plex. Now all I have to do is call Comcast to reactivate the cable card for HBO and VOD. One last job will be to figure out how to mod the Bolt case and external enclosure to accommodate my single cable configuration.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

primaryforce said:


> Success! My 6TB WD Red is up and running with my Bolt. Apparently the Bolt didn't like trying to connect through the multiple connectors and cables to access the external hard drive but a single SATA cable directly from the motherboard to the external drive resolved the issue.


Perhaps TiVo disabled the eSATA port except for mated solutions using the officially sanctioned enclosure (which apparently is no longer sold)


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

The existing eSATA connector on all the Tivo units only works with the few Tivo "endorsed" drive expanders. I add an additional eSata port per the mark1958 mod that I used to connect to the Sata connector on the Bolt motherboard.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

primaryforce said:


> The existing eSATA connector on all the Tivo units only works with the few Tivo "endorsed" drive expanders. I add an additional eSata port per the mark1958 mod that I used to connect to the Sata connector on the Bolt motherboard.


Ah, ok, so then it was a cable problem after all. Wonder what change they did to cause this to show up.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

There were others with external hard drive hacks that reported that the firmware update "broke" their connection and resulted in the "4 flashing lights of death." I don't think it was software itself but it does show how sensitive the interface connection is between the hard drive and the Bolt motherboard.


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## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

Yeah, I got it back with a direct sata to sata cable. I definitely advise anyone else with an eSata cable in their external HDD configuration mix that hasn't gotten the upgrade to BACKUP your shows and 1passes first, just in case. If this glitch happens to you, I strongly advise you DON'T switch to the original drive. In my case, that just might have been my undoing. 

Instead, get a regular sata to sata cable and do a direct connect from the HDD if you can. I intend to order a left angle or right angle sata to sata this weekend (can't remember which angle is correct). The Armer has separate data and power plugs, so I left the back off of it, unplugged the esata and plugged in a 2ft sata to sata to the motherboard. I leave that left top corner off my tivo. It's in a cabinet with a 9 inch fan blowing across the motherboard on high speed, so it won't overheat.

Eventually, I'll get the angled sata to sata cable and I will cut a hole in the back panel of the Armer to allow the other end of the cable to pass through so I can put the back plate back on.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

sfhub said:


> Perhaps TiVo disabled the eSATA port except for mated solutions using the officially sanctioned enclosure (which apparently is no longer sold)


Just to be clear, the "enclosure" was never part of the official "blessing of the drive" it was the BIOS on the assorted Expander drives themselves that were blessed.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Okay so I pulled the rear cover off the Roswell case. Disconnected the SATA drive that goes to the board inside the case and ran a SATA cable from the TiVo board directly to the SATA plug on the hard drive. Booted everything up did its thing and it's up and running the only thing is I have no programs recorded. When I go to the system information it shows me that my recording capacity is 1283 HD and free disk is 1281 HD. I didn't look at the drive directly but I think this was the 8 terabyte. I was wondering if my capacity is correct for the drive since I'm assuming it is wiped clean.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

That's correct for an 8TB drive. They probably changed the database schema or the file structure just enough so that the new OS can't find the programs.

You might try a KS57 or KS58 - there's probably nothing to lose at this point.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

ggieseke said:


> That's correct for an 8TB drive. They probably changed the database schema or the file structure just enough so that the new OS can't find the programs.
> 
> You might try a KS57 or KS58 - there's probably nothing to lose at this point.


In your opinion do you think it would have made a difference if I didn't hook up the original 500 gig hard drive. Do you think that affected the loss of my programming. Not holding you to the answer, just for thought and also maybe for the future.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

The six terabyte hard drive is just constantly loading information, not locking up but like just keep going in and out of Cycles. I'm going to let it ride and see what happens but I got the other one paired up with the CableCARD and all that so I'm good for my TV watching for now.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> The six terabyte hard drive is just constantly loading information, not locking up but like just keep going in and out of Cycles. I'm going to let it ride and see what happens but I got the other one paired up with the CableCARD and all that so I'm good for my TV watching for now.


It looks like you may have to go through the reformat, reconnect to the TiVo to the setup screen, and then the MFS reformatting steps to get your 6TB connected. Did you reconnect this Bolt to the 500GB after the 6TB failed to update to the latest firmware?


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Yes I did both of them the same way but I agree it looks like I got to try something. I think that's the only move I have.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

JCN said:


> In your opinion do you think it would have made a difference if I didn't hook up the original 500 gig hard drive. Do you think that affected the loss of my programming. Not holding you to the answer, just for thought and also maybe for the future.


My best guess is that putting the original drive back in caused the loss of your recordings. It would have a different unique drive ID in the first sector, so I can see the TiVo treating it as a new drive and rebuilding the database and files in the MFS application partitions. When you hooked the external "internal" drive back up it would have repeated that same process. That's basically what happens when you put a newly reformatted mfsr drive in a Roamio or Bolt, but I force the issue by zeroing the SQLite partition and creating a file system in the MFS application zones that only has one entry (a blank root folder).

We'll probably never know unless someone with an external-only Bolt reads these threads and recables it without swapping drives, AND reports the results.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Understood, Thanks.


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## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

JCN said:


> In your opinion do you think it would have made a difference if I didn't hook up the original 500 gig hard drive. Do you think that affected the loss of my programming. Not holding you to the answer, just for thought and also maybe for the future.


I mistakenly hooked my original 500GB back up and lost My Shows, so IMO YES.

I noticed that before calling in twice and rebooting, my 31 1Passes on the BIG drive did show on the original drive, which means that information had to come from the Tivo central servers. My guess is that one the original drive called in twice, the central servers lost or wiped that information and that messed up the mapping of My Shows once I reconnected the BIG drive. I got the original 1Passes back after 2 network calls and performing the Clear Program Information and To Do List (which doesn't delete recordings) with the BIG drive. Unfortunately, I lost roughly 1.3TB of shows (37% of a 4TB drive).

I am an IT professional and my intuition tells me very strongly that I really shouldn't have hooked up the original drive. I get the feeling that the problem is something in the 20.7.2 update that either blocks eSata ports on purpose (really hope TiVo wasn't that stupid) or used logic that innocently had the side effect of blocking eSata. Chances are the TiVo software engineers are not testing the "mark1958" external drive setup in their updates.

<rant>
I really think that TiVo software engineers need to replicate this issue in their lab and figure out how to create a utility that can scan the drive and restore the mappings for the recordings. For goodness sake, I could undelete every program I manually deleted for the last 6 months. They should be able to create a new kickstart code for a script that makes a true, good faith attempt to restore recordings that are out there. They should also not base My Shows on anything stored on the central servers.
</rant>


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

It would be interesting if anyone that experienced the "4 flashing lights of death" replaced the eSata with with the Sata cable before reconnecting the 500GB and were able to recover their settings and recordings. I don't believe the failure was only related to the eSata cable since mark1958 did not have an issue with his eSata setup with a 3TB drive. All of the failures I have seen reported appear to be the combination of eSata cables and larger than 3TB drives.


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## iokajoe (Mar 18, 2007)

I'm still on 20.7.1. For the last year I've been running a WD Red 6TB in a Rosewill external enclosure connected via an eSATA adapter to the internal SATA connection on the Bolt. 

Based on these posts, I just cut a hole in the back of my external enclosure and ran the SATA cable directly to the drive, ditching the SATA to eSATA adapter. All is well for now and I'll let you know if anything changes when I get updated to 20.7.2.

Joe


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

iokajoe said:


> I'm still on 20.7.1. For the last year I've been running a WD Red 6TB in a Rosewill external enclosure connected via an eSATA adapter to the internal SATA connection on the Bolt.
> 
> Based on these posts, I just cut a hole in the back of my external enclosure and ran the SATA cable directly to the drive, ditching the SATA to eSATA adapter. All is well for now and I'll let you know if anything changes when I get updated to 20.7.2.
> 
> Joe


You'll get a free copy of mfsr if you do, along with my gratitude.


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## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

iokajoe said:


> I'm still on 20.7.1. For the last year I've been running a WD Red 6TB in a Rosewill external enclosure connected via an eSATA adapter to the internal SATA connection on the Bolt.
> 
> Based on these posts, I just cut a hole in the back of my external enclosure and ran the SATA cable directly to the drive, ditching the SATA to eSATA adapter. All is well for now and I'll let you know if anything changes when I get updated to 20.7.2.
> 
> Joe


Thanks, Joe, for being the "canary in the coal mine" as far as whether or not the direct sata cable use prevents the glitch seen. Just out of curiosity, what size is your external hard drive? Reports indicate that 3TB and smaller drives hooked with esata are not seeing this problem, just those drives larger than 3TB.


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## iokajoe (Mar 18, 2007)

gor88 said:


> Thanks, Joe, for being the "canary in the coal mine" as far as whether or not the direct sata cable use prevents the glitch seen. Just out of curiosity, what size is your external hard drive? Reports indicate that 3TB and smaller drives hooked with esata are not seeing this problem, just those drives larger than 3TB.


6TB


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## StealthCC (Feb 1, 2017)

I have a "mark1958" external esata drive setup on a Bolt with a 8tb seagate skyhawk surveillance drive that I modded back in January 2017. 

I've noticed that the powerup procedure which was simple at first has become more and more frustrating over the last couple months. Rebooting the Tivo is fine, but during a power disconnect I was spending 30 minutes of powering things up in various orders to prevent the 4 flashing lights. This only happened a couple times as it is connected to a UPS, so power disconnects on it are rare. I tried multiple eSata enclosures and cables but the difficult startups continued.

I woke up this morning to find 4 flashing lights (something that has never happened randomly before). I suspect it is due to the 20.7.2 update being applied (or partially applied as I suspect).

I tried my usual powerup sequences and nothing has worked. I then tried the straight SATA to SATA cable as recommended, but it did not fix the issue. I have not reconnected the original 500GB hard drive (although I did try plugging in its power cable only in case Tivo is now checking the power draw or something odd like that). 

Unfortunately, I don't have any new suggestions to offer, but did want to share that the SATA to SATA did not work for me. Is it possible that the update procedure is not compatible with the modifications MFS tools makes to add the extra space to get the partition to 8tb? Anyone have any other suggestions?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

StealthCC said:


> I have a "mark1958" external esata drive setup on a Bolt with a 8tb seagate skyhawk surveillance drive that I modded back in January 2017.
> 
> I've noticed that the powerup procedure which was simple at first has become more and more frustrating over the last couple months. Rebooting the Tivo is fine, but during a power disconnect I was spending 30 minutes of powering things up in various orders to prevent the 4 flashing lights. This only happened a couple times as it is connected to a UPS, so power disconnects on it are rare. I tried multiple eSata enclosures and cables but the difficult startups continued.
> 
> ...


This seems to confirm that the upgrade to the 20.7.2 firmware when using a drive larger than 4TB connected via eSata "breaks" the communication between the TiVo and the hard drive. It is interesting that this "break" cannot be repaired simply by replacing the eSata cable and associated interfaces with a single direct Sata cable between the Tivo motherboard header and the external drive after the update attempt. While I don't have a solution that will recover your recordings and settings, I do feel better knowing that this action would probably not have been successful for my setup either.
You will probably be successful in reconnecting your original 500GB drive or formatting your 8TB and going through the complete setup process for using a larger than 3TB with the MFS reformatting tool. I would also recommend doing a low level format and verify on the 8TB drive using the Seagate tools but be prepared to spend 20 hours or more to perform this process. Good luck!
:thumbsup:


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

StealthCC said:


> I have a "mark1958" external esata drive setup on a Bolt with a 8tb seagate skyhawk surveillance drive that I modded back in January 2017.
> 
> I've noticed that the powerup procedure which was simple at first has become more and more frustrating over the last couple months. Rebooting the Tivo is fine, but during a power disconnect I was spending 30 minutes of powering things up in various orders to prevent the 4 flashing lights. This only happened a couple times as it is connected to a UPS, so power disconnects on it are rare. I tried multiple eSata enclosures and cables but the difficult startups continued.
> 
> ...


My 8 terabyte drive is working okay and I did the cable change up where I connected the sata cable direct from the motherboard to the hard drive by passing the internal circuitry of the hard drive enclosure. I did not format that hard drive even though I attempted to, I got an error. I also did hook up the internal 500 gig hard drive when I originally had the problem. All my recordings were lost on the 8 gig. Whether I didn't have a problem because I put in the original hard drive and did all the updating then and then reconnected the 8 gig, I am not sure.


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## CaseyJ (Apr 26, 2017)

There's been another report of this problem with 20.7.2, a large drive, and an external enclosure. Unfortunately, the original drive was installed and all recordings were lost once the large drive was connected without going through the esata circuits. We still don't have confirmation that going to the sata direct connection before or after the 4 flashing lights fixes this problem and preserves recordings.
4 Lights Flashing on Bolt


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## CaseyJ (Apr 26, 2017)

I got the pending reboot connection status today. After backing the few shows that weren't already with kmttg, I emptied the recently deleted folder and deleted shows with skip mode data (to save them if I got the four flashing lights). Rebooted and the update worked fine. 

I have a 3.5" 2TB WD drive (I don't recall which series) in an Antec MX-1 enclosure. The smaller drive or this particular enclosure could have been the reason for not having issues.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

From my experience and all the messages I have read in this forum, it appears that using an external hard drive larger than 3TB *AND* connected via an eSata cable will result in the "four flashing lights of death" when the Bolt receives the 20.7.2 firmware update. Those using a Sata cable or those with eSata cables and hard drives 3TB and smaller seem to escape this failure.


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

Looks like I just ran into the same problem with the 4 flashing lights. I have a 3TB drive in an external enclosure connected directly to the bolt with a hole cut in the top of the case. When I unplug everything and do a reboot, I see the Tivo logo for just a second and then back to the 4 flashing lights. Sounds like I need to bypass the esata connection on the back of the hard drive and connect directly to the drive with sata? Has anyone had any luck with that scenario?

Update: Enclosure I am using is a Rosewill RX304 and hard drive is a Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX. Connection on the enclosure is in to the esata port. Connection to the Bolt is into the sata port on the mother drive. I do have a sata to esata adapter in between the two.

As I am re reading back through the thread it seemed like most folks who have had this problem have a drive larger than 3TB so I wonder if something else is going on....


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

afairbairn said:


> Looks like I just ran into the same problem with the 4 flashing lights. I have a 3TB drive in an external enclosure connected directly to the bolt with a hole cut in the top of the case. When I unplug everything and do a reboot, I see the Tivo logo for just a second and then back to the 4 flashing lights. Sounds like I need to bypass the esata connection on the back of the hard drive and connect directly to the drive with sata? Has anyone had any luck with that scenario?


Afairbairn,
I assume you have an eSata connection to your external enclosure and an eSata cable from the enclosure through the hole you cut in your Bolt. My question is how do you connect to the Sata header on the Bolt motherboard? Do you have a eSata to Sata adapter you are using in the Bolt? "Mark1958", another member in this forum who started a thread on using an an external eSata enclosure indicated that he did not have an issue with the 20.7.2 update using a 3TB hard drive and a eSata enclosure and eSata cable to a eSata to Sata adapter. Either way, I think a straight Sata cable from the external hard drive to the Bolt motherboard Sata header connector should resolve you issue.


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

primaryforce said:


> Afairbairn,
> I assume you have an eSata connection to your external enclosure and an eSata cable from the enclosure through the hole you cut in your Bolt. My question is how do you connect to the Sata header on the Bolt motherboard? Do you have a eSata to Sata adapter you are using in the Bolt? "Mark1958", another member in this forum who started a thread on using an an external eSata enclosure indicated that he did not have an issue with the 20.7.2 update using a 3TB hard drive and a eSata enclosure and eSata cable to a eSata to Sata adapter. Either way, I think a straight Sata cable from the external hard drive to the Bolt motherboard Sata header connector should resolve you issue.


Thanks for your quick reply! I have an odd configuration that I was able to put together with the cables that came with the enclosure. The cable that is plugged into the Tivo is Sata on one end with female eSata on the other end. I then have a eSata cable that plugs into the cable coming out of the Bolt and goes into the connection on the back of the enclosure. I read that post you referred which sounds like the same setup I'm running which makes me wonder if something else might be going on. I do have it all setup to try the straight Sata cable configuration but also saw the threads about the drive being wiped so I'm little nervous to try out at the risk of an upset wife and kids. Any thoughts on if the Bolt will think its a new drive and reformat it?


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

gor88 said:


> ...*Instead, get a regular sata to sata cable and do a direct connect from the HDD if you can. I intend to order a left angle or right angle sata to sata this weekend (can't remember which angle is correct). The Armer has separate data and power plugs, so I left the back off of it, unplugged the esata and plugged in a 2ft sata to sata to the motherboard. I leave that left top corner off my tivo. It's in a cabinet with a 9 inch fan blowing across the motherboard on high speed, so it won't overheat.*...


Bingo! Thanks, gor88. This was my exact problem. I was using the following: Tivo Bolt w/3.5" 4TB WD RED hard drive, Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B enclosure (SATA -> eSATA), and Addonics' eSATA->left angle SATA cable (Addonics Product: eSATA Port for Panel Mount to Left Angle SATA Cable). Noticed this morning (on the morning of the Solar Eclipse, when we had a bunch of programming scheduled to record.. argh!!) 4 blinking LEDs.

Have a spare Tivo Bolt (upstairs, not upgraded, stock) so swapped it out and hooked it up. I don't use it often (it's a spare) so when I tried to download listings I noticed it was taking a damn long time. Had to go to work so just left it with my wife to babysit. She complained when I got home that it still hadn't updated listings. I went to network settings and saw it was pending reboot. Rebooted it and it installed an update: 20.7.2!

I then checked tivocommunity and saw your post. I've taken off the back plate of the Rosewill enclosure, removed the eSATA connector from the hard drive, and connected a SATA cable. I then took the cover off the Tivo Bolt and removed its Addonics eSATA->SATA connector, instead hooking up the other end of the SATA cable from the Rosewill to the SATA port on the Tivo. Power it up and I receive a message on the screen that it's preparing an update.

I am now experiencing a mix of elation (yay, it's working! I didn't lose my recordings!) and irritation (Tivo, why do you do this to your customers?). I now need to purchase an extra-long SATA cable so I can hook this up all nice and neat with the cable tucked away and the cover back on the bolt. Until then, it's staying upstairs in the spare bedroom, topless, and we'll just stream recordings from it remotely to the other Tivo downstairs. 

THANK YOU for the insight, much appreciated. Great discovery! Hope others find this helpful.


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

tivobw said:


> Bingo! Thanks, gor88. This was my exact problem. I was using the following: Tivo Bolt w/3.5" 4TB WD RED hard drive, Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B enclosure (SATA -> eSATA), and Addonics' eSATA->left angle SATA cable (Addonics Product: eSATA Port for Panel Mount to Left Angle SATA Cable). Noticed this morning (on the morning of the Solar Eclipse, when we had a bunch of programming scheduled to record.. argh!!) 4 blinking LEDs.
> 
> Have a spare Tivo Bolt (upstairs, not upgraded, stock) so swapped it out and hooked it up. I don't use it often (it's a spare) so when I tried to download listings I noticed it was taking a damn long time. Had to go to work so just left it with my wife to babysit. She complained when I got home that it still hadn't updated listings. I went to network settings and saw it was pending reboot. Rebooted it and it installed an update: 20.7.2!
> 
> ...


Tivobw, I think I'm running pretty close to the same setup as you except with a 3TB drive instead of 4. I have it all reconfigured with just the SATA connection now but had been nervous the drive would reformat. Were you able to get it successfully working without losing any of your shows? Thanks for any input you have.


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## jeneric (Nov 27, 2016)

You should be good, afairbairn. I'm another satisfied customer. Came home a few hours ago from eclipse totality elation to 4 TiVo flashing leds of death. Thanks to this forum, switched my external 3TB drive from eSata to sata. The Bolt then upgraded and I'm back to elation with all my shows intact! You guys rock!!!


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## iokajoe (Mar 18, 2007)

iokajoe said:


> I'm still on 20.7.1. For the last year I've been running a WD Red 6TB in a Rosewill external enclosure connected via an eSATA adapter to the internal SATA connection on the Bolt.
> 
> Based on these posts, I just cut a hole in the back of my external enclosure and ran the SATA cable directly to the drive, ditching the SATA to eSATA adapter. All is well for now and I'll let you know if anything changes when I get updated to 20.7.2.
> 
> Joe


Following-up to this earlier posting....

I'm now on 20.7.2 RC24 and all is working just fine.

Joe


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

afairbairn said:


> Tivobw, I think I'm running pretty close to the same setup as you except with a 3TB drive instead of 4. I have it all reconfigured with just the SATA connection now but had been nervous the drive would reformat. Were you able to get it successfully working without losing any of your shows? Thanks for any input you have.


Hey afairbairn, yes, was able to get it working without losing any shows. After the upgrade my Tivo Bolt wouldn't boot properly; I'd just get the four blinking lights on front. Read gor88's post and decided I'd try bypassing eSATA, by just hooking up a SATA cable from the SATA port on the Tivo to the SATA port on the hard drive on my external enclosure (had to take off the bottom plate to get access to it, ahhh well).

After hooking it up I powered up the Bolt and it went right into "applying software update, this could take a while." After about 10 minutes my Tivo was back up and running. Cablecard still paired, recordings still present, OnePass scheduled recordings intact, etc. It's like the Tivo software update broke the eSATA connection, but otherwise, nothing was affected on the Tivo itself. Just connecting via SATA resolved the issue.

I ordered this SATA cable (40 in, straight->left angle) which I will route through the hole I already drilled in the Tivo case previously (for my SATA->eSATA connecting cable, which I can't use anymore). https://www.amazon.com/SATAGear-Dev...sr=1-1&keywords=40+inch+sata+cable+left+angle Once that arrives I'll be able to set up the Tivo again in the living room in our media cabinet. Right now it's upstairs in a spare bedroom hooked up with a short SATA cable and the case placed gingerly on top. We're remotely streaming recordings from this to our downstairs stock Tivo Bolt in the living room. 

As long as you didn't try putting in the stock Tivo Bolt hard drive first and then placing your upgraded hard drive in the Bolt, I think it'll work OK for you. Once Tivo sees a different hard drive, it seems to initiate an automatic rebuild.. which would wipe out recordings on your upgraded HD, if you tried swapping with another HD and then put your upgraded HD back in.

Hope everything goes well for you as well.


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## jhill1977 (Feb 19, 2007)

Well, I too awoke to the "four flashing lights of death" this morning on my TiVO Bolt+ with a WD Red 8TB drive in the Rosewill RX304 ESATA drive enclosure using the Addonics right angle ESATA adapter I tried for about 30 mins to get the TiVo to reboot normally, with no luck, but thankfully found this thread.

After bypassing the ESATA adapter in the enclosure and plugging the drive directly into the SATA port on the motherboard, all is up and running normally again.

A BIG thanks for this thread.


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## Dssguy1 (Feb 19, 2013)

Same here. 8TB going to Rosewill external. Just opened up back of external case, unplugged cable and ran a standard Sata to motherboard connection. Everything works and all recordings intact. 

Thanks for the help.


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## MarkF2 (Jan 5, 2006)

dang - any other advice. I plugged in directly from my external using the SATA from the rockwell and I'm still getting 4 flashing lights?


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

Thanks for all of the tips on the thread and those who learned the hard way on how to save the data on the drive. I connected directly from the Bolt to the hard drive with a SATA cable and everything works great. No data lost on the 3TB WD drive and avoided a houseful of angry people. If I'm smart I should probably fire up KMTTG and do a big transfer before Tivo does something weird again.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

MarkF2 said:


> dang - any other advice. I plugged in directly from my external using the SATA from the rockwell and I'm still getting 4 flashing lights?


MarkF2,
Are you running the Sata cable directly from external drive directly from the external drive to the Sata header connector on the Bolt motherboard? How long is your Sata cable? I don't understand why the *e*Sata connection does not work but there is something about the new firmware that makes the connection between the Bolt connector and the hard drive extremely sensitive. I am using an 18" cable. I would also suggest having the external drive powered on first before applying power to the Bolt. If that doesn't work try the reverse order as soon as the green light shows on the Bolt. Finally try powering both on at the same time. I trust you did not try reconnecting the original 500GB Bolt internal hard drive after the initial "4 flashing lights of death" since I think that will cause subsequent connections to external drive to fail without formating the external drive and starting over.


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## MarkF2 (Jan 5, 2006)

I'm using the short SATA cable that was inside the rosewell and i have that plugged directly into the bolt. I will try the power up order but I did try it with the hard drive already on a few times.


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## MarkF2 (Jan 5, 2006)

i ordered an 18" cable that will be here on Thursday


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## MarkF2 (Jan 5, 2006)

I believe the drive is toast. I plugged into my laptop and it couldnt read the drive. oh well


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

MarkF2 said:


> I believe the drive is toast. I plugged into my laptop and it couldnt read the drive. oh well


It doesn't make sense that the firmware update to the Bolt would kill your hard drive. Don't forget that your hard drive is no longer formatted in NTFS and won't be recognized by a Windows PC. You will need to go into the Windows drive manager utility and see if the physical drive exists. I would suggest waiting untill your new Sata cable arrives on Thursday and try plugging this into the Bolt and hard drive and see if this eliminates the "4 flashing lights of death."


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## rasthedane (Sep 13, 2016)

OMG, I wish I'd read this thread 3 hours ago!!!!!!!
I would have been the test-case.
Was having the same issues as everyone, thinking my 4TB red HDD (only one I used) had failed.
But to check if it was the drive that was the issue, I plugged in my stock 1TB drive first! (On the advise of someone from WeaKnees chat, no less.) Got the firmware update. And then plugged in the 4TB drive, using the super-short stock power/SATA cable that the Bolt came with. And my shows/wishlist, etc are gone.
... And then I read this thread.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
Will order a longer, angled SATA/SATA cable, and start over. But at least the 4 TB drive isn't dead.

I fully concur with gor88's rant above. It should not be impossible to write a utility to find the old files.

Lesson here, I suppose:
Always back-up my season passes with kmttg + shows I really don't want to lose.
And always read these forums, before I'm so effing stupid!


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## guykuo (Oct 19, 2014)

Thanks. I had the Rosewill external case + four flashing lights issue as well.

Bypassing the case's bridge board with a direct SATA connection cleared the problem.
That allowed the Bolt complete its software update and is back up running.

I did NOT reinstall the original drive before changing the cable connection to a direct one. Reinstalling the original drive seems to cause the Bolt to reformat your upgrade drive if you reconnect it after trying the original drive.

Recordings on my 6TB WD Red from before the problem are intact.

Looks like the update does not like the Rosewill bridge board between the Bolt and drive.
I don't have another ESATA case to test if other bridge boards are also a problem.


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## bilj65 (Dec 18, 2004)

I too woke up yesterday to the flashing lights. I have the 4TB WD40EURX in a Rosewill RX304 eSata enclosure and had the little SATA to eSATA pigtail cable connected to the Bolt and sticking out through the case, and then a regular eSATA to eSATA cable to the Rosewill chassis.
Sure enough, when I attached a regular PC SATA cable (with right angle on one end for inside the Bolt) directly between the Bolt and the drive it worked.
Does anyone know if this a permanent limitation we must live with, or if after the update completes (20.7.2.RC24-USC-11-849) can we go back to using the eSATA? I'm not going to open up my Bolt again unless I hear that I can go back to how it was.
If I have to live with this, I'm putting a short SATA extension cable (male to female) on the drive and will make a small slot for it to come out of the Rosewill chassis. Then I can attach the PC SATA cable already coming out of the Bolt to the female end of SATA extension coming out of the Rosewill. This way I can easily disconnect the drive from the Bolt when needed because it's very awkward having them "permanently" tethered to each other with the back plate of the Rosewill removed.


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## MarkF2 (Jan 5, 2006)

So lets say I plugged in my original drive (before I read the posts not to) is there a way to save the files from my external drive and transfer them over?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

MarkF2 said:


> So lets say I plugged in my original drive (before I read the posts not to) is there a way to save the files from my external drive and transfer them over?


The good news is that your external drive is not "toast." The bad new is that it is unlikely you will be able to recover your settings and recordings prior to the firmware upgrade. Once you plugged the original original drive back to the TiVo, your TiVo will no longer recognize the external drive even using a direct Sata cable. To use the external drive you will need to reformat and use the MRS reformatting program. From the previous postings, I have not seen anyone being successful in recovering their recorded shows or settings after connecting their original TiVo drive.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

primaryforce said:


> The good news is that your external drive is not "toast." The bad new is that it is unlikely you will be able to recover your settings and recordings prior to the firmware upgrade. Once you plugged the original original drive back to the TiVo, your TiVo will no longer recognize the external drive even using a direct Sata cable. To use the external drive you will need to reformat and use the MRS reformatting program. From the previous postings, I have not seen anyone being successful in recovering their recorded shows or settings after connecting their original TiVo drive.


How does putting in the original hard drive affect the recordings on the previous hard drive?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

shwru980r said:


> How does putting in the original hard drive affect the recordings on the previous hard drive?


I am not sure we really know for sure, but it appears that TiVo only remembers the last drive used in it and if you insert any drive but that one it assumes it is new and does a clean setup. Kind of sucks as you can not fill up a drive and just save it like you could with older TiVos.

Perhaps if the TiVo were not connect to the Internet it would react differently?? Anyone want to try that out??


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

shwru980r said:


> How does putting in the original hard drive affect the recordings on the previous hard drive?


While I am sure the recordings are still there, after the Bolt reconnects to the original drive with the updated firmware, it will no longer recognize the larger drive that was used prior to the upgrade. A TiVo software engineer could probably explain this in detail.


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

afairbairn said:


> Thanks for all of the tips on the thread and those who learned the hard way on how to save the data on the drive. I connected directly from the Bolt to the hard drive with a SATA cable and everything works great. No data lost on the 3TB WD drive and avoided a houseful of angry people. If I'm smart I should probably fire up KMTTG and do a big transfer before Tivo does something weird again.


Yeah, awesome! Glad to hear it afairbairn!

I received my 40" SATA cable and hooked it up today. I'm connecting from Tivo SATA motherboard connector -> through hole in case -> directly to SATA connector on hard drive in Rosewill RX-304 enclosure. Works great...!


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## bilj65 (Dec 18, 2004)

I wanted to be able to easily "disconnect" the Rosewill RX304 from the TiVo so I got a 12" SATA extension cable and routed it out the back panel of the RX304. Cutting a notch was really easy with wire cutters. I'm up and running again. See my pictures.
Just a thought... If eSATA enclosures no longer work then you could use any enclosure (even a cheapie USB 2.0 type) since all you are using it for is power and a fan for the drive.


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

bilj65 said:


> I wanted to be able to easily "disconnect" the Rosewill RX304 from the TiVo so I got a 12" SATA extension cable and routed it out the back panel of the RX304. Cutting a notch was really easy with wire cutters. I'm up and running again. See my pictures.
> Just a thought... If eSATA enclosures no longer work then you could use any enclosure (even a cheapie USB 2.0 type) since all you are using it for is power and a fan for the drive.


Nice work bilj65! I like the notch you cut into the back panel of the RX304. I may do that later.

You make a good point regarding enclosures. I upgraded my Bolt using the eSATA enclosure last year (Sep, 2016) as this was what mark1958 (in his post) had done, and it worked great. Everything was fine for me until early last week, when Tivo's software update broke the eSATA enclosure. If I were doing this upgrade today, any enclosure using SATA with power & fan would be sufficient!


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## CaseyJ (Apr 26, 2017)

tivobw said:


> Nice work bilj65! I like the notch you cut into the back panel of the RX304. I may do that later.
> 
> You make a good point regarding enclosures. I upgraded my Bolt using the eSATA enclosure last year (Sep, 2016) as this was what mark1958 (in his post) had done, and it worked great. Everything was fine for me until early last week, when Tivo's software update broke the eSATA enclosure. If I were doing this upgrade today, any enclosure using SATA with power & fan would be sufficient!


Not every enclosure will work. I'm using an old Antec MX-1. The hard drive data and power connectors plug directly into a circuit card. It would be difficult to only plug in the power to the enclosure and a SATA calbe in the data. Most likely I would have to cut the data connector off the curcuit card. You'd have to know how the drive connects to the enclosure to be sure it would work.

Luckily the Antec MX-1 and my 2TB WD drive were not affected by the software update. That might be because the drive is less 3TB or it may be that only the Rosewill enclosures have issues. I don't recall anyone using a different enclosure report this issue.


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## Andrew Macaulay (Dec 4, 2016)

Hi,
I have a bolt (originally a 1 TB) and upgraded to a 8TB with the mark1958 Roswell external case, ESata Cable and WD Red 8 TB drive.
Everything was working great until a week ago when I got the 4 Flashing lights error. Based on the feedback in the posts above ( you all rock for great info), I replaced the Esata Cable with a shielded 18 Inch SATA cable directly from the TiVO motherboard to to the WE hard drive & bypassed the Roswell external drive board. After I turned it on I completed the software upgrade without any problesms and now have my 8Tb TIVO working again. I did not lose any recordings (also did not plug in the original drive per earlier posts).
All is well in the world...... well at least with my TIVO.
Thanks so much for providing the instructions.


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## rasthedane (Sep 13, 2016)

Hello,
So I was one of the unlucky ones, who lost all my TiVo recordings due to this error. Now (with a direct SATA connection) between the Bolt's motherboard and the 4 TB red WD drive in my enclosure, everything is working fine again, and I've recreated my seasons pass etc.
... The only thing that's not working are the apps, like YouTube (which I use a lot). I get a TiVo error V312, and it says the app is loading... but it's been a good few days now, and no change. Can anyone offer any good ideas on how to fix?

Thanks in advance!


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

Try reconnecting to the TiVo network multiple times. I had to do this 3 or 4 times to get my Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube apps working again after my eSata cable failed on my 6TB.


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

This might be a coincidence, but since I've switched out to the SATA solution my Onepass recordings are acting really wonky. I didn't lose any of the one passes but some of them aren't correctly recording shows that it should be and some are working just fine. For instance, I was all excited to watch the new episode of Hard Knocks but it didn't record tonight. Checked out the one pass, and yup its listed. Opened up the one pass for it and it showed all the upcoming episodes, but just isn't scheduling them to record. All of the settings in the one pass are correct and its seeing the episodes, its just not scheduling to record them. Other one passes are working just fine and scheduling to record just fine, but about half of the passes aren't working right. Quite annoying.... Anybody else experience this behavior after going to the SATA cable fix?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

afairbairn said:


> This might be a coincidence, but since I've switched out to the SATA solution my Onepass recordings are acting really wonky. I didn't lose any of the one passes but some of them aren't correctly recording shows that it should be and some are working just fine. For instance, I was all excited to watch the new episode of Hard Knocks but it didn't record tonight. Checked out the one pass, and yup its listed. Opened up the one pass for it and it showed all the upcoming episodes, but just isn't scheduling them to record. All of the settings in the one pass are correct and its seeing the episodes, its just not scheduling to record them. Other one passes are working just fine and scheduling to record just fine, but about half of the passes aren't working right. Quite annoying.... Anybody else experience this behavior after going to the SATA cable fix?


What's in the History for why it didn't record the one last night? Also, was the OAD correct for the episode that didn't record?

Scott


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## afairbairn (Oct 24, 2006)

HerronScott said:


> What's in the History for why it didn't record the one last night? Also, was the OAD correct for the episode that didn't record?
> 
> Scott


Thanks for pointing me to the History. I didn't even know such a thing existed. I think it mostly solved the issue. A couple of the one passes that weren't working had duplicate listed as the reason why and then when I clicked on info it told me something like the episode had already recorded in the past 28 days. When I changed the one pass setting to "everything" it looks like it is setting up to record them. I couldn't sort out the Hard Knocks issue because I manually recorded it about 3/4 of the way through so the History showed that everything worked perfect. I did also do what primaryforce suggested and reconnected to the Tivo service multiple times. Seems like everything looks to be working as expected and now I know about the History option.


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## rasthedane (Sep 13, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> Try reconnecting to the TiVo network multiple times. I had to do this 3 or 4 times to get my Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube apps working again after my eSata cable failed on my 6TB.


Thank you, primaryforce, for the suggestion, but after multiple reboots and forced connections to the TiVo service, I'm still not having any luck with any of the apps, but keep getting the V312 error. From other threads, it seems that fixing this error is very hit or miss: Either it "magically" resolves itself after a while, or people live with no apps (or in some cases, return their Tivos). Since I've modded the Bolt, I can't very well contact Tivo customer service about it. (And, again, from other threads, it doesn't seem like that would help anyway.)
If anyone else has suggestions for fixing this, I would appreciate it. But otherwise, I'll live without the apps for now.
Thanks again, all.


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi rasthedane, try looking at posts on this link. Maybe someone has stumbled across the same issue and has steps to resolve?
Search Results for Query: v312 | TiVoCommunity Forum

This thread also mentions something about "permissions." Check this out and see if it helps.
TiVo Mini netflix error v312

So folks have also been able to run clear & delete everything to get apps working again, but that wipes out lots of settings and can be a pain to reconfigure everything. However, if you're desperate, may be worth a try.
https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/How-to-Clear-Delete-Everything

Good luck!


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## rasthedane (Sep 13, 2016)

tivobw said:


> Hi rasthedane, try looking at posts on this link. Maybe someone has stumbled across the same issue and has steps to resolve?
> Search Results for Query: v312 | TiVoCommunity Forum
> 
> This thread also mentions something about "permissions." Check this out and see if it helps.
> ...


Hi,
Apologies for the late reply, but I wanted to report back. I did the reconnecting thing many, many times... with no luck. Then I got busy with other stuff, and had basically accepted that I was going to have to live without apps. Now, several weeks later, I was about to finally get back to this, and had planned on spending the evening trying to call a Tivo agent per your suggestion, when -- lo and behold -- everything is suddenly working! No idea when it resolved itself. But it did. But thank you tivobw, I really appreciate the reply.

Good luck to all!


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

rasthedane said:


> Hi,
> Apologies for the late reply, but I wanted to report back. I did the reconnecting thing many, many times... with no luck. Then I got busy with other stuff, and had basically accepted that I was going to have to live without apps. Now, several weeks later, I was about to finally get back to this, and had planned on spending the evening trying to call a Tivo agent per your suggestion, when -- lo and behold -- everything is suddenly working! No idea when it resolved itself. But it did. But thank you tivobw, I really appreciate the reply.
> 
> Good luck to all!


Glad to hear it rasthedane! Maybe some setting needed time to propagate and kick in.. who knows. Technology, ugh! Glad it's working!


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## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

Andrew Macaulay said:


> Hi,
> I have a bolt (originally a 1 TB) and upgraded to a 8TB with the mark1958 Roswell external case, ESata Cable and WD Red 8 TB drive.
> Everything was working great until a week ago when I got the 4 Flashing lights error. Based on the feedback in the posts above ( you all rock for great info), I replaced the Esata Cable with a shielded 18 Inch SATA cable directly from the TiVO motherboard to to the WE hard drive & bypassed the Roswell external drive board. After I turned it on I completed the software upgrade without any problesms and now have my 8Tb TIVO working again. I did not lose any recordings (also did not plug in the original drive per earlier posts).
> All is well in the world...... well at least with my TIVO.
> Thanks so much for providing the instructions.


That is good to hear. I am glad that someone was able to avoid losing the recordings based on information several of us provided about our experiences...


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## dmoss (Sep 22, 2002)

Since the direct sata connect is current solution, has anyone been able to get the usb3 interface card from a best buy easystore to power the ext drive? It appears the interface card needs the serial data cable attached before power is applied? I'm just wanting to connect a sata power extension cable from the card to the drive, then sata data from drive to motherboard. I pulled older card from WD external and it works but would be nice to utilize the other interface card from shucked drive.


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## tivobw (Oct 26, 2002)

dmoss said:


> Since the direct sata connect is current solution, has anyone been able to get the usb3 interface card from a best buy easystore to power the ext drive? It appears the interface card needs the serial data cable attached before power is applied? I'm just wanting to connect a sata power extension cable from the card to the drive, then sata data from drive to motherboard. I pulled older card from WD external and it works but would be nice to utilize the other interface card from shucked drive.


Hi dmoss, I think as long as it is direct connection (SATA from Tivo motherboard -> SATA to external drive) and the external drive has power, it should work.

I had to bypass the SATA connection on Tivo motherboard -> eSATA connection on Rosewill enclosure when Tivo rolled out their software update a couple of months ago. SATA->eSATA broke after the software update for some reason. But now at least SATA->SATA works.

I am using a Tivo Bolt w/an external WD RED 4TB drive. The WD drive is in a Rosewill enclosure. I connected a 40" SATA cable from the Tivo motherboard directly to the SATA drive in the Rosewill enclosure, and then connected power to the drive from the Rosewill enclosure. When I use it this way, the HD works. It sure looks ugly though, having an external drive in an external case! I am able to hide the drive on the lower shelf of the media center out of view, but it sure would be nice to have it all self-contained in the Tivo!

If your testing doesn't work then it could indicate that there is something about the usb3 interface card that is confusing the Tivo. A straight/direct connection between the Tivo's SATA connector on the motherboard to the SATA drive itself is the best thing to ensure communication can occur between Tivo and drive without some other interface potentially confusing the Tivo.

Hope this helps.


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