# Can any part of a Bolt be salvaged?



## copwriter (Aug 30, 2005)

My TiVo Bolt, put into service in August 2018, started showing The Four Flashing Lights of Death a couple of weeks ago. TiVo sent me a TiVo Edge to replace it for the low-low price of $216. To be fair, they transferred my lifetime subscription to the new box. I assume I lost the recordings I had on the Bolt. The Edge is working more or less as expected. 

The old Bolt is sitting on a shelf. Is there any part of this that can be salvaged, or should I just dump it at a computer salvage depot? I have a couple of even older TiVos that work, or did the last time I plugged them in, but aren't in use.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

copwriter said:


> My TiVo Bolt, put into service in August 2018, started showing The Four Flashing Lights of Death a couple of weeks ago. TiVo sent me a TiVo Edge to replace it for the low-low price of $216. To be fair, they transferred my lifetime subscription to the new box. I assume I lost the recordings I had on the Bolt. The Edge is working more or less as expected.
> 
> The old Bolt is sitting on a shelf. Is there any part of this that can be salvaged, or should I just dump it at a computer salvage depot? I have a couple of even older TiVos that work, or did the last time I plugged them in, but aren't in use.


It may keep its lifetime, I'd replace the hard drive and see if that was it.


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## WVZR1 (Jul 31, 2008)

dianebrat said:


> It may keep its lifetime, I'd replace the hard drive and see if that was it.


Yes to that - in the past TiVo has failed to actually remove the 'lifetime' and if you did a HDD and kept it on your account it could work. A resale of it for anything other than 'parts only' would trigger a deactivation for sure with TiVo.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

copwriter said:


> My TiVo Bolt, put into service in August 2018, started showing The Four Flashing Lights of Death a couple of weeks ago. TiVo sent me a TiVo Edge to replace it for the low-low price of $216. To be fair, they transferred my lifetime subscription to the new box. I assume I lost the recordings I had on the Bolt. The Edge is working more or less as expected.
> 
> The old Bolt is sitting on a shelf. Is there any part of this that can be salvaged, or should I just dump it at a computer salvage depot? I have a couple of even older TiVos that work, or did the last time I plugged them in, but aren't in use.


Was it a cable Edge they sent you? And transferred your lifetime to it? For only $216? Wow, if so great deal.

And yes, as other posters state, try another hard drive in the Bolt. When it is open you could actually test with a 3.5" if you have one sitting around, not sure how many people have spare CMR 2.5s available. Just make sure the 3.5 is not an SMR drive, that would not be a valid test, especially if the Bolt on TE4. If they did not actually deactivate it you could end up sitting pretty. I would NOT sell the Bolt under those conditions though, no guarantee the lifetime would stick around even if it still has it now.

As for salvageable, I'd hang on to the power supply. You know it IS possible the flashing lights are caused by the power supply. Usually two possible causes for the flashing lights, bad hard drive or bad power supply (power supplies can go PARTIALLY bad, still power up the Tivo but not enough power to boot the drive). Would be fun to play with regardless, I would not just toss.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

Four flashing lights are usually caused by a weak power supply that cannot fully power up the box anymore. Before discarding the Bolt, connect it to a different power supply and see if it starts working.


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## copwriter (Aug 30, 2005)

I'll try the power supply fix. If that doesn't work, is there a disk image I can load onto a replacement drive in the Bolt?


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

copwriter said:


> I'll try the power supply fix. If that doesn't work, is there a disk image I can load onto a replacement drive in the Bolt?


Bolts can format their own drives, so there aren't any images. If the power supply doesn't fix it just drop in a blank drive.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

WVZR1 said:


> Yes to that - in the past TiVo has failed to actually remove the 'lifetime' and if you did a HDD and kept it on your account it could work.


That was the case when I "transferred" my lifetime on a TiVoHD to a new Bolt (I think it was a $99 transfer fee?). Years later, my TiVoHD still works fine, with lifetime, as does my Bolt.


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## timbracken (Sep 16, 2016)

copwriter said:


> My TiVo Bolt, put into service in August 2018, started showing The Four Flashing Lights of Death a couple of weeks ago. TiVo sent me a TiVo Edge to replace it for the low-low price of $216. To be fair, they transferred my lifetime subscription to the new box.


Man &#8230; they were far nicer to you than me! My replacement Bolt 3TB was put in service in 8/2018 as well (funny), and died last week. All they could offer me was the Edge for $249 plus $299 for All-in plan (my Bolt with the 4 flashing lights did not have All-in &#8230; I was paying annually since I first bought Bolt in 2016). Was wondering the same about what to do with my Bolt&#8230; didn't know to try a new power supply (that will really suck if that's all it is). Also could not transfer any of my One Passes from the deadly Bolt to Edge and had to manually do it last night (the voice remote was handy for that to save time).

I opened a separate thread here on a weird Edge issue with my Denon avr and its audio behavior. I think the Edge is on a different release of Tivo than Bolt, which might explain the difference in behavior. I really don't want to now also buy a new avr. In happier news, the Edge does seem to be much more responsive and both the picture and audio quality seem to be really improved.


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