# Am I screwed?



## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

This weekend, I had (and am still having) serious electrical problems. Monday morning, my Tivo made to to the "Almost there" screen, then went back to "Powering up". Did those power outages kill my Tivo? And am I correct in assuming that Direct would only replace it with an R15?


----------



## John T Smith (Jun 17, 2004)

allan said:


> Did those power outages kill my Tivo? And am I correct in assuming that Direct would only replace it with an R15?


1 - power problems could, indeed, kill electronic equipment
2 - yes, DTV now only gives their own brand of DVR


----------



## wolflord11 (Jan 17, 2007)

As John has said, Power Problems can kill electronic equipment.

As for Directv, they only use their own DVR equipment now. The basic unit is the R15.

They will not replace your tivo tho. You may have to pay a Deposit and such to get a DVR.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

And, put your TiVo on a UPS.


----------



## spudly (Sep 19, 2001)

John T Smith said:


> 1 - power problems could, indeed, kill electronic equipment
> 2 - yes, DTV now only gives their own brand of DVR


Not entirely true. It is very much a CSR roulette, but if as a current customer of TiVo DVR and your equipment gets fried you may be able to obtain an R10. I was able to get one as of 1 week ago.

-Glenn


----------



## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

If they sent you an R10 then you got *very* lucky. Several months ago DTV specifically said they had no more TiVo's to send to people. I bet they found a couple to send out... 

I don't think many have been happy with the R15 so maybe they are back to giving TiVo's to TiVo owners and R15's to R15 owners. 

I wonder?

mark


----------



## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

I may just be a hard drive has died. If so, here is a path to a "like new" higher capacity R10.

1) Get a commodity EIDE/ATA "parallel" interface drive of a desired capacity (size in GB times 0.875 gives approx. recording hours). If I am hunting a drive at local stores I consult http://www.salescircular.com/ first to locate the best price. If buying online I suggest http://www.newegg.com (check out any online vendors first via http://www.resellerratings.com/) - NewEgg has a 9.83 rating out of a possible 10.

2) Spend $20 and download/burn an Instantcake image for your specific model

3) Connect bare hard drive to your PC for 5 minutes (disconnect any existing hard drives first) and boot the CD you created in step 2. No need to mount it, just stack up some books next to the open PC case and connect the drive... put a couple of plastic pens under it to permit airflow. The program that runs from the CD will give you complete instructions on what to enter at the keyboard.

4) Put drive into R10 and away you go!

You will find good info on how to open up your R10 at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php - just answer the questions and it will create a page telling you what Torx bits you will need and will have pictures of the innards.


----------



## Old Tuck (Mar 18, 2007)

goony said:


> 1) Get a commodity EIDE/ATA "parallel" interface drive of a desired capacity...


Could you clarify, please? Will Serial ATA HDs work? I've been to New Egg, but can't seem to locate drives with a parallel interface.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

SATA drives will not work.

I guess you didn't look hard enough.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=134


----------



## wolflord11 (Jan 17, 2007)

rock_doctor said:


> If they sent you an R10 then you got *very* lucky. Several months ago DTV specifically said they had no more TiVo's to send to people. I bet they found a couple to send out...
> 
> I don't think many have been happy with the R15 so maybe they are back to giving TiVo's to TiVo owners and R15's to R15 owners.
> 
> ...


I agree, if you got sent out a R10, then count yourself lucky.

Directv will only give out the current model, the R15. Even if you are a Tivo Owner, or a Directv Owner!

You must of got one that they found in a Warehouse somewhere.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Alwyas use a UPS with a DVR.


----------



## snickerrrrs (Mar 31, 2006)

rock_doctor said:


> If they sent you an R10 then you got *very* lucky. Several months ago DTV specifically said they had no more TiVo's to send to people. I bet they found a couple to send out...
> 
> I don't think many have been happy with the R15 so maybe they are back to giving TiVo's to TiVo owners and R15's to R15 owners.
> 
> ...


By "specifically said" no more R10's do you mean you heard it from a CSR?


----------



## wolflord11 (Jan 17, 2007)

Asking Directv for an R10 DVR is like asking them for a D10 Standard Receiver.....

The R10 is no longer produced. They will tell you that directly and offer you an R15.

Also, Directv are moving away from Tivo Units, so why would they offer you something they do not want?

You can phone Directv, ask for any department you want, speak to any higher ups, email them, and the answer will be the same. There are no more R10's from Directv. So get them from Radioshack and the likes while you can.


----------



## l2bengtrek (May 31, 2006)

Circuit City has 250g WD drives on sale for $60 after rebate...I just got two...one for the tivo, one for the hell of it at that price! Look fast though, I think the sale ends today!


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

WOW! I remember 4 or 5 years ago paying $300 for MAxtor 250GB drives to use for storage of my HD recordings. Prices have really come down. I have twenty 200GB to 300GB drives that I bought back then. I guess they aren't even worth enough to put on Ebay when you can get a new one for $60.


----------



## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

Here is a NewEgg search for parallel hard drives.


----------



## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> WOW! I remember 4 or 5 years ago paying $300 for MAxtor 250GB drives to use for storage of my HD recordings. Prices have really come down.


When I first started working on 'puters one of the "disk drives" cost ~$7-10K, was the size of a clothes washing machine and stored a whopping 44MB (yes, 44 _Mega_ Bytes).


----------



## Stanley Rohner (Jan 18, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Alwyas use a UPS with a DVR.


It's always great when someone jumps in to mention this after the fact.

That's like hearing - My neighbor died of a heart attack ! and someone saying - He should have quit smoking 20 years ago.

I've never had a UPS in my life, I've never had any problems with my TiVos, computers, DVD players, TVs.


----------



## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

Stanley Rohner said:


> It's always great when someone jumps in to mention this after the fact.
> 
> That's like hearing - My neighbor died of a heart attack ! and someone saying - He should have quit smoking 20 years ago.
> 
> I've never had a UPS in my life, I've never had any problems with my TiVos, computers, DVD players, TVs.


Getting a UPS for your "vital" electronics is like having insurance on anything.
You have it "just in case" crap happens

Personally, I have aUPS on my main DVR and PC. The other 2 DVR's are not protected. I tend to unplug my items during severe storms. But this only happens when I am at home.

A UPS provides true surge protection and allows you to power-down your DVR properly.


----------



## DonDon (Jan 14, 2007)

I have a UPS on my main Dtivo so my wife will not miss her soaps. Very important.

I recently got a new DLP TV. One of the things I noticed immediately was that when you turned it off, it went through a 2 minute shutdown/cooldown period for the $300 dollar bulb. I thought, hmm, what would happen to my $300 bulb if the power dropped off while I was watching it? No fan running, overheated bulb, not good. So I went and bought an APC UPS that was big enough to run the DVR and TV for at least 5 min to let the TV properly shut down.

Can't watch the Dtivo if the set is dead ya know.

Don

PS, my Dtivo has been running 3 years, always on a UPS, and the only shows we missed were from weather blocking the signal. Never had a reboot from power to the best of my knowledge.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I have a UPS on all my electronics and PCs. All my HD sets are on one. Even my SVS subwoofer and Denon 3806 receiver and my cordless phone(15 hours of backup for that). And of course all my TiVos. They will all get 4 to 6 hours of power backup(my PCs only get around 3 hours) during an outage. I wanted to be unlikely to miss any recordings during prime time. It's saved me a couple of times when the power went out for over 3 hours starting around 7PM. Without the TiVos being on the UPSs I would have missed alot of recordings.


----------



## MX1 (Mar 12, 2007)

cowboys2002 said:


> A UPS provides true surge protection and allows you to power-down your DVR properly.


How do you power-down your DVR properly? On my series 1 model the only way to "power-down" is to pull the plug. Has that changed?


----------



## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

MX1 said:


> How do you power-down your DVR properly? On my series 1 model the only way to "power-down" is to pull the plug. Has that changed?


Nope. I've never seen a DTivo of any flavor with a power button. Usually, you try to make sure it isn't recording anything and then just kill the power via power strip switch or a yanking of the cord.


----------



## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

you can also 'power down' a DTivo by going into the menu and initiating a restart, then just pull the plug before the loading screen comes back up.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

It isn't so much how the DVR is powered down, but how it is powered up again after a power failure. If power is off longer than the UPS can supply, then the DVR just loses power as if you unplugged it. However, when power is restored, it can be unstable. The UPS won't supply power to its outlets until the main power is stable, thus protecting the DVR from that instability.


----------



## Billy Bob Boy (Jul 25, 2004)

Yes!! Royaly!!


I figured there were enough legitimate answers for me to be a Smart ass


----------



## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

Dkerr24 said:


> you can also 'power down' a DTivo by going into the menu and initiating a restart, then just pull the plug before the loading screen comes back up.


I'll second that method. I don't care who says it's ok. Powering down mounted filesystems-TEH BAD!


----------

