# TiVo Premiere reboot loop



## WinBear (Aug 24, 2000)

I have a TiVo Premiere. I just bought lifetime service a couple of months ago. After moving it to a new location (and it sat unused for a couple of months), it started failing to boot. It does "Welcome! Starting up..." for almost exactly 2 minutes then blanks the screen for a few seconds and goes back to "Welcome! Starting up..."

I had reason to believe the drive was failing, so I got a new drive from weaknees, but it is doing the same thing. I have used MFSLive and other tools before, so I thought I could get to the logs and see what was happening. Unfortunately, my current desktop with AMD processors will not boot the MFSLive 1.4 CD to a usable prompt.

I have tried a couple of Kickstart codes, but I am not seeing any difference in behavior.

Any other recommendations?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

WinBear said:


> I have a TiVo Premiere. I just bought lifetime service a couple of months ago. After moving it to a new location (and it sat unused for a couple of months), it started failing to boot. It does "Welcome! Starting up..." for almost exactly 2 minutes then blanks the screen for a few seconds and goes back to "Welcome! Starting up..."
> 
> I had reason to believe the drive was failing, so I got a new drive from weaknees, but it is doing the same thing. I have used MFSLive and other tools before, so I thought I could get to the logs and see what was happening. Unfortunately, my current desktop with AMD processors will not boot the MFSLive 1.4 CD to a usable prompt.
> 
> ...


Your AMD CPU is actually doing you a favor here, since both the MFS Live cd and WinMFS, though still fine for Series 1, 2, and 3 TiVos, cannot do anything for Series 4 (Premiere) TiVos except screw up the drive.

This is because of changes TiVo made to the way they do things, file system-wise.

The guy behind those programs, spike, seems not to be active anymore, but others have developed software for doing some limited stuff with S4 drives.

You could learn some stuff by reading this thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=455968

and this later one

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

but if you got a new drive from weaKnees designed to drop right into the Premiere with the TiVo software already on it, and the Premiere doesn't work with it, either, then the problem is most likely the Premiere's power supply or motherboard, unfortunately, with a second bad hard drive a distant 3rd possibility.

When you ordered the drive from weaKnees you made sure they knew exactly which model number (TCDwhatever) TiVo it was supposed to be for, correct?

And that you wanted the more expensive version with the software (or "image") already on the drive?

An unlikely, but not *absolutely* impossible explanation is that the SATA data cable that connects the hard drive to the TiVo motherboard has gone bad, or that the power supply itself is okay, but the cable and plug that connect the power supply to the hard drive have gone bad. The fact that the power and data cables are joined together in a common plug does not make checking that possibility at all easy, unfortunately, but as I indicated it's a long shot to begin with.

All of this assumes that you never used an external hard drive with the TiVo in addition to the internal one, by the way.


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## WinBear (Aug 24, 2000)

Ok, I did order the right drive with the image on it. I'm seeing it try to boot, so that tells me the drive isn't blank.
I tried connecting the drive power to another device and using a different SATA cable. No change. That eliminates the power supply and affiliated cables, right?

jmfs doesn't boot right on my desktop. It just loops at loading initrd.gz.....

I've never connected an external drive to the TiVo.

To me, that says motherboard. 

I'll read further in those threads, but that jmfs thread is enormous and now not helpful.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

If you can safely test the drives in a PC, I would do that.

Then use any linux CD your PC likes to boot, and check what's on the Hard Drives.


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## b-ball-fanatic (Aug 5, 2003)

WinBear said:


> I have tried a couple of Kickstart codes, but I am not seeing any difference in behavior.
> 
> Any other recommendations?


How long have you let it loop? Just to cover all your bases, try leaving it in the reboot loop for several hours....


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## WinBear (Aug 24, 2000)

telemark said:


> If you can safely test the drives in a PC, I would do that.
> 
> Then use any linux CD your PC likes to boot, and check what's on the Hard Drives.


I have a Knoppix Live CD. It boots to GUI, but doesn't detect the original TiVo drive. I can check the Weaknees drive in the morning.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

WinBear said:


> Ok, I did order the right drive with the image on it. I'm seeing it try to boot, so that tells me the drive isn't blank.
> I tried connecting the drive power to another device and using a different SATA cable. No change. That eliminates the power supply and affiliated cables, right?
> 
> jmfs doesn't boot right on my desktop. It just loops at loading initrd.gz.....
> ...


Yeah, if the weaKnees drive won't boot with external power and a known good data cable, that's starting to smell like TiVo motherboard gone bad, specifically the part that talks to the hard drive, which it apparently can no longer find.

That's if the weaKnees drive behaves exactly the same as the original drive.

If there's a difference, if it gets to a second screen before the reboot starts, then something else (quite possibly still a motherboard problem) is going on.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

WinBear said:


> I have a Knoppix Live CD. It boots to GUI, but doesn't detect the original TiVo drive. I can check the Weaknees drive in the morning.


Gonna have to define detect - try
dmesg | grep sd
dmesg | grep hd


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