# Bolt + dead?



## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

So I got home today to find my Bolt + 3TB dead.The fan going but nothing on the screen. All four lights on the front flashing. Has anybody had this happen? I called Tivo and the tech support and they told me this is vary rare and she had never even had this problem before.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

A quick search turned these up:

4 Lights Flashing on Bolt

Bolt+ All lights flashing

-KP


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

At least you got the 4 lights which suggests an HD issue, mine just went dead, no lights last week, but they did make it painless to get an exchange.


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> At least you got the 4 lights which suggests an HD issue, mine just went dead, no lights last week, but they did make it painless to get an exchange.


Thanks at least you have told me it might be a HDD. Nothing that I have seen in any post gives clear answer. But like you I did get a painless exchange ordered. Even got them to wave next day shipping. And the exchange fee was $149 but got that down to $79 then I even got that waved. But Still lost my recordings and one passes.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Surrealone said:


> Thanks at least you have told me it might be a HDD. Nothing that I have seen in any post gives clear answer. But like you I did get a painless exchange ordered. Even got them to wave next day shipping. And the exchange fee was $149 but got that down to $79 then I even got that waved. But Still lost my recordings and one passes.


You didn't lose your Onepasses, they should still be online and you can transfer them with Tivo Online to another box.


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> You didn't lose your Onepasses, they should still be online and you can transfer them with Tivo Online to another box.


When I looked at my TiVo.com online account i see this message
"There is a problem communicating with this TiVo box. Make sure your box is connected to your home network, then try again."


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Surrealone said:


> When I looked at my TiVo.com online account i see this message
> "There is a problem communicating with this TiVo box. Make sure your box is connected to your home network, then try again."


Try again after selecting another box, they will usually pop up then


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> Try again after selecting another box, they will usually pop up then


Same results. That's ok thank you for the help. We are just going to start fresh.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

dianebrat said:


> At least you got the 4 lights which suggests an HD issue, *mine just went dead, no lights* last week, but they did make it painless to get an exchange.


Did you measure the output and/or swap wallwarts?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> At least you got the 4 lights which suggests an HD issue, mine just went dead, no lights last week, but they did make it painless to get an exchange.





ClearToLand said:


> Did you measure the output and/or swap wallwarts?


Multiple Bolts here, it wasn't the wall wart 
I even pulled the drive connector to be sure that wasn't pulling the motherboard down, it truly was dead.


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## Royster (May 24, 2002)

I had the four blinking lights this morning. I used the box last night. 

I'm surprised that people think it's a HD problem. I could hear the drive turning normally. I was hoping i could save my recordings by swapping driives between the old and the new.


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

Not sure about the swapping I just got a replacement and sent the old broken one back.


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## Royster (May 24, 2002)

I'll probably just do that. I finished most of the current seasons.


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

I look at it like an easy way to clean up my to do list.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Royster said:


> I had the four blinking lights this morning. I used the box last night.
> 
> I'm surprised that people think it's a HD problem. I could hear the drive turning normally. I was hoping i could save my recordings by swapping driives between the old and the new.


Because 95% (possibly higher) of the time 4 blinking lights is the sign of a hard drive issue, it can still be running and spinning but the Tivo OS is having issues with it.

And you can't swap drives between Tivo's to get at the shows, they're tied to the original unit's encryption.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Royster said:


> I had the four blinking lights this morning. I used the box last night.
> 
> I'm surprised that people think it's a HD problem. I could hear the drive turning normally. I was hoping i could save my recordings by swapping driives between the old and the new.


What hard drive? (Factory or replacement and if replacement what model?)

Scott


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## Royster (May 24, 2002)

HerronScott said:


> What hard drive? (Factory or replacement and if replacement what model?)
> 
> Scott


Factory. I was hoping to save my recordings but I suppose that's not possible.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

There's a possibility that you could drop your current Hard Drive and a replacement Hard Drive in to a Cloning Dock and get it copied over to boot up. Maybe not, but possibly worth trying.

Then, you could Backup up your OnePasses and Thumbs Ratings with KMTTG, copy shows you want to save with pyTiVoDesktop and then expand your new Hard Drive to full size.

-KP


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## FishTank1701 (Oct 26, 2004)

Hoping to find better news, but at least I know what's wrong with my Bolt+. I do love search when it actually finds what you need quickly.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

FishTank1701 said:


> I do love search when it actually finds what you need quickly.


I often get good results using Google but limiting its search to TCF using the "site:tivocommunity.com" qualifier, and then scoping the results by time period.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

kpeters59 said:


> There's a possibility that you could drop your current Hard Drive and a replacement Hard Drive in to a Cloning Dock and get it copied over to boot up. Maybe not, but possibly worth trying.
> 
> Then, you could Backup up your OnePasses and Thumbs Ratings with KMTTG, copy shows you want to save with pyTiVoDesktop and then expand your new Hard Drive to full size.
> 
> -KP


I thought I read in another thread that the bolt will format the drive automatically if it is not the same drive that was installed previously. Does the duplication process cause the Bolt to determine the new drive is the same as the old drive?


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

shwru980r said:


> I thought I read in another thread that the bolt will format the drive automatically if it is not the same drive that was installed previously. Does the duplication process cause the Bolt to determine the new drive is the same as the old drive?


Based on the latest posts that I've seen and results from jmbach's recent beta mods to MFSTools 3.2 it seems to be a database issue, not a total reformat. The SQLite database is partly or entirely in flash on Bolts now, so you can't put an old drive in and expect it to work. A straight disk duplication or even using mfscopy to a new drive should work.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

ggieseke said:


> Based on the latest posts that I've seen and results from jmbach's recent beta mods to MFSTools 3.2 it seems to be a database issue, not a total reformat. The SQLite database is partly or entirely in flash on Bolts now, so you can't put an old drive in and expect it to work. A straight disk duplication or even using mfscopy to a new drive should work.


Ah, so the original drive *would* work, so long as the box hasn't been powered-up with any other drive connected (effectively the same as power-cycling the box); similarly, the MFS Tools-replicated drive won't work if, for some reason, you happened to power-up the box with the original drive (or any other drive).

Sadly, this means you can't periodically clone a BOLT hard drive as a fail-safe backup, since the backup clone becomes unusable as soon as the original drive is reinstalled and the box powers-up.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

krkaufman said:


> Ah, so the original drive *would* work, so long as the box hasn't been powered-up with any other drive connected (effectively the same as power-cycling the box); similarly, the MFS Tools-replicated drive won't work if, for some reason, you happened to power-up the box with the original drive (or any other drive).
> 
> Sadly, this means you can't periodically clone a BOLT hard drive as a fail-safe backup, since the backup clone becomes unusable as soon as the original drive is reinstalled and the box powers-up.


This process seems to over-engineered to me. I'm thinking they want to prevent someone from paying for premium cable and recording 24x7 from premium channels to fill up multiple hard drives for a few months and then canceling the premium service. They could even cancel the Tivo service and just watch the recorded shows.


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## tazzmission (Oct 15, 2002)

I’m not so sure there isn’t something else going on here, software update issue killing boxes? My Bolt + died last Wednesday. 4 blinking LED’s. Called TiVo support and they wanted $149 to replace it and told me it was the HDD. They immediately lowered the price to $79 and I did not even ask. I complained and they replaced it for free. Got the replacement and it won’t even boot up. Waiting on my second exchange now. Seems to be happening a good bit recently on the bolt from what I see here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

tazzmission said:


> I'm not so sure there isn't something else going on here, software update issue killing boxes? My Bolt + died last Wednesday. 4 blinking LED's. Called TiVo support and they wanted $149 to replace it and told me it was the HDD. They immediately lowered the price to $79 and I did not even ask. I complained and they replaced it for free. Got the replacement and it won't even boot up. Waiting on my second exchange now. Seems to be happening a good bit recently on the bolt from what I see here.


Might I ask, how old was the Bolt+ -- was the Bolt+ under warranty in some fashion/under TiVo's Continual Care?


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## tazzmission (Oct 15, 2002)

Mikeguy said:


> Might I ask, how old was the Bolt+ -- was the Bolt+ under warranty in some fashion/under TiVo's Continual Care?


It is a year and a half old and was out of warranty.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

tazzmission said:


> It is a year and a half old and was out of warranty.


Thanks--good for you in getting TiVo to fully stand by its product, even though it was out of warranty! And good luck with getting the issue finally resolved. 

And, lest it not go mentioned, good for TiVo as well.


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## hfcsyrup (Dec 12, 2012)

My bolt died last christmas, figured it was my upgraded hdd. I just used my premiere4 in the meantime as I dreaded losing my shows and getting it running again. With premiere getting SM, I almost dont need the bolt anymore other than for streaming, but I got around to it now, and turns out the original hdd also wont boot it up. Not sure if it's the same problem discussed here, my 4 lights flash once then it tried booting again and looping, so not rapidly flashing. Bought it with once in a lifetime sale May '17. They wanted 149 exchange, then 79 and talked him to 49, but that includes return shipping, so I think it's reasonable. Will the new one have Hydra? Is there any potential issue with it showing I've opened up the box (clips broke off)?


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## Surrealone (Dec 8, 2006)

hfcsyrup said:


> My bolt died last christmas, figured it was my upgraded hdd. I just used my premiere4 in the meantime as I dreaded losing my shows and getting it running again. With premiere getting SM, I almost dont need the bolt anymore other than for streaming, but I got around to it now, and turns out the original hdd also wont boot it up. Not sure if it's the same problem discussed here, my 4 lights flash once then it tried booting again and looping, so not rapidly flashing. Bought it with once in a lifetime sale May '17. They wanted 149 exchange, then 79 and talked him to 49, but that includes return shipping, so I think it's reasonable. Will the new one have Hydra? Is there any potential issue with it showing I've opened up the box (clips broke off)?


My TiVo return experience was almost the same. I also had broken clips on my Bolt but it was no problem I got my security deposit back $500 easy.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

hfcsyrup said:


> My bolt died last christmas, figured it was my upgraded hdd. I just used my premiere4 in the meantime as I dreaded losing my shows and getting it running again. With premiere getting SM, I almost dont need the bolt anymore other than for streaming, but I got around to it now, and turns out the original hdd also wont boot it up. Not sure if it's the same problem discussed here, my 4 lights flash once then it tried booting again and looping, so not rapidly flashing. Bought it with once in a lifetime sale May '17. They wanted 149 exchange, then 79 and talked him to 49, but that includes return shipping, so I think it's reasonable. Will the new one have Hydra? Is there any potential issue with it showing I've opened up the box (clips broke off)?


If the new one has Hydra on it (which I think they typically do, nowadays), you can downgrade back to Gen3 immediately upon setting it up (assuming no glitch in the downgrade system, as has occurred in the past).


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## computersteve (Jun 10, 2016)

Mikeguy said:


> If the new one has Hydra on it (which I think they typically do, nowadays), you can downgrade back to Gen3 immediately upon setting it up (assuming no glitch in the downgrade system, as has occurred in the past).


Just want to chime in on this topic.. my bolt plus just got the 4 flashing lights as well.. I have two. 1 did & 1 didn't. I think it could be possibly related to the suggestions problem in Hydra, Ever since the latest update everyone has been noticing suggestions have been constantly recording stuff. That could be adding a lot of strain to the hard drives, & hardware that was ready to go could be pushed over the edge finally just giving up. When I get my replacement I'm nervous about keeping suggestions on now =(


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

computersteve said:


> Ever since the latest update everyone has been noticing suggestions have been constantly recording stuff. That could be adding a lot of strain to the hard drives, & hardware that was ready to go could be pushed over the edge finally just giving up. When I get my replacement I'm nervous about keeping suggestions on now =(


Your Bolt/TiVo is always recording/buffering all tuners when not in Standby/Power saving mode (not sure which level) so recording Suggestions is no additional strain or wear/tear on the hard drive. This was the original hard drive (size?)?

Scott


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