# Hard drive broken



## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

I have two hard drives in my TIVO. They started making a strange noise and eventually gave up the ghost a few months ago. Tired it again today and all was working fine again. Then some 2 hrs later it went wrong again with picture blocking and very slow menu operation.

Will I be able to backup from these drives and reinstall on to a new 1 drive that is approx 400GB?

Which are the best drives to get?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> I have two hard drives in my TIVO. They started making a strange noise and eventually gave up the ghost a few months ago. Tired it again today and all was working fine again. Then some 2 hrs later it went wrong again with picture blocking and very slow menu operation.
> 
> Will I be able to backup from these drives and reinstall on to a new 1 drive that is approx 400GB?
> 
> Which are the best drives to get?


See www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo for how to install a new drive in your Tivo yourself although unfortunately Steve works on the basis of only saving your SPs and thumbs data and not all your programs. It is possible to save all your programs too as long as your current hard drives haven't yet given up the ghost for good. If you say what size of hard drive you are copying over to once you have got hold of one someone here will give you the appropriate command to save all your programs. And yes you can go from the present 2 drives to 1 or indeed from 2 drives to 2.

The most suitable and best value 400Gb hard drive is the Samsung LD model available at www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=312836 for £81 including delivery. This is a better choice than a Seagate 400Gb drive because the power consumption requirements of the Seagate drives are such that you cannot add a second drive later on. You can add a second drive with the 400 Gb Samsung.

Samsung drives have a 3 year warranty and Seagate's a 5 year warranty but Samsung drives are quieter than Seagate (in fact they are thought to be quietest of all) and you can add the second drive later. Other makes of drive are usually not favoured due to only having a 1 year warranty and due to being noisier and less reliable bearing in mind Tivo's 24/7 use.

By the way you need to get hold of a Cachecard and 512Mb of RAM if you are going to run a 400Gb drive. This both provides network access for Tivoweb and copes with the much larger Now Playing list on a 400Gb drive without the menu speeds slowing down too much. You can find these being sold on www.ebay.co.uk or from the two Tivo upgrade shops mentioned below.

You can buy fully pre-configured drives at www.tivoheaven.co.uk or www.tivoheaven.com or one of them also sells a download package called Hooch which makes configuring your own drive simpler but I'm not sure if Hooch yet has an option to let you save your existing recordings or not? A fellow called blindlemon who often inhabits these parts will no doubt be along to advise on that question soon. 

The following websites may also help with installing TivoWeb and further add ons on your upgraded Tivo.

http://tivo.lightn.org/

www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/

www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/hacking.htm

www.beaconhill.plus.com/TiVo/tivohacks.htm

http://www.arielbusiness.pwp.blueyo.../TiVo/HowTo.htm

http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TiVoWeb Modules

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/tivowebplus

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

www.tivohackman.com

www.planetbuilders.org/tivo/tivo_upgrade_diary.html


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> I have two hard drives in my TIVO. They started making a strange noise and eventually gave up the ghost a few months ago. Tired it again today and all was working fine again. Then some 2 hrs later it went wrong again with picture blocking and very slow menu operation.
> 
> Will I be able to backup from these drives and reinstall on to a new 1 drive that is approx 400GB?
> 
> Which are the best drives to get?


It depends on whether your drives are too far gone to be able to get the data backed up cleanly. The only way to tell is to try, and to hope there has been no data corruption for the parts of the disk holding the TiVo operating system.

Chances are its only one of your drives which is failing, so if you can identify which one you could just replace that.

Assuming that as its been out of action for a few months there's not much on there you want to keep, it's probably easiest and safest to do a clean install onto a new 400Gb drive, using a downloaded disk image - check the disk image thread for how to get one.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> The following websites may also help with installing TivoWeb and further add ons on your upgraded Tivo.
> 
> http://tivo.lightn.org/
> 
> ...


If they aren't already, whu not ask gary to put these links in the FAQ so you don't have to copy and paste them quite so often!


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

TCM2007 said:


> It depends on whether your drives are too far gone to be able to get the data backed up cleanly. The only way to tell is to try, and to hope there has been no data corruption for the parts of the disk holding the TiVo operating system.
> 
> Chances are its only one of your drives which is failing, so if you can identify which one you could just replace that.
> 
> Assuming that as its been out of action for a few months there's not much on there you want to keep, it's probably easiest and safest to do a clean install onto a new 400Gb drive, using a downloaded disk image - check the disk image thread for how to get one.


I have asked just waiting for someone to PM me the link for the image.

I guess moving over the settings and endpad etc will be ok.

I think a 250Gb disc will do as I have 2 x 120GB in before and that was fine for me. Which is the best to go for on this size?


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

TCM2007 said:


> Chances are its only one of your drives which is failing, so if you can identify which one you could just replace that.


How do i find out which one is failing?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> I think a 250Gb disc will do as I have 2 x 120GB in before and that was fine for me. Which is the best to go for on this size?


Blindlemon would point you to a drive called the Samsung HA250JC that he sells that is only 5400rpm and meant to be especially for PVRs. Unfortunately its now a deleted product and only available from a supplier called www.ultratec.co.uk at the same price as the 400Gb Samsung IDE drive.

If you go for one of the other 7200rpm 250Gb Samsung drives they will only set you back about £45 or so.

Bottom line is that you probably do need a Cachecard and RAM with a 400Gb drive but its not essential with a 250Gb drive provided you record most things at Best or High.

If you aren't running TivoWeb with a network card of some kind at the moment then you are really missing out on a load of extra functionality though.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> How do i find out which one is failing?


Listening can be a good way; horrible noises are a great clue!

Or pull them and run the manufacturers disk diagnostics.

Check the logs and see if there are disk errors reported, and if do if they refer to hda or hdb


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

If they were both fitted together and are a few years old its probably easier to replace them both as othewise you are going to have to go through all this aggravation again in a few months time.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> How do i find out which one is failing?


Listening can be a good way; horrible noises are a great clue!

Or pull them and run the manufacturers disk diagnostics.

Check the logs and see if there are disk errors reported, and if do if they refer to hda or hdb


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

Got Tivoweb in it but it stopped working and I couldn't be bothered to connect it to the PC at the time.

Might just go for a Samsung 250gb 7200rpm for now. Can't afford a cachecard at the mo.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> Got Tivoweb in it but it stopped working and I couldn't be bothered to connect it to the PC at the time.
> 
> Might just go for a Samsung 250gb 7200rpm for now. Can't afford a cachecard at the mo.


A 250Gb Samsung is going to cost you £50.50 delivered

www.pricerunner.co.uk/computing/storage/harddrives/343358/prices

A 300Gb Samsung is going to cost you £60.45 delivered

www.pricerunner.co.uk/computing/storage/harddrives/518881/prices

A 400Gb Samsung is going to cost you £81 delivered

www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=312836

They all cost around 20p per Gb so it really comes down to what capacity you think you may need. Personally I would have thought the 400Gb hard drive was the better bet in the long run.


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

I would love to go for the 400Gb but I can't afford a cachecard and the memory and the hard drive. 

Just tried doing a backup from my hard drives and drive A sounds like it has a chainsaw in it. Gets to 19% and has an input/output error. 

So will need to order a new drive and wait for someone to PM me the image file. Might go for the 300GB but will that need a cachecard?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> Might go for the 300GB but will that need a cachecard?


The key thing is to avoid having over 150 items in Now Playing. Without a Cachecard at that point the menus start to slow down horribly although everything still works and programs play as normal. The menus slow down horribly again above 350 Now Playing items or so even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM.

300Gb is 350 hours at Basic but only about 100 hours with everything at Best, so even if all your programs only averaged 45 minutes that would only be 133 recordings so you should be ok just about. My recordings seem to average 1 hour but then I record quite a few Grand Prix and films rather than lots of childrens tv programs and cartoons as I hear some people do.


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

Can a cachecard be installed when I alread have the WIFI card installed?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

No, it's one or the other.

Don't worry about it; just be aware that if you do find that the TiVo becomes unbearably sluggish when browsing Now Playing, there is a solution should you need it.


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

Ordered the 300GB, will just wait for the image file now.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jonmalco said:


> Ordered the 300GB, will just wait for the image file now.


I see the 300GB is the same LD series that Blindlemon fits quite a few of in the 400Gb size so it must be fairly quiet and coolish as that's the only kind of drive he likes to fit.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

If it's a Samsung then I'm sure it will be quiet and cool compared to other makes... just not so much so as an HA250JC


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> If it's a Samsung then I'm sure it will be quiet and cool compared to other makes... just not so much so as an HA250JC


Well I have two of the little blighters in my Tivo and my System Information temp has normally been running at a minimum of 37C in cool winter conditions (with my living room at 20C up) up to routinely 43C on hot summer days and 46C as the highest recorded figure on one especially hot day. This is all in the 18 months since they were installed.

When I had the old noisy Quantums (30Gb and 15Gb) for two and a half years they ran consistently in the range 27C to 30C according to the time of year.

I can however confirm that the Samsung drives are very quiet and I never hear any noise from them even when Indexing. This is quite unlike the Quantums that I could always hear when they were Indexing or doing Garbage Clearance (GC) etc.

Surely if the HA250JCs were so good then Samsung would have carried on with the series and come up with models with larger capacities? Or is it all down to marketing and any line that doesn't shift enough units gets axed no matter how well made or high quality it might be?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

There is a slight difference between a 15gb drive and a 250gb one 

The HA250JC is the coolest and quietest 250gb drive around. To compare it with a 15gb drive is nonsense - a bit like comparing the petrol consumption of an M3 and a Reliant Robin. 

As to why they were discontinued - most likely because Joe Public (whoever he is) has very little reason to prefer a very cool, very quiet drive over a slightly noisier and hotter one, especially when Samsung's 7200rpm drives are so good anyway. Clearly, it will be more efficient for them to standardise on 7200rpm drives if the demand for 5400rpm ones isn't overwhelming. History is littered with examples of superior products that were discontinued, compromised or forced out of the market because the public were too gullible to realise the alternatives were inferior.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> There is a slight difference between a 15gb drive and a 250gb one


Hang on what about my 30Gb Quantum?  



> History is littered with examples of superior products that were discontinued, compromised or forced out of the market because the public were too gullible to realise the alternatives were inferior.


Betamax vs VHS and of course Tivo vs Sky+  :down:


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Hang on what about my 30Gb Quantum?


You were comparing a 30gb drive and a 15gb drive with a pair of 250gb drives. So you were comparing one 250gb drive with a 15gb drive and the other 250gb drive with a 30gb drive. Clearly, I chose the most extreme example to illustrate my point, but it's just as valid for the 30gb drive.

If you expect 2x 250gb drives to be as cool as a 30+15gb pair then you're living in cloud cuckoo land  

However, as you have admitted, they're certainly _quieter_


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> However, as you have admitted, they're certainly _quieter_


And I'm sure 37C or even 46C is within the specified operating limits of the disk.

I'm also sure though that I once remember a discussion in this forum that as long as something was operating withing the manufacturer's specified temperature range then the fact that the operating temp was at the upper end of the range had no impact on longevity.

On the other hand I seem to recall that you have tended to express the view that the higher the running temp of a hard drive of any particular model then the shorter on average will be its life expectancy.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Higher temperatures are worse for drives; lower are better. There's no magic cut-off point AFAIK, but clearly the cooler it runs the better.

If a drive running at 100C is _much_ more likely to fail early than a drive running at 20C, then a drive running at 50C is probably _somewhat _more likely to fail early than one running at 40C - so which would you prefer to fit in your TiVo?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> If a drive running at 100C is _much_ more likely to fail early than a drive running at 20C, then a drive running at 50C is probably _somewhat _more likely to fail early than one running at 40C - so which would you prefer to fit in your TiVo?


But if I recall the views expressed a while back by one iankb then as long as a product has been designed to run at 50C then there is no reason at all why it should not last as long as one only designed to run at 20C.

For instance fully synthetic oils for cars have enabled engines to run much hotter and much longer without the engine oil being changed than their predecessors. Ditto fluid bearings in hard drives may well achieve the same kind of thing.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You're not going to drag me into an argument by proxy with Ian over this 

Which would you prefer to fit in your TiVo - a drive that runs at 30C or one that runs at 50C?


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

My comment was that temperature changes (as with powering up and powering down) are far more likely to stress mechanical parts, and to trigger drive failures, than the actual temperature that it runs at. Obviously, a hotter-running drive will experience a bigger temperature change on startup than a cooler-running drive. Also, a hotter-running drive is not as environmentally-friendly, nor as cheap to run, as a cooler-running drive. Also a hotter-running drive will pass more heat on to surrounding components.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> My comment was that temperature changes (as with powering up and powering down) are far more likely to stress mechanical parts, and to trigger drive failures, than the actual temperature that it runs at. Obviously, a hotter-running drive will experience a bigger temperature change on startup than a cooler-running drive. Also, a hotter-running drive is not as environmentally-friendly, nor as cheap to run, as a cooler-running drive. Also a hotter-running drive will pass more heat on to surrounding components.


And of course smaller 4200rpm drives like the old 15Gb and 30Gb Quantums run even cooler but a lot more noisily....

I still think though that the main issue is whether the motherboard components on a Tivo were not designed to withstand operating at up to 46C rather than 30C though. Strangely my Tivo has taken to running at only 34C and 35C over the last couple of weeks instead of the usual minimum 37C. Perhaps this is because the outside wall immediately behind it is a lot cooler at this time of year, even though the living room temp is not dropping below 20C due to central heating.

I can't quite see how a hotter drive is actually more expensive to run in terms of electricity as my Maplin power consumption meter says my Tivo only draws 37W (it draws 30W during startup but this changes to 37W as soon as the MHEG encoder cuts in) and the manufacturer quoted power consumption for the unit with much cooler Quantim drives is actually 40W.


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I can't quite see how a hotter drive is actually more expensive to run in terms of electricity as my Maplin power consumption meter says my Tivo only draws 37W (it draws 30W during startup but this changes to 37W as soon as the MHEG encoder cuts in) and the manufacturer quoted power consumption for the unit with much cooler Quantim drives is actually 40W.


Conservation of energy  it's one of the fundamental laws of physics.

If the drive runs hotter it's outputting more energy as heat, this energy, in whatever form must come from somewhere & as the mains lead is the only source that must be it. Therefore it uses more electricity & hence more expensive to run.
I doubt it will bankrupt anyone but the increase is there all the same.

As for the 40w figure I suspect that may be a maximum rather than continuous value.


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

What different comands would I need to do to restore from a CD image?

The PC is old and has no room for the image file. Can't use my main PC as SATA drive.

Would I do 

restore -x -s 300 -zpi -r 4 /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

But mount /mnt/dos to the CD drive?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Yes, that should work.

Boot from the LBA48 CD and remember to run copykern after the restore, specifying hdc and kernel option 1.

(You will need to unmount the LBA48 CD before running the restore and then mount it again afterwards to use copykern.)


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

Managed to get the image file on the hda. I seem to have to partitions on the drive, old dell system so one is probably a restoration drive.

Hard drive came but stuck now.

I follow the instructions and enter in restore command with the -r 4 but all it does is display the options list.

What am I doing wrong?

These are the commands I did

mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
restore -x -s 300 -zpi -r 4 /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

Please help


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

I tried entering the command 

restore -s 300 -r 4 -zxpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

and it says straight away

Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself

But it is a 300GB drive and it seems to pick it up as that when I do shift and Page Up. Confused.


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## jonmalco (Jan 8, 2003)

Think I have got it.

Had to use hda2 not hda1


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