# Does this sound like drive failure?



## jonstatt (Jan 10, 2006)

I have had my Tivo since day 1 in the UK. It has been fine until now. I know that picture break-up can be a sign of the hard disc failing, but my symptoms are slightly more complex so would appreciate a second opinion.

What is happening is that when I go to the Tivo guide screen, sometimes it starts displaying the program details VERY slowly...line by line. Clearly the Tivo is working overtime to display the program information. As a result, it gets behind in its CPU cycles, and the picture starts to break up as well. The picture can break up at times other than when I am displaying the program guide, such as when a program is about to record, or Tivo is doing any kind of processing, such as downloading new program data or its internal management...or just when a program ends and a new one begins (as Tivo is aware of the program change).

However, its not always like this..and sometimes, just a few moments after dramatic guide screen slow-down, it suddenly starts displaying everything superquick again!

I have tried a complete wipe of absolutely everthing, and invoking the GSOD and using options 57 and 58. They make no difference at all.

Does this sound like a hard drive on its way out, or some other weird failure such as the CPU running slow?

Jonathan


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Hi Jonathan - and welcome to the forum 

I agree they are not typical symptoms, but what you describe could certainly be caused by a failing drive requiring lots of retries to read certain sectors.


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## jonstatt (Jan 10, 2006)

Thanks for the welcome. Actually I have been lurking here for a long time...even during the days of the Beta for version 2.

I am going to try a disk swap sometimes this week. Hoepfully that will be it. As you said, its most likely doing retries reading some bad sectors. 

Could you clarify, the serial number of the box (i.e what tells the Tivo service who you are). Is that something stored on the disc or burnt into firmware on the box?

Jonathan


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## mike0151 (Dec 13, 2001)

It is held on a chip on the m/b (and is copied to the hard drive IIRC).

HTH
Mike


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