# Hard disc dead?



## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Does this sound like a dead hard disc (as opposed to a PSU or motherboard fault)?

For the last few weeks Tivo has been rendomly restarting, often getting stuck at the Powering Up or Almost There screens. After a cold boot it comes back to life.

But this evening for the first time it's gone to a GSOD and got stuck there.

If it does seem like a disc problem I'll buy a new one and swap it. But don't want to then find it was something else after all.

The box is an unmodified standard UK Tivo, in constant use for five years or so.

Thanks for any pointers.

David


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

After five years it deserves a new hard drive anyway 

A chance does exist the PSU is playing up but I would start with a new hard drive.

Do you know if you had the 2.5.5a upgrade?

This matters if the drive you are selecting is greater than 137Gb as the new disc must then have an image with the current software version to avoid problems.

Automan.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Sounds like the hard drive to me.

If you don't want to face doing the upgrade yourself you can always buy a fully pre-configured hard drive from www.tivoheaven.co.uk or www.tivoland.com


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Thanks for the plug Pete 

Yes, it definitely sounds like a faulty drive to me. 

As Automan says you need to ensure that you get a new drive with the correct software version as most replacement drives these days are > 137gb. At least one of the better suppliers will give you a refund (less a handling charge) if the drive fails to cure your problem, although forum rules prevent me from saying who they are...


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Thanks, blindlemon. That's exactly what I needed to know.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> Thanks, blindlemon. That's exactly what I needed to know.


You could also consider the Tivoheaven Hooch download service that simplifies the process of doing the upgrade yourself on your own desktop PC or even their bare drive configuration service, where you send them your chosen hard drive to upgrade and pay them a modest fee to configure it.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

On the other hand if your current Tivo is not lifetime subbed you might want to check out www.ebay.co.uk as a Tivo with a Lifetime Sub, Cachecard and 512MB of RAM now often sells for a remarkably modest price. Especially in these times of collapsing stockmarkets when everybody is feeling pessimistic.......


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

There are log entries that could help determine if the drive is failing. Can you access them?


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Pete, thanks for the tips.

Ciper, what's the method for accessing the log entries? At the moment I can't get beyond the GSOD.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

If you have a spare PC that you can put the TiVo drive in and boot from the SiliconDust NIC CD then you can mount the /var partition (9) and check the logs.

However, if you are stuck in a GSOD the likelihood that it's due to drive corruption is very high.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Blindlemon, I've just signed up for a Hooch download. Looking forward to rolling my sleeves up!


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

OK, back in business with Hooch and a new £20 drive. Touch wood, Tivo working fine so far...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> OK, back in business with Hooch and a new £20 drive. ..


What drive size did you get for £20? 120Gb perhaps?


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

No, just 40gb - a direct replacement for the original drive.

Recording capacity has never been an issue in our house, and we seem to watch less and less TV. 

Do you know of a 120gb disc for £20?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> No, just 40gb - a direct replacement for the original drive.
> 
> Recording capacity has never been an issue in our house, and we seem to watch less and less TV.
> 
> Do you know of a 120gb disc for £20?


No I don't but you can get a 250Gb drive for about £40 and a 400Gb drive for about £60.

Don't forget that 250Gb at Best recording mode is only just over 80 hours of recording time.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

I'm a cheapskate, I know it.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Well, it lasted a day. Then when I turned on the TV, nothing but a grey screen. No message.

A cold reboot brought it back to life, but for how long? It's obviously still not happy.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

No message at all means the drive was not recognised by the TiVo BIOS.

Are you sure your £20 replacerment drive is 100% healthy? I would recommend using Samsung drives for TiVos - they are very quiet, reliable and reasonably priced


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Hmm, it booted fine after the Hooch process and again after a cold boot, just died somewhere in between.

The drive is a brand new Maxtor DiamondMax VL.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> The drive is a brand new Maxtor DiamondMax VL.


But its still a Maxtor. And I wouldn't think they have made any new 40Gb 3.5" IDE drives for quite a long time.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

gadg said:


> The drive is a brand new Maxtor DiamondMax VL.


"Brand new" and "Diamondmax VL" don't sit easy in the same sentence. A quick flick around showed no VL drives on sale anymore.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> "Brand new" and "Diamondmax VL" don't sit easy in the same sentence. A quick flick around showed no VL drives on sale anymore.


I don't think the OP has yet explained where he acquired it from. One suspects that rather than new it may perhaps even have been free.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

£20ish @ cclonline.com ?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> £20ish @ cclonline.com ?


Would that be the same CCL where a 250Gb Samsung drive is only £36.99 

See:- www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=7164&category_id=111&manufacturer_id=0&tid=2514n


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

The very same. They're my regular local supplier.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> The very same. They're my regular local supplier.


Do you recall Monty Python's The Parrot Sketch. How about returning to CCL and trying it out in respect of this drive.  

You might like to major on where they actually got these drives from and the fact that you have a suspicion that they may well be refurbished stock etc, etc.

But in all seriousness members of this forum have often had very bad experiences with Maxtor drives (especially the DiamondMax series) so my suggestion would be to see if they will take it back and let you have a 250Gb Samsung IDE drive instead, after all its more expensive (which ought to help) and they must know in their heart of hearts that the 40Gb DiamondMaxes are only fit for the local tip.

Just out of interest how do you currently pay for your Tivo subscription? Also remember how much you pay per annum just for a BBC tv licence. Surely another 20 quid for a decent near silent hard drive that will probably last 3 or 4 years is not going to break the bank?


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

You're probably right. I'll see if it dies again over the next few days and take it back if it does. 

But this is assuming that it's the disc and not something else entirely that's doing it. The mobo must also be suspect given that for a year or so it has exhibited strange ghosting artefacts (black lines) when - and only when - Auxing through to the freesat box.

Sub was paid for up front, BTW .


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

gadg said:


> But this is assuming that it's the disc and not something else entirely that's doing it. The mobo must also be suspect given that for a year or so it has exhibited strange ghosting artefacts (black lines) when - and only when - Auxing through to the freesat box.


I have a Tivo here a house clearer tried to sell me as working that has nothing but waivy lines on the SCART output as well as a broken hard drive (lines still waivy when I put the original drives from my good Tivo in it though). Fortunately PayPal persuaded him to refund me and although he did mutter about getting me to send the Tivo back (which was going to cost me at least 15 quid for something that didnt work and couldn't be fixed) he hasn't bothered chasing and I still have my refund.

Still sounds like its the hard drive though. Its rattling round in the back of my mind from a while ago that people had found that certain DiamondMax drives just wouldn't work properly in a Tivo at all. Some sort of basic incompatibility in terms of power consumption etc was involved.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

That was the Diamondmax 10 series. The 40gb VL are different (although naturally still crap as they're made by Maxtor).

I would *strongly *recommend stumping up the extra £16.99 and swapping the drive for the 250gb Samsung - which is a far better drive and over 6 times the capacity! For the record, I'm a cheapskate too, but the last place you want to 'economise' is on bying hard drives for your TiVo - feed the family on bread & water for a couple of days instead!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> For the record, I'm a cheapskate too


Yet your own Tivo upgrading business is possibly based on the fact that the non cheapskates don't mind paying a substantial premium in order to have a job done right first time.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Well, it restarted itself again overnight, this time getting stuck at the Welcome, Powering Up screen - which was what it was doing before the disc swap.

I' going to try and exchange the Maxtor today but does it still sound like that's the problem? Am I throwing good money after bad chasing ever more expensive discs?

How do Hitachi and Western Digital discs stack up?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

It sounds like a drive problem. Either that or your IDE cable is faulty.

There is still a _slight_ change that you may have a PSU problem, but a failing PSU will normally manifest different symptoms to those you describe. And as for the cost of the Samsung drive, I would hardly describe an extra £16 for 6x the capacity as "good money after bad" 

I wouldn't use Hitachi or WD drives in a TiVo either - although I suspect some people do. Not worth it to save £2 or so IMHO...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I would hardly describe an extra £16 for 6x the capacity as "good money after bad" ...


Not to mention the much greater quietness of a Samsung drive vs a Maxtor one.

As this unit has a Lifetime Sub if the worst comes to the worst then it ought to be possible to pick up a healthy but unsubscribed unit on Ebay and persuade Tivo customer services to transfer the sub across. This is only usually difficult when you try to transfer a sub from a Tivo Lifetime machine on which you are not the officially registered owner with customer services.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Well, the Maxtor drive tested fine. Nevertheless, I swapped it a new 160gb Western Digital, hooched it and... Tivo crashed in the middle of guided setup. Got stuck on Welcome, Powering Up for several minutes, then continued. This is not looking promising.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Hmm, I have to agree that it's looking more and more like something other than a drive fault. 

Have you tried a different IDE cable? 

You could also try changing the PSU, but aside from that it would have to be a motherboard problem


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

After several more self-imposed reboots, it's come up with a blue screen saying the internal temperature was too high - the system has shut down to avoid damage to the hardware.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Interesting....

There is a way to disable the temperature sensor if that goes beserk (happened to a friend's TiVo) but I somehow suspect that isn't really your problem. 

Might be time to pick up a 'spare' TiVo on eBay and think about calling TiVo CS...


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## BrianHughes (Jan 21, 2001)

Is the fan running?


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Yes, the fan's running. But I suspect something on the mobo is fried.

Going to try one more time with yet another drive and if that fails I'll sell the unit on Ebay for spares.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Don't sell it for spares until you have transferred the sub to your new 'spare' machine


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Have been persevering with yet another hard disc and a new IDE cable. No more "overheating" messages but no joy with guided setup, either - it reboots half way through and gets stuck in a "Welcome, Powering Up" loop before eventually re-starting GS.

I suppose the cachecard error messages I get on bootup (there is no cachecard installed) are not relevant here?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Not at all - the cachecard drivers don't do anything (apart from give an error message) if there's no cachecard installed. 

The only other thing you could try before accepting that it's a motherboard fault would be to change the PSU, although I doubt that is the problem.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

OK, thanks. I'll let you know how I get on.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

It lives... just! 

Finally got through GS after many forced restarts. The box now works normally except is prone to frequent random reboots, on average twice a day. Sometimes it will simply restart, other times it will stick in a 'Welcome, Powering Up' loop, requiring a cold boot. This of course was the original problem before the disc swap.

The plan now is to hopefully limp on until the new Humax freesat PVRs appear next year.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Y


gadg said:


> The plan now is to hopefully limp on until the new Humax freesat PVRs appear next year.


You would be better off buying a working Tivo off Ebay without any faults and getting Tivo CS to transfer the Lifetime Sub across.

Workings unmodified Tivos with no Lifetime Sub sell for £20 or less now plus delivery.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Well, if you've got that far and are just having some random reboots then I would try swapping the PSU now. 

Random reboots can be caused by a flaky PSU going out of tolerance under load.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Well, if you've got that far and are just having some random reboots then I would try swapping the PSU now.


Unfortunately www.tivoland.com has upped the price 3 fold due to increasing scarcity and they are now £12 each + p&p. The other guy selling the power supplies has always charged a much higher price for them.  

That being so its almost as cheap to buy another unmodified Tivo off Ebay which the owner says is in good condition and only being sold due to a Sky HD or V+ upgrade.


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## gadg (Feb 19, 2002)

Thanks, blindlemon, I'll keep that option in mind. Could a faulty psu explain the earlier blue screen "internal temperature too high" error message?

Pete77, thanks - points noted!


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

blindlemon said:


> Well, if you've got that far and are just having some random reboots then I would try swapping the PSU now.
> 
> Random reboots can be caused by a flaky PSU going out of tolerance under load.


Hmm. I sometimes get random reboots immediately after putting it into standby mode. Perhaps that is changing the load enough for the PSU to get upset.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I used to get occasional reboots after going in to standby - but they weren't random: they only happened when I put the TiVo into standby... 

I always assumed it was a software issue.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I used to get occasional reboots after going in to standby - but they weren't random: they only happened when I put the TiVo into standby...


But why does anyone does use Standby? The only time I do is I use the Power off button on my remote to shut the tv off but I didn't actually want the Tivo box to go in to Standby.

I have never had this reboot issue with my Tivo in Standby mode but then TCM has apparently never seen rebooting when using several more demanding Tivoweb apps in succession. I guess our boxes all suffer with different faults related to power shortages of one kind or another.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I don't use standby. 

I pressed the button a few times when I was a newbie and usually got a reboot, so I stopped pressing it


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> But why does anyone does use Standby?


I vaguely recall that putting Tivo onto a channel you don't receive (i.e. no input signal) and then into standby can make external access faster for transfering files off the disc.
Backing up /var has never been that time critical to me so I've never bothered checking


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## verses (Nov 6, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> That being so its almost as cheap to buy another unmodified Tivo off Ebay which the owner says is in good condition and only being sold due to a Sky HD or V+ upgrade.


The risk with doing this is that you could potentially find yourself with another aging/weak power supply that isn't used to the drain put on it by a larger HD/Cachecard/etc and then find yourself back at square one.

Ian


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

AMc said:


> I vaguely recall that putting Tivo onto a channel you don't receive (i.e. no input signal) and then into standby can make external access faster for transfering files off the disc.


That's for US tivos and is a slight speed gain for unmentionables.

UK tivos reboot if they don't receive an input signal for a while.


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## Cainam (May 25, 2004)

I use the Standby button on my Tivo every day for 2 main reasons

1) When Tivo is "on", the TV automatically switches over to that Scart socket. So while I could leave Tivo "on" and use other buttons on the TV remote to choose a different input (analogue TV, freeview, DVD, Archos), it is just much easier to turn Tivo "off" (standby), which causes the TV to switch back to whatever it was on before I turned Tivo "on". If that makes sense 

2) When Tivo is "off" it starts recording suggestions straight away, and does not wait for 30 minutes or whatever of nobody pressing a button on the remote

I have never had it reboot on me yet, making it go into standby (famous last words!)

Cainam


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## threadkiller (Dec 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> But why does anyone does use Standby? The only time I do is I use the Power off button on my remote to shut the tv off but I didn't actually want the Tivo box to go in to Standby.
> 
> I have never had this reboot issue with my Tivo in Standby mode but then TCM has apparently never seen rebooting when using several more demanding Tivoweb apps in succession. I guess our boxes all suffer with different faults related to power shortages of one kind or another.


I'm constantly switching both of mine into standby, its the only way I can get my telly to switch scarts, and I've never had either go into standby because of it


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