# Tivo Bolt stuck at Almost there



## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

I have a Tivo Bolt (500 GB), used only for OTA, no cable card installed. Upon turning on the TV, I was greeted by the "Almost there, a few more minutes message". Reboot did not help. I get the initial Tivo splash screen, then after several long minutes of no signal to the TV, the "Almost there" message appears. The lights are not flashing, upon power up I get green, and a brief flash of yellow, but remains green in the end.

Going down the failed hard drive path, I decided to try an old 3.5 drive (230 GB) I had laying around to confirm, only to discover the same problem - Almost there. When initially inserted, all the lights flashed for a little, but eventually stopped - I guess this is part of the format and unrecognized drive. I know it formatted the drive as it was unreadable when installed back into a PC, which required a reformat to be recognized by Windows.

Now I'm not convinced it's the drive. Does anyone have any ideas? There isn't much information on the bootup sequence for these, so hard to troubleshoot. I'm hesitant to send it in for repair if it's something I can do on my own. Do I have a more serious problem?


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

Try a different power supply, one they ship with is barely able to supply enough power.
Preferably one with more amperage than the stock one.
There is one on Amazon that has been posted here more than a couple times.


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## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

I'm trying to understand the reasoning for the failure mode of the power adapter. It obviously powers up the unit, but what is the explanation for what is happening to convince me to go this direction?


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

vjquan said:


> I'm trying to understand the reasoning for the failure mode of the power adapter. It obviously powers up the unit, but what is the explanation for what is happening to convince me to go this direction?


Why do we need to "convince" you? What else are you going to do? Yeah, we can (and probably will) give you the additional information you crave, but you do not need to make it sound like it is up to us to work to convince you that your easiest next step is what you should actually do.


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## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

Sure, I'd try it if I had one readily available and laying around, but I'd hate to purchase one only to find it didn't help. I like to have some sort of reasonable doubt that this could be it, and I'd love for it to be - just looking for the science behind it. The power adapter does put out 12.25 V, but I'm unable to determine current output. I've searched and still searching, but haven't found any smoking gun, hence, the craving that can be had at this forum.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

The current output is printed right on the power supply. This issue and the reasons why we recommend it are well documented on this forum - if you crave that knowledge so much, perhaps you should do a little more research with your time here. Sometimes testing requires substitution of known-good parts, with no guarantee that such a substitution will fix the problem. Not everything in the world is free. Unless you have the equipment and knowledge to test the power brick under load, you have no other option available to rule this part out as your failure point.

I repeat my first question - What else are you going to do? You certainly have not give us enough information to reasonably suggest other tests, especially since what we have already recommended is the usual suspect.

Your initial test of replacing the drive was a good idea, but may have ruled nothing out at all, depending on the actual details. The Bolt is very touchy about what drives will actually work, so unless you tested with one of the ones that is known to be on the good list, you cannot now say you know the problem is not the drive. Secondly, you said you tested with a 3.5" drives, but you did not say if it was powered externally or if you tried to use the internal power connection. 3.5" drives often have different power requirements than 2.5", and even if your test drive does not, if the issue is lack of necessary current from your power supply, you may have simply added more unknown questions by substituting a more power-hungry large drive in the same circuit as the original small drive. Did you check the drive labels to compare power consumption? Did you look up the drives on-line to compare peak power loads?

If it was my box, I would first test with a known-good power supply, then I would try replacing the drive with one that is known to work with the Bolt, using an external power supply to the drive. Those two tests will rule out 99% of all Bolt failures.


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## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

Ok, new power adapter arrived, 12V 5A - no joy. Tried the 3.5 HDD with new adapter, also no joy. What are the chances of it being an incompatible drive? I would expect some other result if that were the case. If I send it in to Weaknees for diagnostic repair services, I'm not even sure they can fix it and I'll just loose my diagnostic fee. Opinions?


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## KevTech (Apr 15, 2014)

It was already suggested to try using a drive that is known to work with the Bolt.
Smallest drive the Bolt has is 500GB I think so maybe it has an issue with a 230GB drive.



V7Goose said:


> then I would try replacing the drive with one that is known to work with the Bolt


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## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

I took the original 500GB drive and put it in a PC. Initialized and format, now usable by the PC. Did a disk check as well. Put back into Tivo and issue returns. I have zero confidence a new drive will make any difference. Will Weaknees be able to fix anything beyond a power supply or hard drive repair?


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## KevTech (Apr 15, 2014)

vjquan said:


> I took the original 500GB drive and put it in a PC. Initialized and format, now usable by the PC. Did a disk check as well. Put back into Tivo and issue returns.


If you formatted the drive for windows you would need to make it raw/unformatted again for the Tivo.
Could just use diskpart or something similar.


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## vjquan (Feb 14, 2009)

Thanks for the suggestion. Tried that as well with no luck.


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