# 4 Lights Flashing on Bolt



## JOSHSKORN

*Please Note: This thread is for the Bolt, not Bolt+. I am no longer using the Bolt, I have upgraded to the Bolt+. Considering the Bolt+ has a 3TB HDD, I personally think this is "enough" for me and won't be attempting to upgrade the drive. Bolt+ Users, feel free to report any such 4 Flashing Lights issues on this thread, if you choose to upgrade your drives. The software may be identical, anyways so any behaviors may be the same regardless if using the Bolt or Bolt+.*

I upgraded my Bolt to 4TBs a few months ago. It was working fine until this week. TWICE, there were instances were all four lights were flashing. The first time, I just unplugged my Bolt for 20 minutes. This fixed the problem. It didn't work tonight.

I will say that I had Verizon FiOS Internet/TV/Phone. Starting in April, Verizon sold off their lines in a few states to Frontier. I'm one of those states (in California).

So here's the question. What exactly is the problem? Is it my TV provider going out? (which could be the case considering there had been several complaints about Frontier since the switch) Is there something wrong w/ my Bolt? (hard drive, firmware update)? I noticed that my Bolt had been running hot this week, but to be honest, I hadn't checked on heat prior to the problem.

EDIT 5/14/2016


Make - STDR4000100
Drive type - Internal
Installation Method - Installed drive, run setup to 1st screen, unplugged it, plugged into PC, ran MFSR1003.zip, plugged back into TIVO and re-ran setup to finish, done.
Date of Hard Drive Upgrade 3/13/2016 - Was working flawlessly until 5/13/2016
Confirmed that my Frontier FiOS cable service is working just fine (still had DVR) and that the culprit is my TiVo Bolt.
Possible that the 20.6.1 Update caused a problem??

EDIT 5/15/2016

I E-mailed TiVo support on 5/14/2016. Heard back the next day. I explained that I have a TiVo Bolt 500 GB with 4 lights flashing and have owned it for a few months and that it worked fine up until the last few days when the update was pushed out.
I tried their suggestion: Unplug the CableCARD and everything else, except for the HDMI, then plug the Power cable back in. For me, this included the CableCARD, Power cable and Coax cable. This did nothing.
A friend of mine installed the 4TB HDD. It had worked fine since Mid-March. When I have a chance, I'll have him come over and swap the old one back in.
EDIT 11/11/2016

If you decided to purchase the STDR4000100, check the firmware version before you do ANYTHING. I'm not sure how to do it. If you have firmware version 0004, do not even bother. It will not work. If your firmware version is 0001, it probably will work. Chances are, if you buy this drive NEW, it'll have the most updated firmware, 0004, unless there's a newer firmware revision.

Source: Starting with Post #366 - 4TB 2.5" drive for Bolt

There IS another solution, but it's not pretty. Search around the forum for those that've replaced the SATA cable, and either cut a hole in the back of the Bolt and mounted the port to it, or left the cover open and plugged the cable in. In either case, you have to purchase a WD Red HDD and put it inside a specific Rosewill external enclosure, so you can manage the temperature. You are limited to an 8TB HDD. The cable is probably $5 and the external enclosure is about $40, give or take. I will caution you in saying that I have not followed up with individuals that have tried this approach to see if their Bolts are still working or not. If you have the Seagate drive, do not even try to purchase this particular enclosure, along with a bay size converter. It won't fix your problems. I tried that and still got the same issues. Had I known about the link posted above beforehand, I wouldn't have bothered, but unfortunately this information came out much later.

EDIT 11/21/2016 (To Be Continued)
Here are a list of known drives that will fail, that is, may or may work under certain conditions and may end up failing after an unspecific amount of time.


*Seagate - STDR4000100* - This drive may work if and only if the firmware on the drive is 0001. You must have purchased this drive early on for such condition to exist. If you have this drive, return it if you can and get something different or use it for a different application. Use Seagate Tools for Windows to determine which firmware version you have, if it's not listed on the device itself
EDIT 11/22/2017 (To Be Continued)

Wow I haven't edited this OP in just over a year. I've had zero problems with my Bolt+. I highly recommend the upgrade, even though it may be costly, and there may not be a guarantee that TiVo would transfer the service over. I'm not sure how that works.

I plan on editing this post again very soon, so stay tuned. For now, I do not recommend trying to upgrade your Bolt's Hard Drive. Even the user who had reported no problems on both of their Bolts, finally started having an issue on one of their Bolts. They were using the aforementioned Seagate drive, Firmware 001. So, it doesn't sound like having Firmware 001 is a sure bet, but more along the lines of "YMMV".

I'm going to do some research on what users have reported, using the other solution for expanding the drive, which is replacing the exiting SATA cable with something that connects to an external HDD. That will be my next update. Considering that I haven't really looked into this in over a year, I haven't kept up. So, it'll take me some time to do the research, but I'll try and compile it sooner, than later.


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## mark1958

JOSHSKORN said:


> I upgraded my Bolt to 4TBs a few months ago. It was working fine until this week. TWICE, there were instances were all four lights were flashing. The first time, I just unplugged my Bolt for 20 minutes. This fixed the problem. It didn't work tonight.
> 
> I will say that I had Verizon FiOS Internet/TV/Phone. Starting in April, Verizon sold off their lines in a few states to Frontier. I'm one of those states (in California).
> 
> So here's the question. What exactly is the problem? Is it my TV provider going out? (which could be the case considering there had been several complaints about Frontier since the switch) Is there something wrong w/ my Bolt? (hard drive, firmware update)? I noticed that my Bolt had been running hot this week, but to be honest, I hadn't checked on heat prior to the problem.


I think you need to give everyone a little more information to be able to help you better.

1. Make of drive ?
2. Internal or external ?
3. Method of drive preparation ?

If it is internal there is a thread dedicated to just that ( http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=532579 )

My sister had me upgrade hers to an external and she has had no problems other than the DVRdaddy 3.5 Inch enclosure (my personal opinion poor quality and fit and finish Beware!) which arrived Doa.
Here is the link to the external mod: ( http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001 )
Good luck hope this helps.


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## JOSHSKORN

mark1958 said:


> 1. Make of drive ?
> 2. Internal or external ?
> 3. Method of drive preparation ?


1. Make - STDR4000100
2. Internal
3. Installed drive, run setup to 1st screen, unplugged it, plugged into PC, ran MFSR1003.zip, plugged back into TIVO and re-ran setup to finish, done.

I looked at that other thread, I don't see anyone reporting that problem.


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## nyjklein

Same setup. Same symptom. Seems to have started after the 20.6.1 update. Mine's been hanging with the four lights flashing about once a day since the update.

Jeff


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## JOSHSKORN

nyjklein said:


> Same setup. Same symptom. Seems to have started after the 20.6.1 update. Mine's been hanging with the four lights flashing about once a day since the update.
> 
> Jeff


Who is your cable provider? I'm thinking the problem MIGHT have to do with the update but I want to narrow it down. Again,I was on Verizon FiOS but now am on Frontier FiOS (since Verizon sold their lines in California (and other states) to Frontier).

Is there any way to rollback the update and prevent it from updating again?

EDIT: I still hadn't returned my DVR to Verizon (now Frontier) when I installed the TiVo Bolt/TiVo Minis. I unplugged one of my minis and re-installed the DVR. I can confirm that my cable service (Frontier FiOS) is working just fine, and that the culprit is indeed my TiVo Bolt. The question still remains: What's wrong with my TiVo Bolt? It seems to be all centered around the 20.6.1 update from this week, but why and how can it be resolved (if possible)?


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## JOSHSKORN

I went ahead and contacted TiVo support regarding the problem. What I told them was that I have 4 lights flashing rapidly and it has been happening over almost the last week I think it happened Wednesday night, I power cycled it and it seemed to have worked fine after that, but on Friday night, it happened again and a power cycle did not work. This was all I mentioned. I did not mention the fact that I'd swapped out my TiVo hard drive for a larger one. I figured that if I would have, they wouldn't have helped me, since this (probably) voids my warranty.

Their response was to unplug everything except for the HDMI cable (even remove the CableCARD), then plug in only the power. Unfortunately, this did not work. Still, all 4 lights were flashing. They also claimed that my TiVo Bolt had been working "several days" before this started so they could not "assume" that the update was the cause of this. I was also told there is no way to rollback an update.

Has anyone tried plugging in the original hard drive to resolve the issue? I have not done this, yet.


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## foghorn2




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## JOSHSKORN

foghorn2 said:


>


Not funny. Spam. Reported.


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## foghorn2

It's actually quite amusing. You upgraded the Bolt, broke the warranty and now you call Tivo for support.

Why haven't you put the original drive back in to see if it works before calling Tivo?


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## JOSHSKORN

foghorn2 said:


> It's actually quite amusing. You upgraded the Bolt, broke the warranty and now you call Tivo for support.
> 
> Why haven't you put the original drive back in to see if it works before calling Tivo?


Did I say I "called" them? No, I said I "contacted" them. You do know there are different ways to contact someone, right? Unless you've been living in the 1800s.

No I haven't plugged in my old drive. I didn't do the upgrade, a friend of mine did. I haven't had a chance to have him come over and help me out with this.


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## foghorn2

Your first post implies you did the upgrade, it even specifies what was done. Contacted, chatted whatever, same difference.

Hope the original drive fixes it. Tivo sells the DVR Expander which is the only drive they support if you need more space.


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## mark1958

JOSHSKORN said:


> I went ahead and contacted TiVo support regarding the problem. What I told them was that I have 4 lights flashing rapidly and it has been happening over almost the last week I think it happened Wednesday night, I power cycled it and it seemed to have worked fine after that, but on Friday night, it happened again and a power cycle did not work. This was all I mentioned. I did not mention the fact that I'd swapped out my TiVo hard drive for a larger one. I figured that if I would have, they wouldn't have helped me, since this (probably) voids my warranty.
> 
> Their response was to unplug everything except for the HDMI cable (even remove the CableCARD), then plug in only the power. Unfortunately, this did not work. Still, all 4 lights were flashing. They also claimed that my TiVo Bolt had been working "several days" before this started so they could not "assume" that the update was the cause of this. I was also told there is no way to rollback an update.
> 
> Has anyone tried plugging in the original hard drive to resolve the issue? I have not done this, yet.


I would be careful calling Tivo customer service with a issue like this after
performing a hard drive upgrade, they can pull up their logs and tell you modded your unit and refuse future support. 
link: (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539296&highlight=best+ota+tuners )

Yes I would try to reinstall the original drive and see if that helps it can't hurt


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## BobCamp1

JOSHSKORN said:


> Not funny. Spam. Reported.


It's very funny. It's the first thing I thought of too.

Seriously, have your friend come over and put the original drive back in. FYI he put a questionable drive type in there for the upgrade. I wouldn't be surprised if it's dead already. SMR-type drives are not really designed for DVRs. If it dies it could cause all five lights to flash like that.


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## gor88

I have the Bolt as well with the same problem.

I upgraded to a 3.5 form factor external, the Seagate Expansion STEB4000100. I am using the enclosure's sata power to power the drive externally and an 18" sata 3 cable hooked to the mainboard for the data. The left corner is off with a 9 in fan blowing across the hard drive and over the mainboard in an enclosed cabinet. I too installed the drive using the Ross Walker method and used MFSR to enable the fully capacity of the drive.

I completed the upgrade to the larger hard drive one week ago tonight (5/9/16 @ 9:20pm). About 1.5 hours later, I noticed the CC not working and when going into setup the screen locked and the Bolt tried to reboot, getting the four flashing lights. The next day, sometime between 1 and 5pm, the four blinking lights again. In both cases, I had to unplug and replug the drive's usb and ac adapter power before unplugging and replugging the Bolt. Once done, it restarted.

Thinking outside of the box, I turned off power saving completely and left it on 24/7. It went all the way until last night (5/15/16) sometime after 10:15pm but before 12:22am this morning when it was supposed to attempt the next network update. I did the HDD full replug followed by the Bolt replug at 5:30am this morning and it's been running since.

I haven't been able to notice a pattern on this, other than the unit may stay running longer if not put into Standby.


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## JOSHSKORN

I have no idea what I did, but I somehow got my Bolt running again.

I was a bit impatient, was going to attempt putting in the old hard drive myself, got all the screws out and got chicken about trying to pull the last part off (I got the part that runs over part of the hard drive, off). I went ahead and put it back together. Rather than plugging it completely in, I re-installed my CableCARD, and plugged in my HDMI and Power. It booted up. It told me I had no internet, which was obvious considering I hadn't plugged in my coax and I run off MoCA. I plugged in my coax and it worked. I checked my firmware version and it looked like it upgraded to the newest version 20.6.1. It has so far been running for 6 hours and even recorded my shows that were scheduled. All in all, my TiVo was unplugged for about 2 1/2 days, with the exception of a couple of checks here and there (to see if the 4 lights were still flashing), which took about maybe 10-15 minutes each before I unplugged them.

Is it possible that the new update might have caused overheating issues? Prior to the update, I know my TiVo was running hot and loud, but this seemed normal anyways considering it had been widely reported. On what I consider to be a similar note, I had rooted my Android phone recently and installed different ROMs and kernels, one of which would cause overheating to my phone, but there was a simple fix for that, which was to clear cache. THAT SAID, do we need to do something similar, like clear cache (if that's even possible on a TiVo) and could it be done without losing recordings? Otherwise, is there a way to backup and restore recordings?


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## gor88

mark1958,

Thanks for your recommendation on the HDD enclosure and sata to esata port cable. I have decided that my problem might be related to the crap enclosure that my Seagate drive came in. I ordered the Rosewill Armer and the cable (although it's going to go out the open left side, might do the Exacto knife thing later on).

Given that it seems that 4 blinking lights seems to indicate a problem accessing the HDD, I am thinking something in the enclosure circuit board is periodically causing a power interruption significant enough to put the Bolt into a bad state.

Once done, the only difference between my Bolt and your sister's will be the HDD itself. Hopefully, this will fix the issue for good, fingers crossed. I should know in a few days once the enclosure and cable come in...


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## JOSHSKORN

I also realized that I'm connected to one less mini. I changed it out for the DVD that I hadn't returned yet. Not sure if adding this back into my network might add to the failure.

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## mark1958

gor88 said:


> I have the Bolt as well with the same problem.
> 
> I upgraded to a 3.5 form factor external, the Seagate Expansion STEB4000100. I am using the enclosure's sata power to power the drive externally and an 18" sata 3 cable hooked to the mainboard for the data. The left corner is off with a 9 in fan blowing across the hard drive and over the mainboard in an enclosed cabinet. I too installed the drive using the Ross Walker method and used MFSR to enable the fully capacity of the drive.
> 
> I completed the upgrade to the larger hard drive one week ago tonight (5/9/16 @ 9:20pm). About 1.5 hours later, I noticed the CC not working and when going into setup the screen locked and the Bolt tried to reboot, getting the four flashing lights. The next day, sometime between 1 and 5pm, the four blinking lights again. In both cases, I had to unplug and replug the drive's usb and ac adapter power before unplugging and replugging the Bolt. Once done, it restarted.
> 
> Thinking outside of the box, I turned off power saving completely and left it on 24/7. It went all the way until last night (5/15/16) sometime after 10:15pm but before 12:22am this morning when it was supposed to attempt the next network update. I did the HDD full replug followed by the Bolt replug at 5:30am this morning and it's been running since.
> 
> I haven't been able to notice a pattern on this, other than the unit may stay running longer if not put into Standby.


Glad I could help gor88 hope it works out well for ya, primaryforce had the same issues and it was the enclosure dam Dvrdaddy avoid those like the plague!


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## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> It's very funny. It's the first thing I thought of too.
> 
> Seriously, have your friend come over and put the original drive back in. FYI he put a questionable drive type in there for the upgrade. I wouldn't be surprised if it's dead already. SMR-type drives are not really designed for DVRs. If it dies it could cause all five lights to flash like that.


I've been using two of the 4TB Seagates in my Bolts since October. I've had zero problems with them.


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## JOSHSKORN

aaronwt said:


> I've been using two of the 4TB Seagates in my Bolts since October. I've had zero problems with them.


Do you have any minis on your network?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

JOSHSKORN said:


> Do you have any minis on your network?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


I did have four of them connected the first few months I had my Bolts. But they have been disconnected for several months now. I guess I should at least reconnect my Slingbox 350 to the Mini sometime.


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## JOSHSKORN

OK so I had my Bolt unplugged for 2 days, plugged it back in, and it magically worked. Today after about 6 days, the 4 lights started flashing again. There's only 1 Mini plugged in on my network, although I have 2.

So any ideas?


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## foghorn2

I wonder if the Bolts SATA power port is intelligent and it realises it's not drawing power and after a while it goes into a boot fail mode.


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## gor88

mark1958 said:


> Glad I could help gor88 hope it works out well for ya, primaryforce had the same issues and it was the enclosure dam Dvrdaddy avoid those like the plague!


I got the Rosewill Armer enclosure and the Addonics sata to eSata port cable and installed them Friday evening. So far, so good. I have been putting it back in Standby when not in use, since that seemed to exacerbate the issue. This has been done over a dozen times over the weekend.

I figure that if the problem doesn't return after two full weeks, it should be good to go in the long run.


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## primaryforce

foghorn2 said:


> I wonder if the Bolts SATA power port is intelligent and it realises it's not drawing power and after a while it goes into a boot fail mode.


I don't think so. When installing my external 6TB HDD, I disconnected the 4 pin power connector on the mother board for the internal hard drive without any issues. No sense to power the internal drive if it is not being used. I left the internal drive physically mounted just in case I have revert back for technical support and so I don't miss place the drive.


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## JOSHSKORN

Questions:


Is the culprit of the 4 lights flashing the 4TB HDD overheating?
What would be a good enclosure for my existing 4TB HDD, should I mod my Bolt?
Is there such an enclosure that I could store both Bolt and the enclosure for my 2.5" HDD? I don't need anything large, just big enough to fit the two.


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## jhmanning3

Going back to Joshshkorn May 14 original post, I have the same internal hard drive setup you have listed, but my cable provider is with Charter. Within the last month or so I have begun to experience the blinking light issue as well and the Bolt won't respond. I have to unplug/re-plug the power supply to the bolt so it will begin responding properly. I've had the bolt freak out while I was using it, resulting in the blinking lights. Same process, re-power it. I checked the internal temp after one of these live episodes and it was fine. So I'm also beginning to wonder if the latest update is causing the issues. I installed my 4 tb hard drive in Feb 2016.


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## nyjklein

Too many instances of the same symptom with the exact same configuration to not be related to the most recent update. Mine was a bit unstable before the update, i.e. a spontaneous reboot maybe a couple of times a week. Since the 2.6.1 update, the 4 blinking lights hang happens almost every day, sometimes more than once a day.

I just haven't had time to open it up and put the original drive back to see if that resolves it. I was also hoping that the people that chose to use an external case to house their "internal" SATA drive were getting a more reliable experience. But I think I've seen a couple of people with that external arrangement also post about the 4 blinking lights here.

Jeff


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## JOSHSKORN

nyjklein said:


> Too many instances of the same symptom with the exact same configuration to not be related to the most recent update. Mine was a bit unstable before the update, i.e. a spontaneous reboot maybe a couple of times a week. Since the 2.6.1 update, the 4 blinking lights hang happens almost every day, sometimes more than once a day.
> 
> I just haven't had time to open it up and put the original drive back to see if that resolves it. I was also hoping that the people that chose to use an external case to house their "internal" SATA drive were getting a more reliable experience. But I think I've seen a couple of people with that external arrangement also post about the 4 blinking lights here.
> 
> Jeff


That's good to know...in a way. I was thinking about going through the trouble in cutting my case to use an external hard drive on the internal line. If you come across any posts/proof, please link so you can potentially help others considering the same thing.

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## mark1958

gor88 said:


> I got the Rosewill Armer enclosure and the Addonics sata to eSata port cable and installed them Friday evening. So far, so good. I have been putting it back in Standby when not in use, since that seemed to exacerbate the issue. This has been done over a dozen times over the weekend.
> 
> I figure that if the problem doesn't return after two full weeks, it should be good to go in the long run.


Good to here, my sister's has been running flawlessly since she has had it I have to think yours will too.


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## foghorn2

Is it only the ones with 4 TB's, thats the pattern I've seen so far.


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## mark1958

JOSHSKORN said:


> Questions:
> 
> 
> Is the culprit of the 4 lights flashing the 4TB HDD overheating?
> What would be a good enclosure for my existing 4TB HDD, should I mod my Bolt?
> Is there such an enclosure that I could store both Bolt and the enclosure for my 2.5" HDD? I don't need anything large, just big enough to fit the two.


Post #36 has the enclosure that I used for my sister's Bolt.
You would have to pickup a 3.5" to 2.5" drive adapter but they are cheap.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001


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## JOSHSKORN

foghorn2 said:


> Is it only the ones with 4 TB's, thats the pattern I've seen so far.


After I created this topic, someone pointed out to me that there was one on "4TB on Bolt". I wasn't happy with the title thread so I made this one. I'll post this same idea here.

From what I understand, this particular problem with the 4 lights flashing seems to revolve around not only 4TB HDD, but also the most recent update. Based on what I've seen or heard, my assumption is that it may or may not have nothing to do with overheating of the Bolt, granted my Bolt does run hot. This may have been the case prior to the recent update, and I just didn't notice. Secondly, I'm not so convinced that the problem has anything to do with SMR vs PMR, granted, I really have no clue what the difference actually is. The reason I say that, is because my Bolt ran just fine for 6 weeks or so with the 4TB HDD. So, we're back to the update. What I'd like to know, is, just what did the update do to our 4TB hard drives or the Bolt's ability to recognize the 4TB HDD correctly? I'm GUESSING the fact that the HDD being 4TB has little significance. What MIGHT BE significant, is that we're dealing with 32-bit software. Another piece of this puzzle thought is that I'd heard that even those that have further modified their Bolt to have a SATA line run out through a hole to accommodate even 3.5" drives (translation: other 4TB and up drives) have also had the problem.

That said: What if we started over? That is, bite the bullet, remove the 4TB HDD from the Bolt, plugged it into a PC, reformatted it (thus losing our data), and started the installation process over again? That is, run to 1st screen, unplug, run the reformatting tool, then plug back in and complete the setup. Would that have any significant change?


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## primaryforce

JOSHSKORN - I gave up on using the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus internal 2.5 inch drive. The number of resets became unacceptable. I elected to go with an external 6TB WD Red using the eSATA modification suggested by Mark1958. It was working great for a couple of days until I received the 20.6.1 update. Immediately after the update, the Bolt started "4 Lights Flashing." I checked all the connections and even reformatted the drive but every time the Bolt started to boot the lights flashed. I had to reinstall the original 500GB to get up and running. Mark1958 suspected I had a defective external SATA case (DVR_Daddy) which turned out to be the problem. Replacing the SATA case with a Rosewill enclosure resolved the issue. I think the "4 Lights Flashing" is the error code resulting from the Bolt not communicating properly to the hard drive. I guess mine was just a strange coincidence that the DVR_Daddy failed when I received the software update.


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## unknownpa

JOSHSKORN said:


> Did I say I "called" them? No, I said I "contacted" them. You do know there are different ways to contact someone, right? Unless you've been living in the 1800s.
> 
> No I haven't plugged in my old drive. I didn't do the upgrade, a friend of mine did. I haven't had a chance to have him come over and help me out with this.


You need to calm down. If anything, you're the OP and have the most posts contributing to off-topic complaints that outnumber the off topic posts.


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## JOSHSKORN

primaryforce said:


> JOSHSKORN - I gave up on using the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus internal 2.5 inch drive. The number of resets became unacceptable. I elected to go with an external 6TB WD Red using the eSATA modification suggested by Mark1958. It was working great for a couple of days until I received the 20.6.1 update. Immediately after the update, the Bolt started "4 Lights Flashing." I checked all the connections and even reformatted the drive but every time the Bolt started to boot the lights flashed. I had to reinstall the original 500GB to get up and running. Mark1958 suspected I had a defective external SATA case (DVR_Daddy) which turned out to be the problem. Replacing the SATA case with a Rosewill enclosure resolved the issue. I think the "4 Lights Flashing" is the error code resulting from the Bolt not communicating properly to the hard drive. I guess mine was just a strange coincidence that the DVR_Daddy failed when I received the software update.


Can you provide a link for the product page or a link to Amazon?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## primaryforce

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?i...0446076&PID=6161612&SID=ionnu796b4004sz100053
This is the esata enclosure that was recommended by Mark1958 that I successfully used for my 3.5 inch 6TB WD Red drive upgrade.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

Not sure what the issue would be but my two 4TB Seagate drives are still running without issues in my Bolts. The drives have been in use since October now. Both Bolts still run relatively cool(the case is only slightly warm at the warmest location). Cooler that the first three Bolts I owned last Autumn. Hopefully they continue to run problem free.

I do remember my 4TB drives had the first version of the firmware. Maybe later firmware revisions are causing the problems?


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## JOSHSKORN

primaryforce said:


> http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?i...0446076&PID=6161612&SID=ionnu796b4004sz100053
> This is the esata enclosure that was recommended by Mark1958 that I successfully used for my 3.5 inch 6TB WD Red drive upgrade.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


How long have you been running with this setup? Also, can you tell me why you picked the particular hard drive you're using? Other than its capacity, that is. Last time I unplugged my Bolt for a couple of days and plugged it back in, it lasted for 5 days before the lights flashed. Again, remind me why this particular enclosure over others. I'm wondering if I need to invest into this particular HD DVD or if I can put my existing 2.5" 4TB drive in it.

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## JOSHSKORN

aaronwt said:


> Not sure what the issue would be but my two 4TB Seagate drives are still running without issues in my Bolts. The drives have been in use since October now. Both Bolts still run relatively cool(the case is only slightly warm at the warmest location). Cooler that the first three Bolts I owned last Autumn. Hopefully they continue to run problem free.
> 
> I do remember my 4TB drives had the first version of the firmware. Maybe later firmware revisions are causing the problems?


I bought my 4TB hard drive on December 25th. How would I go about finding what firmware is on it and could I downgrade it?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

JOSHSKORN said:


> I bought my 4TB hard drive on December 25th. How would I go about finding what firmware is on it and could I downgrade it?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


The firmware version is on the outside sticker of the hard drive. Mine shows 0001. No idea if you can downgrade the firmware. I remember seeing the list of firmwares on the Samsung site at some point. I know with my 3.5" platter drives there was a program to run that installed the new firmware.

EDIT: It looks like one of my drives was made in June 2015. On Amazon, the picture of their st4000lm016 drives shows a firmware version of 0003, and a manufacture date of November 2015.
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Lapto...e715ac35b1275851b9a4965d361dd214&linkCode=kia

EDIT: My second 4TB drive was manufactured in July 2015. Basically they were manufactured around a week apart. Using the Seagate Date code calculator to get the exact manufacture date.

http://www.bugaco.com/calculators/seagate_date_code.php


----------



## primaryforce

JOSHSKORN said:


> How long have you been running with this setup? Also, can you tell me why you picked the particular hard drive you're using? Other than its capacity, that is. Last time I unplugged my Bolt for a couple of days and plugged it back in, it lasted for 5 days before the lights flashed. Again, remind me why this particular enclosure over others. I'm wondering if I need to invest into this particular HD DVD or if I can put my existing 2.5" 4TB drive in it.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


Mine has been running without issue for 2 weeks. Connecting to a networked Tivo "Mini", I have been recording numerous shows and letting the Tivo "suggestions" run wild. I am now up to over 150 recorded "suggestions" in addition to the actual multiple One Pass and selected recordings while performing multiple "pauses", "fast forwards", and other disc intensive activities. In other words, I am doing everything possible to try to make the new setup fail. My 6TB is only 4% full and I don't use any special "standby" settings. 
I selected the 6TB WD Red because at $205 from eBay, it was the lowest $/hour alternative for 4TB and larger drives. I also have 3 - 6TB WD Reds in my media FreeNAS server that I have been using without problems for over a year. With respect to the eSATA enclosure, I don't think the Rosewill one suggested by Mark1958 is any "better or worse" than other on the market but my DVR_Daddy was defective and I needed to return this to Amazon because it resulted in the "4 Flashing Light" failure.
In my opinion, I wouldn't trust the 2.5 inch 4TB Seagate drive for Tivo either inside or outside the Bolt. I understand that others have not had an issues but my experience was not consistent with their success. I have put my Seagate BackUp Plus drive back in the external enclosure and attached it to the USB port in my router as a spare backup drive. As I stated previously, anytime you see the 4 flashing lights on the Bolt, it means that the Bolt is not communicating properly with the hard drive.


Good Luck
primaryforce


----------



## JOSHSKORN

primaryforce said:


> JOSHSKORN - I gave up on using the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus internal 2.5 inch drive. The number of resets became unacceptable. I elected to go with an external 6TB WD Red using the eSATA modification suggested by Mark1958. It was working great for a couple of days until I received the 20.6.1 update. Immediately after the update, the Bolt started "4 Lights Flashing." I checked all the connections and even reformatted the drive but every time the Bolt started to boot the lights flashed. I had to reinstall the original 500GB to get up and running. Mark1958 suspected I had a defective external SATA case (DVR_Daddy) which turned out to be the problem. Replacing the SATA case with a Rosewill enclosure resolved the issue. I think the "4 Lights Flashing" is the error code resulting from the Bolt not communicating properly to the hard drive. I guess mine was just a strange coincidence that the DVR_Daddy failed when I received the software update.


Hard Drive: Do you have the WD60EFRX or the WD6002FFWX?


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## primaryforce

JOSHSKORN said:


> Hard Drive: Do you have the WD60EFRX or the WD6002FFWX?


The WD60EFRX. The 5400 RPM version is more than adequate and less expensive.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

primaryforce said:


> The WD60EFRX. The 5400 RPM version is more than adequate and less expensive.


So even a 8 TB WE RED 5400 version would work too, yes?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke

JOSHSKORN said:


> So even a 8 TB WE RED 5400 version would work too, yes?


MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.4 should work with 8TB drives but I don't know if anyone has tested it on a Bolt yet in the real world.

As far as the WD80EFZX drive itself goes, it's just about ideal for a TiVo once you get over the sticker shock. It's cool, quiet, and performs even better than the WD60EFRX.


----------



## BobCamp1

JOSHSKORN said:


> How long have you been running with this setup? Also, can you tell me why you picked the particular hard drive you're using? Other than its capacity, that is.


Not all hard drives will work in a Tivo. It's trial and error and people posting their results in this forum that determines the recommended hard drives.

The Bolt is the first Tivo that uses 2.5" hard drives, so the list of hard drives that consistently work well with it doesn't exist yet. The older Tivo models use 3.5" drives and there is a decent list of hard drives that work for them. So quite a few people are jerry-rigging ways to make a 3.5" drive that worked well in an older Tivo work in a Bolt. It's no guarantee that it will work, but it's a good place to start.

There is however a growing list of drives that do NOT work well in a Bolt. Unfortunately, I think yours should be added to that list.


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## JOSHSKORN

BobCamp1 said:


> Not all hard drives will work in a Tivo. It's trial and error and people posting their results in this forum that determines the recommended hard drives.
> 
> The Bolt is the first Tivo that uses 2.5" hard drives, so the list of hard drives that consistently work well with it doesn't exist yet. The older Tivo models use 3.5" drives and there is a decent list of hard drives that work for them. So quite a few people are jerry-rigging ways to make a 3.5" drive that worked well in an older Tivo work in a Bolt. It's no guarantee that it will work, but it's a good place to start.
> 
> There is however a growing list of drives that do NOT work well in a Bolt. Unfortunately, I think yours should be added to that list.


What HDD does the Bolt use and WHY does it work vs mine? Are there lower powered drives that exist? Is that the reason I'm having problems?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## gor88

gor88 said:


> I got the Rosewill Armer enclosure and the Addonics sata to eSata port cable and installed them Friday evening. So far, so good. I have been putting it back in Standby when not in use, since that seemed to exacerbate the issue. This has been done over a dozen times over the weekend.
> 
> I figure that if the problem doesn't return after two full weeks, it should be good to go in the long run.


I am happy to report that my Bolt has not malfunctioned at all since installing the Armer enclosure and the Addonics sata to esata port exactly 1 week ago. I will continue to monitor, but feel fairly certain that, in my case, the enclosure solved the 4 blinking lights issue. After one more week, I'll unplug it and note the particular model of the drive for future reference as a drive that appears to play nice with the Bolt (as long as you use the Armer enclosure or equivalent).


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## JOSHSKORN

I'm wondering if I just get the enclosure with a 2.5" adapter and use my 4TB drive...if it'll work. Maybe it'll control the heat better and not cause this malfunction. Thoughts? 

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## primaryforce

JOSHSKORN said:


> I'm wondering if I just get the enclosure with a 2.5" adapter and use my 4TB drive...if it'll work. Maybe it'll control the heat better and not cause this malfunction. Thoughts?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


If you haven't purchased the eSATA enclosure, you could always try this docking station as an alternative since it works with both 2.5 and 3.5 devices.

http://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Externa...psc=1&qid=1464400837&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1-spons

You may get lucky with your existing 2.5 inch 4TB Seagate, but I don't think your problems with this are "heat" or "sufficient power."


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## mark1958

JOSHSKORN said:


> I'm wondering if I just get the enclosure with a 2.5" adapter and use my 4TB drive...if it'll work. Maybe it'll control the heat better and not cause this malfunction. Thoughts?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


I'm with primaryforce, I don't think its a power supply issue or a heat issue.
With the enclosure I suggested, my sisters enclosure is running 26.0 C.


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## BobCamp1

JOSHSKORN said:


> What HDD does the Bolt use and WHY does it work vs mine? Are there lower powered drives that exist? Is that the reason I'm having problems?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


It works because that's the drive the Tivo was designed to use. There is a lot of testing done with that drive that shows that it works well. A Tivo is not a PC -- Tivo can design their product around a specific hard drive. At minimum they only care about that model hard drive and won't bother to test other ones.

Note that hard drives have an infant mortality rate (first three months) of 20%. That could be your problem.

There is also a new hard drive technology out there (SMR) that may be not as reliable and is definitely incompatible with certain uses and devices. This is the same technology that is widely available in 2.5" 4 GB drives today. These SMR drives are not recommended even for light PC use. And a DVR is very heavy PC use. They are designed to be written to infrequently (i.e. archive use only). A Tivo is constantly simultaneously writing to at least four different places on the hard drive. It's the exact opposite of how the manufacturer recommends you use this drive.

A bigger concern is that the Tivo's operating system doesn't fully support 4 TB hard drives. You have to use tricks to get it to work. Perhaps some of these tricks aren't working correctly or weren't done correctly for your hard drive.

There is some concern that the Tivo's hard drive power sub-circuit isn't designed to handle the larger peak power loads that come with the bigger hard drives. The Tivo's power supply doesn't need to be as large as a PC's, as it is only powering one drive that has a known power draw. So it's possible Tivo cut corners here. But I don't think anyone has conclusively proven that. It's just a theory at this point.

Also, note that hard drives usually run better the hotter they are. They should be at 50 - 55 C for optimum performance. So heat is not an issue.

Finally, note that those external enclosures fail all the time. They usually don't last a year unless you get a good one. The good one will last two years. I personally don't recommend them.

I'd put the original hard drive back in and use it for a week just to rule out the Tivo itself. If the Tivo checks out, you'll have to return the 4 TB drive you have and get a different one. Maybe get a smaller capacity hard drive that uses PMR technology. A 3 TB hard drive would give you 6x the capacity you had and is fully supported by the Tivo OS. Even a 2 TB hard drive would quadruple the size you had.


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## hokietivo

Yep.... I got that too just today, media cabinet was hot... who knows if it always was


I used MFS tools to trick the tivo, worked awesome maybe 2 months maybe 3, never a problem other than an occasional restart

Seagate 4TB ST4000LM016
FW 0003

Box STEA 4000400

So in my defense, the 4TB was only a couple dollars more.. How could I resist? 

Oddly, I switched Tivos when this one crashed... and when it rebooted... yep it was installing an update. I am wondering if Tivo updates are by accounts so they hit my tivos... and teh bolt with the $TB got smoked.

Unplugged pulled Cable card ect, put on an AC vent to cool still flashing....

Popped in old drive... started first try..

Anyway I like reliability. Suggestions on a smaller more robust drive? 500Gb too small.

My crash was today...


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## foghorn2

hokietivo said:


> Yep.... I got that too just today, media cabinet was hot... who knows if it always was
> 
> I used MFS tools to trick the tivo, worked awesome maybe 2 months maybe 3, never a problem other than an occasional restart
> 
> Seagate 4TB ST4000LM016
> FW 0003
> 
> Box STEA 4000400
> 
> So in my defense, the 4TB was only a couple dollars more.. How could I resist?
> 
> Oddly, I switched Tivos when this one crashed... and when it rebooted... yep it was installing an update. I am wondering if Tivo updates are by accounts so they hit my tivos... and teh bolt with the $TB got smoked.
> 
> Unplugged pulled Cable card ect, put on an AC vent to cool still flashing....
> 
> Popped in old drive... started first try..
> 
> Anyway I like reliability. Suggestions on a smaller more robust drive? 500Gb too small.
> 
> My crash was today...


Are you Sarah Palin?


----------



## eric102

hokietivo said:


> Anyway I like reliability. Suggestions on a smaller more robust drive? 500Gb too small.


A number of folks installed the SAMSUNG Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 2TB drive when the Bolt first came out, haven't heard of any complaints about it yet. Its highly rated at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178627


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## aaronwt

hokietivo said:


> Yep.... I got that too just today, media cabinet was hot... who knows if it always was
> 
> I used MFS tools to trick the tivo, worked awesome maybe 2 months maybe 3, never a problem other than an occasional restart
> 
> Seagate 4TB ST4000LM016
> FW 0003
> 
> Box STEA 4000400
> 
> So in my defense, the 4TB was only a couple dollars more.. How could I resist?
> 
> Oddly, I switched Tivos when this one crashed... and when it rebooted... yep it was installing an update. I am wondering if Tivo updates are by accounts so they hit my tivos... and teh bolt with the $TB got smoked.
> 
> Unplugged pulled Cable card ect, put on an AC vent to cool still flashing....
> 
> Popped in old drive... started first try..
> 
> Anyway I like reliability. Suggestions on a smaller more robust drive? 500Gb too small.
> 
> My crash was today...


You mention "never a problem other than an occasional restart". That right there is an issue. The TiVo Bolt should not be rebooting unless there is a software update or the user initiated it.
I know at one point Netflix was causing some issues, but it shouldn't be rebooting because of the hard drive.


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## hokietivo

Nice palin barb.... Made me laugh... Yea I know... Wife hates seeing the cabinet open from the kitchen.

Also tx for the drive advice, newegg thanks u. &#128512;

Only noticed reboots 2 x in 3 months. 

Cheers


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## chinman70

Hi All,

I also had the 4 flashing lights issue and I had the same setup:

Seagate 4TB drive
Tivo Bolt

I did notice that the Bolt rebooted and said that it was updating. Then it rebooted again and the lights started flashing. Nothing I did would get it working again. I put back in the original and it worked. I let it finish the update and I let it connect and download the latest programming. I put back in the 4tb drive and the flashing lights started again. I hope this helps in the analysis of what is happening.


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## mwgnetway

I also got the blinking lights today. I have a 3TB Hitachi in an external Esata enclosure, with a sata cable coming out of my Tivo. My original drive at first did not correct the issue.

I was about to do an exchange with Tivo, but t was going to take 7-10 days. 

I went to BestBuy, bought a new one. Connected my large drive and went through guided setup with no issue. It did a software update, rebooted, and blinking lights on the new Tivo. I connected the stock drive, and it was fine. I then connected my other stock drive on my old Tivo and that was fine as well.

Could that update either purposely or non-purposely be trashing large drive Tivos? 

I'm thinking of going to a 2Tb internal on my original unit.


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## NaperTiVo

I'll chime in and say I have the same issue. I swapped out for the same 4TB drive. For the 1st three months I had no issues at all. Then I started getting random reboots. One Bolt it would happen about once a week the other Bolt every other day. I hadn't noticed the code change but on one of them I am getting the four blinking lights every few days. I haven't had time to swap in the original yet. For me there are too many people reporting issues with the 4TB drive, I am considering swapping for a 2TB drive.


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## aaronwt

mwgnetway said:


> I also got the blinking lights today. I have a 3TB Hitachi in an external Esata enclosure, with a sata cable coming out of my Tivo. My original drive at first did not correct the issue.
> 
> I was about to do an exchange with Tivo, but t was going to take 7-10 days.
> 
> I went to BestBuy, bought a new one. Connected my large drive and went through guided setup with no issue. It did a software update, rebooted, and blinking lights on the new Tivo. I connected the stock drive, and it was fine. I then connected my other stock drive on my old Tivo and that was fine as well.
> 
> Could that update either purposely or non-purposely be trashing large drive Tivos?
> 
> I'm thinking of going to a 2Tb internal on my original unit.


If it were on purpose then I would expect it to affect all the 4TB drives. But it hasn't. I still wonder if it's the newer firmwares of the Seagate drive that is causing the issue. Since it seems to be the drives with newer firmware versions having the issues.


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## chinman70

Update: After putting the original drive back in and letting the TiVo Bolt update I put in a new 4TB drive. It started normally (without flashing lights). When it got to the setup, I pulled the plug, stuck the hard drive in my computer and reformatted with MFS Formatter and stuck it in back into the Bolt. Boots up fine. Sucks that I lost all my shows but I'm glad the TiVo is back!


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## mwgnetway

So it turns out I believe my issue is the eSata enclosure. I tried multiple drives in the enclosure ( 1Tb - 3Tb ). Flashing lights on all. I then hung my drive directly off of the Tivo, and it worked fine. All the drives that blinked with the enclosure, work fine direct off of it. It must not like the way the eSata to Sata is being seen. I am fine with dumping the enclosure. I will look for a straight Sata enclosure to keep it pretty looking and cool.


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## primaryforce

mwgnetway said:


> So it turns out I believe my issue is the eSata enclosure. I tried multiple drives in the enclosure ( 1Tb - 3Tb ). Flashing lights on all. I then hung my drive directly off of the Tivo, and it worked fine. All the drives that blinked with the enclosure, work fine direct off of it. It must not like the way the eSata to Sata is being seen. I am fine with dumping the enclosure. I will look for a straight Sata enclosure to keep it pretty looking and cool.


I had similar problems when I replaced my 2.5" 4TB Seagate that was causing my Bolt to frequently reboot with an external 3.5" 6TB WD Red connected with a DVR Daddy external enclosure (4 lights flashing). I then replaced the DVR Daddy with a Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B - External 3.5" SATA III 6 Gb/s Hard Drive enclosure using the same 6TB WD Red and all of my problems went away. This new enclosure and hard drive combination have been running flawlessly now for 3 weeks without a single reboot. Now my only issue is waiting for the new Tivo firmware (RC14) so that I can do OOH streaming.


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## brobin10

i am experiencing the exact same issue (all lights on and flashing after sudden reboot) as others in this thread. I put the 4tb hdd in my TiVo bolt at the end of January and the first random reboot occurred on easter sunday now yesterday I experienced multiple occurrences of the 4 lights flashing after a sudden reboot

I have to unplug everything including cable card for at least 20 minutes before things start working again

hope a fix comes up soon

is there any way I can back up my onepasses before I lose everything?


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## ukusprof

Hi - 
Sorry to bother you all, but I'm having the same blinking light issue discussed in this thread, and I'm not sure how to translate proposed solutions to my situation. I have a Bolt with a 4TB internal drive - unfortunately from DVRDaddy. Frankly, I've had nothing but problems since I got it, and he won't refund my $$.

The latest issue is the 5 blinking lights, which you all have indicated means a problem with TiVo connecting to the hard drive. I was out of town the past two weeks, but I did not have this problem prior to that.

At this point, I just want it to work. So my questions are:


Do I need to modify the internal drive hardware in some way? If so, how?
Or do I need to convert the internal drive to an external drive? I know that would require an enclosure, but what else?
Or do I need to scrap the internal drive entirely and replace with either a different internal or external drive?

I appreciate any assistance you can provide, and sorry I've not been able to glean the solution from the existing discussion.

Many thanks!

ukusprof


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## foghorn2

foghorn2 said:


>


Its working, above person reported 5 lights.


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## saydar

I installed a 4TB Ross Walker blessed drive in December.

After the last update I'm seeing this about once a week. Normal it happened between 3 and 6AM. If I'm awake when it happens it reboots, I see 3 solid lights for awhile, and then 4 lights flashing.

I find waiting some time (leaving it plugged in and flashing) and then power cycling fixes it (for another week or so). If I power cycling too soon I get the 4 flashing lights again.


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## JOSHSKORN

How many have experimented with just reformatting your 4TB HDDs and just redoing the whole upgrade process? 

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## JScottMsc

JOSHSKORN said:


> How many have experimented with just reformatting your 4TB HDDs and just redoing the whole upgrade process?


NOT ME! removed the 4TB Seagate and put in 3TB Toshiba and let TiVo format because I don't want to mess with this again (i.e. wife not happy I lost here shows, etc.). Good Luck All!

OWC Item: 3.0TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 2.5-inch 15.0mm SATA 6.0Gb/s (3.0Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s backwards compatible) 5400RPM Hard Drive with 16MB Cache. Toshiba 3 Year Limited Warranty. (TOSMQ03ABB300)
Qty: 1 
Price: $164.99


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## elprice7345

brobin10 said:


> is there any way I can back up my onepasses before I lose everything?


Yes there is, use kmttg: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6082381#post6082381

Once installed and configured this page explains backing up season passes: https://sourceforge.net/p/kmttg/wiki/remote_season_passes/

kmttg can be used to backup almost everything on your TiVo.


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## Plumloco

I hope this helps some of you. I have been hesitant to post but here goes.

I am by no means an expert but I have also been having the flashing light syndrome as most of you with the 4TB drives after the most recent update.

I read through the thread over the last few days and dragged my feet not wanting to swap out drives and lose everything.

Here is what I finally did in a nutshell.

After my Bolt cooled down (a hour to overnight) I would try to restart it and no success. So then I tried restarting (after cooling) with HDMI, cable and network lines all disconnected.

Allowed it to boot up and then connected all hookups and SUCCESS it worked fine for about 6 hours. (Good news the drive and all recordings and settings are not effected).

Did this again several times with the same luck 6-8 hours and then the 4 lights again.

I noticed while unplugging everything the cable seemed overly warm to the touch.

So yesterday morning I did everything again as described above but this time I left the plastic cover off of the cable card.

So far the bolt has run nonstop for 40+ hours.

KNOCK ON WOOD!

Like I said I hope this helps. So far so good.


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## ndanieley

I, too, had the 4TB seagate go bad; st40000lm016, firmware 003. it worked for about two months, and then nothing. I tried clearing the partitions, and then clearing and formatting as NTFS, but still the LEDs were flashing. at this point, even if I could get it going again, I wouldn't trust it. I think I'll go with a 3.5 inch drive in an external enclosure as some others have mentioned.


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## JOSHSKORN

ndanieley said:


> I, too, had the 4TB seagate go bad; st40000lm016, firmware 003. it worked for about two months, and then nothing. I tried clearing the partitions, and then clearing and formatting as NTFS, but still the LEDs were flashing. at this point, even if I could get it going again, I wouldn't trust it. I think I'll go with a 3.5 inch drive in an external enclosure as some others have mentioned.


Have you looked into other firmware versions of the drive? I don't know if it's the same drive but someone mentioned 001 working for them. I haven't tried it and I wouldn't know if downgrading is possible.

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

My Bolt in this room is upgrading to RC14 right now. Hopefully I have no issues with my 4TB drive after the update.


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## BobCamp1

For the people whose hard drives have failed, could you please list the model #, date of manufacture, upgrade method, and if it's in an external enclosure? Otherwise it's going to be difficult to establish a pattern of failure.


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## BobCamp1

Plumloco said:


> I noticed while unplugging everything the cable seemed overly warm to the touch.


Where exactly on the cable did it feel warm?


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## ryttingm

I too had the same issue that others are seeing. I installed a 4TB seagate STDR4000100 that many others have used. I ended up removing the drive and going back to the original 500GB drive to get the Tivo functional again. I used Ross Walkers guide to bless the drive.

http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/

I'm wondering if this method of blessing the drive was broken in the latest update of the tivo firmware.


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## Plumloco

BobCamp1 said:


> Where exactly on the cable did it feel warm?


At the connector, I know they get warm it just seems to be warmer than usual.


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## JOSHSKORN

Plumloco said:


> At the connector, I know they get warm it just seems to be warmer than usual.


The coax cable?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## Plumloco

Sorry. Yes, the metal cable connector.

I will try and do a temp reading on it soon.


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## JOSHSKORN

When an update is installed, is it installed to the 2.5" hard drive or some other kind of storage?

Is the mfrs reformatting tool specific to update versions?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## Plumloco

Temp on the connector is 100.5 degrees.

It is still running since Sunday morning with NO shutdowns or reboots. 

I believe I used MFS Formatter on the Seagate 4TB drive that comes in the STDR4000100 encloser. I do not remember which firmware it had, seem to remember it was built in Sept.2015.

I removed the drive the Bolt came with and installed the 4TB in the Tivo.


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## Teeveau

Here internal Seagate ST4000LM016 FW:0003 worked for 8 weeks fine. Over the weekend, 4 lights-a-flashing.

Swapped in 500GB, boots up. 

Back to 4TB, 4 lights-a-flashing. Cool room temp. No Cable-card. No cables, except power connected. 

Probably going back to 500GB. Maybe I'll wipe 4TB and try that. Will look into external drive setup as well.


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## Teeveau

Ok, I have a theory. This is power related. 

Recent firmware update causes Tivo hardware to draw more power, causing internal drives that also draw more power than 1TB and 500GB oem drives to have powerup issues.

The OEM WD drives draw 1.4W. My Seagate draws 2.1W. The Tivo power supply outputs up to 12V @ 3A = 36W. 

The datasheet power specs don't tell the whole story, there is always spikes at startup (inrush current) that could be different from the WD to the Seagate. 

So if folks are having success with external drives with external power, then perhaps all I need to do is feed external 12V power to the internal 4TB drive. Or get a stiffer 12V supply.

Plausible?


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## diachun

I also just had my Tivo with 4TB Seagate fail with the 4 blinking lights. My only solution was to replace the disk and lose all my shows. I purchased the 3TB Toshiba disk, info below. I just installed this hours ago and it appears to work with no extra effort required.

I was one of the early Bolt upgraders. I got the 4TB Samsung ST400LM016 via external Seagate USB disk enclosure, pried it open, installed and blessed it. I used the Ross Walker method with Ubuntu boot CD. Everything worked perfectly since I did this in October. Never any problems or warning signs. Suddenly, I saw the 4 blinking lights after 8 months working great. Nothing helped. I tried numerous power cycles and attempts at Kickstart 57 but got nowhere. The 4 blinking lights come on after the Tivo logo, when they "should" stay on solid for a few seconds and provide the opportunity to enter the code. This is the same thing you see if you power up a Bolt with no hard drive attached at all.

For others in this situation, I looked long and hard for someplace to buy the elusive Toshiba 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 2.5-inch disk. Nowhere to be found at Amazon or the usual places. I found the following link from another post, and made the purchase here:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/MQ03ABB300/

I placed the order on Saturday with FedEx Next Day shipping. Which actually was, "next business day". I got confirmation late Sunday night the order was processed, with a tracking number. It actually shipped out Monday and arrived Tuesday afternoon.

The 3TB Toshiba worked great first try. I had to do a full Tivo setup from scratch. Certainly hoping it is reliable and lasts forever.

I was able to log on to Tivo online, view & print (poorly) my OnePass Manager list and used the information to manually recreate them.
http://online.tivo.com/start/manage

My conclusion, this does not appear to be a failure of the 4TB disk itself. The Tivo Bolt is "rejecting" the disk at boot up.

I pulled the 4TB disk and put it into a PC. There does not seem to be anything physically wrong with the disk, surface scan was okay. I even ran some data recovery tools and pulled perfect images of the TV station logos from the disk.

I am considering doing a complete erase of the 4TB disk to put it back in the Bolt briefly, to see if it will reformat and work again. But I really just want to move on with a reliable 3TB disk and simply use my Tivo again.

Hope this helps others...

--Justin


----------



## Teeveau

Thanks for the tip on the 3TB Toshiba. Irks me to drop $180 to replace the drive and get the family happy with less storage capacity.

My theory is power related. More digging, more supporting evidence.

The Seagate is powered by 5V, spikes at 6W at startup (1.2A x 5V). 2.1W nominal. http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113d.pdf

The 1GB OEM drive WD10JUCT claims "These drives draw less than 2 Watts while operating, and draw a mere 4.75 Watts during spin up." (newegg). Spec sheet says it draws 1.4W for read/write.

Your 3TB toshiba says max power draw is 4.5W, with 1.7W typical draw read/write.

The Bolt is being fed 12VDC and regulates it down to 5VDC on the mainboard. It is very possible this 5V regulation circuit is under-spec'd, and won't power a bigger drive.

Recent firmware updates could cause the hardware to consume more power on the 5V rail or on other rails that draw from the 12V input.

External drives don't have this issue, as they have external power and don't draw off the 5V rail.

Bigger 12V supplies on the Tivo don't seem to solve the problem.

It must be the 5V rail.

All theory for now until proven true.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Just thought I would throw this out there.

Using the bottom USB port on the Bolt for a Tuning Adapter (and perhaps any other purpose) can cause the Bolt to get stuck in a reboot loop.

If a USB port is needed on the Bolt use the top USB port.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

CoxInPHX said:


> Just thought I would throw this out there.
> 
> Using the bottom USB port on the Bolt for a Tuning Adapter (and perhaps any other purpose) can cause the Bolt to get stuck in a reboot loop.
> 
> If a USB port is needed on the Bolt use the top USB port.


I'm not really sure what this has to do with this topic but thanks. I suppose there could have been a problem in qc causing the bottom USB to overheat. I'm not using USB so I know it's not part of the 4 flashing lights issue.

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

Teeveau said:


> Ok, I have a theory. This is power related.
> 
> Recent firmware update causes Tivo hardware to draw more power, causing internal drives that also draw more power than 1TB and 500GB oem drives to have powerup issues.
> 
> The OEM WD drives draw 1.4W. My Seagate draws 2.1W. The Tivo power supply outputs up to 12V @ 3A = 36W.
> 
> The datasheet power specs don't tell the whole story, there is always spikes at startup (inrush current) that could be different from the WD to the Seagate.
> 
> So if folks are having success with external drives with external power, then perhaps all I need to do is feed external 12V power to the internal 4TB drive. Or get a stiffer 12V supply.
> 
> Plausible?


I don't see how that is the issue unless the later 4TB drives draw more power. I use the highest power saving setting on both of my Bolts with 4TB drives made in June/July 2015. So the drives are spinning down and up multiple times per day inside the Bolt. So far I've seen no problems with either of my 4TB drives.


----------



## BobCamp1

Plumloco said:


> Temp on the connector is 100.5 degrees.
> 
> It is still running since Sunday morning with NO shutdowns or reboots.
> 
> I believe I used MFS Formatter on the Seagate 4TB drive that comes in the STDR4000100 encloser. I do not remember which firmware it had, seem to remember it was built in Sept.2015.
> 
> I removed the drive the Bolt came with and installed the 4TB in the Tivo.


Thanks for the data. That's not that hot though.

Having said that, are you using the original cable that came with the Tivo? Maybe it's not using all three power pins. Or maybe the Tivo is not providing power on all three pins. Just because it's a SATA connector doesn't mean that Tivo is 100% SATA compliant.

Or, the act of updating the software somehow overwhelmed the SMR drive and caused corruption to occur. I assume it's downloaded to the HD first then copied into flash. When people replace the 4 TB, does the Tivo repeat the update?

Or Tivo made a change to the file system which messed up the 4 TB workaround.


----------



## aaronwt

diachun said:


> I also just had my Tivo with 4TB Seagate fail with the 4 blinking lights. My only solution was to replace the disk and lose all my shows. I purchased the 3TB Toshiba disk, info below. I just installed this hours ago and it appears to work with no extra effort required.
> 
> I was one of the early Bolt upgraders. I got the 4TB Samsung ST400LM016 via external Seagate USB disk enclosure, pried it open, installed and blessed it. I used the Ross Walker method with Ubuntu boot CD. Everything worked perfectly since I did this in October. Never any problems or warning signs. Suddenly, I saw the 4 blinking lights after 8 months working great. Nothing helped. I tried numerous power cycles and attempts at Kickstart 57 but got nowhere. The 4 blinking lights come on after the Tivo logo, when they "should" stay on solid for a few seconds and provide the opportunity to enter the code. This is the same thing you see if you power up a Bolt with no hard drive attached at all.
> 
> For others in this situation, I looked long and hard for someplace to buy the elusive Toshiba 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 2.5-inch disk. Nowhere to be found at Amazon or the usual places. I found the following link from another post, and made the purchase here:
> https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/MQ03ABB300/
> 
> I placed the order on Saturday with FedEx Next Day shipping. Which actually was, "next business day". I got confirmation late Sunday night the order was processed, with a tracking number. It actually shipped out Monday and arrived Tuesday afternoon.
> 
> The 3TB Toshiba worked great first try. I had to do a full Tivo setup from scratch. Certainly hoping it is reliable and lasts forever.
> 
> I was able to log on to Tivo online, view & print (poorly) my OnePass Manager list and used the information to manually recreate them.
> http://online.tivo.com/start/manage
> 
> My conclusion, this does not appear to be a failure of the 4TB disk itself. The Tivo Bolt is "rejecting" the disk at boot up.
> 
> I pulled the 4TB disk and put it into a PC. There does not seem to be anything physically wrong with the disk, surface scan was okay. I even ran some data recovery tools and pulled perfect images of the TV station logos from the disk.
> 
> I am considering doing a complete erase of the 4TB disk to put it back in the Bolt briefly, to see if it will reformat and work again. But I really just want to move on with a reliable 3TB disk and simply use my Tivo again.
> 
> Hope this helps others...
> 
> --Justin


Well that sucks since you used an earlier 4TB drive. So far it seemed like the issues were with the later drives. I guess I need to get these recordings off one of my Bolts for my GF sooner rather than later. Just in case. Since they are restricted and I have to record them to disc using an external burner attached to the output of the Bolt. And do it in real time.(Although I guess I could just stream it to a Mini or Roamio and attach the stand alone burner to them)


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## Plumloco

My Bolt is still running nonstop since Sunday morning with the cover off the cable card compartment. 

Which is great because between Friday and Sunday it was a nightmare with reboots and reboot failures.

As before, KNOCK ON WOOD!


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## Teeveau

aaronwt said:


> I don't see how that is the issue unless the later 4TB drives draw more power. I use the highest power saving setting on both of my Bolts with 4TB drives made in June/July 2015. So the drives are spinning down and up multiple times per day inside the Bolt. So far I've seen no problems with either of my 4TB drives.


We're seeing a pattern of failures with late model Bolts and late model drives. It is possible something changed in the Bolt or the 4TB drive as of late. It could be the power supply is marginal, and a PCB revision or a BOM change on the BOLT (say an inductor or cap) reduced the performance of the circuit. Hard to say what is the cause without having multiple copies of the Bolt and the 4TB drives, older and newer and then start busting out the oscilliscope.

But with the limited data, there is a perceived combination that is failing (Bolt + 4TB Seagate with Firmware v0003) and the same combination that is not failing (bolt + 4TB Seagate with Firmware v0001). Also not failing is Bolt + drives that draw less peak power than 4Tb Seagate. So software/firmware doesn't account for this. The only theory that makes sense is hardware.

Disclaimer: I've designed switching power supply circuits for analog boards and processor boards from 8 bit on up. Years ago before switching regulators, it was all linear regulators and LDO regulators. I've done circuit design and PCB layout, verification, debugging and testing. Not for consumer products, but for industrial and automation.

And I'm pissed that my 4TB drive is on my ESD bench and I'm running the 500GB in my Bolt.


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## Plumloco

My Bolt finally rebooted for the first time in a week this morning.

It restarted without a hitch unlike last week when it had to cool for several minutes to hours.


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## eric102

My stock 500GB Bolt has had a few random reboots over the last month but none the previous 6 months. Haven't been keeping track but they have probably all happened since the last update.

Never had that issue on any Roamios or Premiers.


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## Clork

I have the same issue. Back in early February I swapped the original 500GB drive out for the 4TB Samsung ST4000LM016 drive. Mine is firmware 0001. I used the MFS formatter method to prepare the drive. Everything ran fine and the wife was very happy. We often had the drive over 75% full if it matters.

I first saw the four flashing lights last Sunday morning. No amount of rebooting, cooling off or removing of covers seemed to fix the issue. I played with it until Tuesday when I put the original drive back into the Bolt. It immediately started working. I think the Samsung drives are failing - I do not think this is an issue caused by the new Tivo update but that is just my feeling.

I won't be putting another replacement internal drive in the system but I am considering going with the SATA to eSATA cable and using an external drive.

Feel free to ask if anyone wants more details.


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## BobCamp1

Teeveau said:


> Also not failing is Bolt + drives that draw less peak power than 4Tb Seagate. So software/firmware doesn't account for this. The only theory that makes sense is hardware.


Software and firmware can most certainly account for this. It could also be the hardware too. Both in the hard drive and the Tivo.

The sad part is, everything could be working as designed. Incompatibility problems can be difficult to troubleshoot.

My only question is, does Weakness have the same problems? And if not, how is he expanding the drives and what drives is he using?


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## gor88

gor88 said:


> I am happy to report that my Bolt has not malfunctioned at all since installing the Armer enclosure and the Addonics sata to esata port exactly 1 week ago. I will continue to monitor, but feel fairly certain that, in my case, the enclosure solved the 4 blinking lights issue. After one more week, I'll unplug it and note the particular model of the drive for future reference as a drive that appears to play nice with the Bolt (as long as you use the Armer enclosure or equivalent).


I went three full weeks with no issue before shutting down the Bolt on purpose for a cabinet wiring reorg. As promised, I went ahead and shut down the Bolt to go into the Armer enclosure to determine the exact model of my Seagate HDD.

It is a ST4000DM000, which, in addition to being in the Expansion enclosure I bought from Newegg, can be bought standalone. From what I can tell, it has the v0001 firmware, since there is no update or firmware version shown in the firmware section on Seagate's download page for this model.

Although it's spindle speed is only 5,900 RPM, it appears to be a good solid performer and energy-efficient. When used with the Rosewill Armer enclosure (or an equivalent that works the same way) and the SATA to eSATA cable, it appears to be rock solid in the Bolt. :up::up:


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## JOSHSKORN

gor88 said:


> I went three full weeks with no issue before shutting down the Bolt on purpose for a cabinet wiring reorg. As promised, I went ahead and shut down the Bolt to go into the Armer enclosure to determine the exact model of my Seagate HDD.
> 
> It is a ST4000DM000, which, in addition to being in the Expansion enclosure I bought from Newegg, can be bought standalone. From what I can tell, it has the v0001 firmware, since there is no update or firmware version shown in the firmware section on Seagate's download page for this model.
> 
> Although it's spindle speed is only 5,900 RPM, it appears to be a good solid performer and energy-efficient. When used with the Rosewill Armer enclosure (or an equivalent that works the same way) and the SATA to eSATA cable, it appears to be rock solid in the Bolt. :up::up:


With the enclosure, are you using an existing port on the Bolt or did you modify your Bolt to have a cable lead put to the enclosure?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## saydar

I've seen somewhere something about using ddrescue to clone data from a Tivo drive to a bigger drive. Is there something that can take data from a 4TB drive and clone (or copy) it to a smaller drive (3TB)?


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## gor88

JOSHSKORN said:


> With the enclosure, are you using an existing port on the Bolt or did you modify your Bolt to have a cable lead put to the enclosure?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


I removed the factory sata data and power cable and added the Addonics sata to esata data cable that mark1958 used in his external HDD upgrade.

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001

In my case, I also totally removed the left corner, disconnected the built in fan, allowed the eSata port on the Addonics cable to rest on the factory drive and pointed a 9" fan directly into the open space. Keep in mind that my Bolt is in a cabinet. The Seagate HDD is in the Rosewill Armer enclosure sitting just behind and to the left of the Bolt and connected to the Addonics eSata port via the eSata cable included with the enclosure. Temperature of the Bolt is typically around 50C in my configuration. The HDD averages 35C with the cabinet closed.

If you plan for your Bolt to be in plain sight, you should probably do what mark1958 did in the post I linked to and cut out a section in the back for the eSata port.


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## JOSHSKORN

gor88 said:


> I removed the factory sata data and power cable and added the Addonics sata to esata data cable that mark1958 used in his external HDD upgrade.
> 
> http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001
> 
> In my case, I also totally removed the left corner, disconnected the built in fan, allowed the eSata port on the Addonics cable to rest on the factory drive and pointed a 9" fan directly into the open space. Keep in mind that my Bolt is in a cabinet. The Seagate HDD is in the Rosewill Armer enclosure sitting just behind and to the left of the Bolt and connected to the Addonics eSata port via the eSata cable included with the enclosure. Temperature of the Bolt is typically around 50C in my configuration. The HDD averages 35C with the cabinet closed.
> 
> If you plan for your Bolt to be in plain sight, you should probably do what mark1958 did in the post I linked to and cut out a section in the back for the eSata port.


Can you post a picture of what you did?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## gor88

JOSHSKORN said:


> Can you post a picture of what you did?


Josh, I haven't forgotten about this. I'll try to post the picture this weekend.

Edit: Here is the picture.


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## JOSHSKORN

gor88 said:


> Josh, I haven't forgotten about this. I'll try to post the picture this weekend.
> 
> Edit: Here is the picture.


OK so help me understand your setup. I'm guessing this is what you did, and correct me if I'm wrong:


Opened the side cover and the other cover
Disconnected the stock hard drive and cable, leaving the stock hard drive mounted.
Routed a replacement cable on top of the hard drive and connected it to an External hard drive
You did not make any cuts to the plastic shell since the cable is routed via the removed cover
Can you provide a parts list and more importantly, a followup as to how it's working (any reboots, 4 lights flashing, temperature issues)?

EDIT: Can someone help me out with a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter for the enclosure that everyone's talking about? I want to try using my existing hard drive in it.


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## gor88

Josh,

These are the parts that allowed me to successfully upgrade the drive:

The SATA to eSATA cable that plugs directly into the mainboard of the Bolt:
http://www.addonics.com/products/aasa90l6i-e.php

The Rosewill Armer 3.5 form factor enclosure that provides constant power for the HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182316

The Seagate 4TB 3.5 form factor drive model ST4000DM000, but I bought it in an Enclosure and pulled it out (was $99):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178741

After installing these, I have not had the 4 blinking lights even one time. I have put the unit in and out of Standby numerous times since. This was four weeks ago, so I am confident that my setup should be good for the long haul.

I did have to put a slight curve on the cable to the left where it bends in half, would advise you do VERY slowly, VERY gracefully and VERY carefully. Otherwise, I did what you described. I also disconnected the power to the onboard fan, since the left corner stays off. The 9 inch fan on the left blows fresh air into the Bolt and keeps the temp around 50C with the cabinet doors closed.


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## JOSHSKORN

I'm about ready to attempt removing my 4TB HDD, reformatting it and placing it into the External Enclosure that I just bought. Just one problem, the drive is a 2.5" and correct me if I'm wrong, but the connectors are different.

So, to possibly make this work, I found two different adapters that just might fit into the Rosewill external enclosure. Can someone with some technical expertise tell me if this will connect to the Seagate drive that I have?

Converter # 1 (ICY DOCK EZConvert MB882SP-1S-2B): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817994083

Converter #2 (ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-3B): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817994177

From what I've read, the main difference in between the 2B and 3B model is that the 3B is more open. Taking into consideration that I'm thinking my Seagate is overheating and that also, the Rosewill enclosure will handle temps, a more open-air approach for a converter is better. I know for a fact that these two converters will fit inside of an enclosure, but I haven't seen a video for such with this particular enclosure. I assume that the dimensions are all the same.

Thoughts? Again, do I need any additional connectors? Am I looking at the right type of adapter? I don't know much about 2.5" drives in general. The video I saw was plugging in a 2.5" SSD into the adapter.


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## mark1958

JOSHSKORN said:


> I'm about ready to attempt removing my 4TB HDD, reformatting it and placing it into the External Enclosure that I just bought. Just one problem, the drive is a 2.5" and correct me if I'm wrong, but the connectors are different.
> 
> So, to possibly make this work, I found two different adapters that just might fit into the Rosewill external enclosure. Can someone with some technical expertise tell me if this will connect to the Seagate drive that I have?
> 
> Converter # 1 (ICY DOCK EZConvert MB882SP-1S-2B): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817994083
> 
> Converter #2 (ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-3B): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817994177
> 
> From what I've read, the main difference in between the 2B and 3B model is that the 3B is more open. Taking into consideration that I'm thinking my Seagate is overheating and that also, the Rosewill enclosure will handle temps, a more open-air approach for a converter is better. I know for a fact that these two converters will fit inside of an enclosure, but I haven't seen a video for such with this particular enclosure. I assume that the dimensions are all the same.
> 
> Thoughts? Again, do I need any additional connectors? Am I looking at the right type of adapter? I don't know much about 2.5" drives in general. The video I saw was plugging in a 2.5" SSD into the adapter.


Josh all you have to do is buy a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and it will mount right in your Rosewill enclosure, here is a link to one of many on Newegg's site and looks well made from Corsair : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=2.5"_to_3.5"_adaptor-_-17-979-016-_-Product


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## phlegmer

I don't have specifics on the 4tb drive right now but had installed the drive from a STDR4000100 back in April. The flashing LED issue has bit me a while ago and seems to be getting worse. I know there's an eSATA port on the back. In order to save the shows, could they be copied to an external eSATA drive and then accessed if I replace the 4tb with the stock 500gb?

If not, can kmttg be used to move the shows off to a PC HDD, replace the 4tb drive, then move them back?

Thanks!


----------



## foghorn2

phlegmer said:


> I don't have specifics on the 4tb drive right now but had installed the drive from a STDR4000100 back in April. The flashing LED issue has bit me a while ago and seems to be getting worse. I know there's an eSATA port on the back. In order to save the shows, could they be copied to an external eSATA drive and then accessed if I replace the 4tb with the stock 500gb?
> 
> If not, can kmttg be used to move the shows off to a PC HDD, replace the 4tb drive, then move them back?
> 
> Thanks!


The eSata port is there to Expand the original drive for more disk space, and thats it.

Yes you can move unflagged recordings onto and back to the Bolt using a computer.


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## phlegmer

Well it seems that the 3tb Toshiba is the only high capacity 2.5 HDD that "should" work at the moment? Very strange that this can only be found at one site. We really don't have much on historical data either if this drive will remedy the flashing LED issue long term.

My flashing LEDs almost always seemed to happen sometime in the night. Would get up in the morning and be greeted with flashing LEDs. Yesterday was the first time it happened while watching Netflix on the Bolt. Power cycled a few times and it wouldn't come back. Let it sit for 30 min, still wouldn't go. I then did what was mentioned before by just letting it run while the LEDs were flashing for a few minutes. After the wait, did the power cycle and it magically came back.

How often does Tivo push out updates? Perhaps the next update will be the fix.


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## aaronwt

But what is causing it? So far I have yet to run into this issue on either of my Bolts. Both with 4TB drives in them


----------



## brobin10

aaronwt said:


> But what is causing it? So far I have yet to run into this issue on either of my Bolts. Both with 4TB drives in them


I wish I knew....my bolt with 4tb hdd is doing the 4 flashing lights about once every 3-4 days now....scares me each time...I think shes completely dead each time it happens but a manual power reboot seems to clear it each time

mine I think has something to do with ambient temp inside my house + recording/reading from hdd


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## indiana_pilot

I also have bought and installed the STDR4000100 4TB drive. IT worked great for a week and now am getting the flashing lights daily (started yesterday) This is also the same time I added a lot of multiple recordings to my lineup. It was recording 4 shows at once.. I am guessing also that it is a power issue that is causing the failure. I don't think it is a heat issue. The cable card gets hotter than the drive! I am planning on buying the Toshiba 3TB drive and try again.. Is the channel lineup saved on the drive or the flash memory of the Tivo?


----------



## Fagapu77

Tivo bolt 500gb, changed hdd to 3tb, has been flashing 4 lights randomly for the last week or 2, I thought it was overheating and put a laptop cooling pad underneath but made no difference. I also believe it is related to the last upgrade but Tivo support is completely retarded and its impossible to work with them to find out.


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## phlegmer

Fagapu77 said:


> Tivo bolt 500gb, changed hdd to 3tb, has been flashing 4 lights randomly for the last week or 2


Wait, 3TB drive? This is the first I've heard of a 3TB drive doing this. Is it the Toshiba?


----------



## Fagapu77

phlegmer said:


> Wait, 3TB drive? This is the first I've heard of a 3TB drive doing this. Is it the Toshiba?


No, it's a typo, seagate backup plus 4tb


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## blacy1

I am experiencing the same issue with my Roamio- all of the front lights are flashing. I have an 8TB Seagate HDD installed which has been working fine until yesterday.


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## elprice7345

I have 2 TiVo Bolts one is configured with an internal 2TB HDD upgraded using the Ross Walker Bolt Windows method and has an old WD Disk Extender 1TB drive attached. I have not seen the 4-flashing light at all with this unit.

For my second Bolt, I upgraded using the Ross Walker Bolt Windows method (MFSR) and the Seagate STDR4000100 HDD. I believe the HDD has FW v0003. Image is attached.

I 1st encountered the flashing lights soon after doing the upgrade and coincidentally soon after the last TiVo SW update was released.

I have seen this issue 4 or 5 times in the last couple of months Ive been using the Bolt. Each time it has happened either overnight or when I have manually rebooted the Bolt. 

If I immediately reboot the Bolt after the flashing lights it continues to flash and not boot. If I let it sit for a few minutes (10-15?) it boots again and I wont see the problem for a while.

At this point, it seems like the only way to fix the problem is to go to a smaller or larger HDD, both of which require a fair amount of work. A smaller HDD costs me capacity. A larger HDD leaves me with an unattractive external HDD.

I consider it an annoyance, but not a significant issue in my case and hope someone can come up with a solution.


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## sm4llz

I was having this issue about once a week but feel like it's been 2 or 3 weeks since it's happened. I haven't changed anything.


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## phlegmer

Sure...now that I put in the 3TB drive, all the 4TB's are going to start to work fine. 

You are welcome.


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## aaronwt

Both of my 4TB drives never stopped working fine. It's been close to ten months of use now.


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## elprice7345

elprice7345 said:


> I have 2 TiVo Bolts one is configured with an internal 2TB HDD upgraded using the Ross Walker Bolt Windows method and has an old WD Disk Extender 1TB drive attached. I have not seen the 4-flashing light at all with this unit.
> 
> For my second Bolt, I upgraded using the Ross Walker Bolt Windows method (MFSR) and the Seagate STDR4000100 HDD. I believe the HDD has FW v0003. Image is attached.
> 
> I 1st encountered the flashing lights soon after doing the upgrade and coincidentally soon after the last TiVo SW update was released.
> 
> I have seen this issue 4 or 5 times in the last couple of months Ive been using the Bolt. Each time it has happened either overnight or when I have manually rebooted the Bolt.
> 
> If I immediately reboot the Bolt after the flashing lights it continues to flash and not boot. If I let it sit for a few minutes (10-15?) it boots again and I wont see the problem for a while.
> 
> At this point, it seems like the only way to fix the problem is to go to a smaller or larger HDD, both of which require a fair amount of work. A smaller HDD costs me capacity. A larger HDD leaves me with an unattractive external HDD.
> 
> I consider it an annoyance, but not a significant issue in my case and hope someone can come up with a solution.


Well ... I definitely spoke too soon! A couple of days after my 1st post, I manually rebooted my Bolt. It rebooted fine but then quickly shut itself down and gave me the 4 flashing lights.

After letting it sit for various lengths of time, including all night, I was never able to get it to boot again.

I have since replaced it with the 2TB drive referenced in the Ross Walker post and have had no problems since installation (4 days and counting).

This is the same drive I have in my other Bolt and have had no issues with.

I prefer having the HDD internal to the Bolt and 2TB gives me more than enough capacity, since I normally archive shows using kmttg and pull them back when I want to watch.

I hope someone can resolve this issue, but for now the extra capacity is not worth the hassle and unreliability.

One additional note ... I assumed the HDD had bricked, but that isn't the case. After pulling it from the Bolt, I was able to attach it to my Windows PC and create a 4TB NTFS partition.


----------



## Plumloco

Knock on wood!

After my Bolt was "4 flashing light" multiple times a day it has gone 4 days without.

I wonder if an update was delivered.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Plumloco said:


> Knock on wood!
> 
> After my Bolt was "4 flashing light" multiple times a day it has gone 4 days without.
> 
> I wonder if an update was delivered.


Look at your version number and post back.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## Plumloco

20.6.1.rc14-usc-11-849

On Day 5, no lights "knock on wood"


----------



## Fagapu77

The last 2 weeks my box did not reboot as many times, but last night it happened again and for the first time I had to reboot it 6 times. Anyone knows if Tivo pushed a new version of the os? Im on 20.6.1.rc14-usc-11-849


----------



## aaronwt

If they did I haven't received it. When I looked at one of my Bolts last night it had 4.56 million seconds since the last time it had booted. So around 53 days.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Has anyone with the 4tb Seagate tried downgrading the firmware to 001?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## brobin10

Plumloco said:


> Knock on wood!
> 
> After my Bolt was "4 flashing light" multiple times a day it has gone 4 days without.
> 
> I wonder if an update was delivered.


I was wondering the same thing....my Seagate 4tb bolt is still having the flashing lights but doesn't seem to be as frequent....either that or im just getting used to it


----------



## Plumloco

Mine started doing it again yesterday after 5 days it did it twice.

I have noticed it is much easier to get it to reboot on first attempt which I guess is a move in the right direction.

I sure do hope someone can figure this out.


----------



## ParityBit

I just got home and mine was doing this. I unplugged it and reinstated the plug. After the boot up sequence it started .... I hope this is not a sign of bigger issues.

I replaced the original HD with a 2TB.


----------



## Plumloco

I think that is the first I heard of a 2TB doing it.

Sorry to hear that.


----------



## sinned17

Hello all,

It finally happened to my 2 TB Bolt last weekend on Friday, 7/29/16. I came home to find all 4 LEDs flashing. At first I thought it could've been the heatwave in LA (yes, 90 degrees is unbearable for us) that might've caused the hard drive to overheat. I unplugged it for about an hour then back on. Within 10 seconds or so, the LEDs flashed again. So I unplugged it and left it alone for the weekend. Plugged it back in again on Monday (three days after) but no luck.

Today I decided to put the original 500gb drive back in the Bolt. My heart was relieve to see the Tivo splash screen and no flashing LEDs. I rather it be the hard drive failing than the unit itself.

Here is my hard drive model/info:

2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable
STDR20000100
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Storage-STDR2000100/dp/B00FRHTSK4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470196443&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+backup+plus+slim+2tb


----------



## HarperVision

sinned17 said:


> Hello all, It finally happened to my 2 TB Bolt last weekend on Friday, 7/29/16. I came home to find all 4 LEDs flashing. At first I thought it could've been the heatwave in LA (yes, 90 degrees is unbearable for us) that might've caused the hard drive to overheat. I unplugged it for about an hour then back on. Within 10 seconds or so, the LEDs flashed again. So I unplugged it and left it alone for the weekend. Plugged it back in again on Monday (three days after) but no luck. Today I decided to put the original 500gb drive back in the Bolt. My heart was relieve to see the Tivo splash screen and no flashing LEDs. I rather it be the hard drive failing than the unit itself. Here is my hard drive model/info: 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable STDR20000100 https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Storage-STDR2000100/dp/B00FRHTSK4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470196443&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+backup+plus+slim+2tb


That's the one I use too, and haven't had an issue at all as of yet. (Fingers firmly crossed!). I'm wondering if they're slowly killing off swapped HDDs in the bolt and they started with the 4TBs and are working their way to the 2TBs? Any reports of larger than 4 or 3TBs getting shwacked?


----------



## ParityBit

Since I had this happen once on my 2TB, I am wondering what I should do it if becomes unrecoverable? There is no way I can let my TV's be down for more than a couple hours.

Do I just put the original HD back in and turn on the TiVo? Do I have to re-pair/setup everything or will it just format and work?


----------



## aaronwt

HarperVision said:


> That's the one I use too, and haven't had an issue at all as of yet. (Fingers firmly crossed!). I'm wondering if they're slowly killing off swapped HDDs in the bolt and they started with the 4TBs and are working their way to the 2TBs? Any reports of larger than 4 or 3TBs getting shwacked?


If that were the case it would affect all 4TB drives wouldn't it? Neither of my 4TB drives in my Bolts has had any issues so far. When I checked one of them this past weekend, it had over 4.56 million seconds since the last reboot. And I think that was the last time the Bolt software got updated.


----------



## HarperVision

aaronwt said:


> If that were the case it would affect all 4TB drives wouldn't it? Neither of my 4TB drives in my Bolts has had any issues so far. When I checked one of them this past weekend, it had over 4.56 million seconds since the last reboot. And I think that was the last time the Bolt software got updated.


You're a legend in these parts, they'd NEVER do that to you!


----------



## ParityBit

Ok ... Happens again. Now I am concerned. What should be done to get around this?

This is my drive.

Samsung Seagate 2TB Laptop HDD SATA III 2.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive 9.5MM (ST2000LM003)


----------



## BobCamp1

aaronwt said:


> Aren't those larger drives using SMR? the 4TB, 2.5" drives I have use traditional PMR. But i thought those large 10TB and 12TB 3.5" drives use Shingled Magnetic Recording which can cause issues for DVRs. While the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording is what should be used for DVRs.


I thought your drives were SMR? If they are PMR, then that explains everything and I can sleep better at night.

Does anybody know what hard drive is in the Bolt+? Because that would be the hard drive to use for upgrades.

Edit: Somebody else has guessed (correctly I think) that it's the WD Blue WD30NPRZ. That spin up time of 8 seconds (vs. a typical 3 seconds) may cause problems on start up. But the only way to know is to try it.

Also, the warranty on that drive (and all WD Blue drives going forward) is 2 years instead of 3. So don't go storing a library of shows on it.


----------



## BobCamp1

nyjklein said:


> Just give up on that 2.5" 4TB drive like everyone else has. Other than Aaron, I haven't seen anyone else report success. Mine worked for months with periodic blips (spontaneous reboots).


That doesn't sound like it's working....

SMR drives are designed for backups only. They are not designed to be used continuously. They shouldn't be used to install or run Windows, either. SMR drivers are D: drives, not C: drives.


----------



## aaronwt

JOSHSKORN said:


> I have some unfortunate news to report.
> 
> After 8 days, sometime between the time I left for work, and came back, my Bolt was flashing 4 lights.
> 
> Officially, I'm thinking of throwing in the towel and just getting the Bolt+. While 3TB isn't 4TBs, it's certainly better than 500GB and only 4 Tuners.
> 
> I will say this as well. Last night, I'd finally decided to try one of my TiVo Minis again, and attempt to get one of them connected. It didn't work, and claimed it needed an update, it had at some point in time in the last 5 months been unhooked and then hooked back up improperly, thus unable to receive updates. It scheduled an update for 2 AM. I don't know if the update went through or not, but I left for work at 11:30 AM, came home at 9:30 PM to a Bolt with 4 Flashing lights.
> 
> Could there be a correlation? Would my Bolt still be working just fine if I hadn't attempted to connect a Mini back up to it? I don't know.
> 
> @aaronwt, do you have a Mini connected to your Bolt?
> 
> What are the power requirements for the stock HDD vs the STDR4000100 HDD?
> 
> Can someone run by me again what the deal is with the WD Red drives and if I should attempt this again with a Red drive? By "deal", I mean, will they work with TiVo or not? What about connecting to a Mini? I can't help to think that the failure might have been caused by power draw from a Mini, just enough to cause a crash.


Yes I've had minis connected to my Bolts without any issues.


----------



## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> I thought your drives were SMR? If they are PMR, then that explains everything and I can sleep better at night.
> 
> Does anybody know what hard drive is in the Bolt+? Because that would be the hard drive to use for upgrades.
> 
> Edit: Somebody else has guessed (correctly I think) that it's the WD Blue WD30NPRZ. That spin up time of 8 seconds (vs. a typical 3 seconds) may cause problems on start up. But the only way to know is to try it.
> 
> Also, the warranty on that drive (and all WD Blue drives going forward) is 2 years instead of 3. So don't go storing a library of shows on it.


The reviews I read about the 4TB Seagate's said they were pmr drives.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

nyjklein said:


> Just give up on that 2.5" 4TB drive like everyone else has. Other than Aaron, I haven't seen anyone else report success. Mine worked for months with periodic blips (spontaneous reboots). But when the four lights hangs started, that was the end.
> 
> I bought the 3.5" WD 8TB Red drive, put in an external enclosure for power, ran an internal SATA cable from the Bolt out thru a small hole I cut in the Bolt enclosure directly to the external drive and I've been running for months now without a single blip.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> P.S. I put the 2.5" 4TB drive back in its original enclosure and I'm now using it as an additional external backup drive for my PC.


So you're absolutely confident that the 8 TB RED drive will work? Are you the only person that has tried this or are there other success stories that you're aware of? What is the model number you're using?

EDIT: Did you leave your fan plugged in as well or did you unplug it? I'd unplugged mine, got the idea somewhere, not sure if it was you or not.

EDIT #2: Go ahead and please post your response to help others, but after looking at the price of the 8TB HDD, I can't justify spending anymore on this project for now for something that "might" work. That said, I went ahead and ordered the Bolt+. I'm honestly tired of playing with this. My 1 year subscription is almost up, anyway and I'd have to pay for more service, which I hadn't done on my 500GB Bolt. Not much of a loss, there. I'm not going to even mess with this Bolt+ once I get it, 3TB is enough space for me. Thank you for your assistance, everyone who chimed in.


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## BobCamp1

OK, so even some PMR drives are having problems. Or the 4 TB PMR drives are having general reliability problems.


----------



## Plumloco

Well I was finally FORCED to throw in the towel on the 4tb drive.

When the 4 lights came up I had been pulling power and rebooting but 2 days ago it 4 lighted and I have tried to get it to recover but absolutely no luck.

Put the the original drive back in and all is fine EXCEPT I did not realize I would need to get my cable card paired again. My cable company requires a tech to visit my home. Yes it irritates the living crap out of me but that is their policy.

So since I have until Thursday I am trying to decide if I want to get a 2tb or 3tb and try again.


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## Plumloco

I forgot to mention I believe the 4tb is toast, I cannot get my pc to even acknowledge it's existence.


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## JOSHSKORN

In my opinion, if you have the money and haven't paid for any lifetime service with your Bolt, I'd just give up on it. I got the Bolt+, got it activated today and got my Bolt deactivated. Otherwise, some have said they've had luck with the Red WD drives, which are 3.5" and won't fit. This requires replacing the SATA cable and some engineering, either cutting a hole in the back of the device or leaving the side cover exposed. In either case, if you have an internal hard drive, look for the Rosewill enclosure. Search the forums for the model number. In either case, give up on the Seagate drive if that's the one you've been trying to use.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## HarperVision

Plumloco said:


> Well I was finally FORCED to throw in the towel on the 4tb drive.
> 
> When the 4 lights came up I had been pulling power and rebooting but 2 days ago it 4 lighted and I have tried to get it to recover but absolutely no luck.
> 
> Put the the original drive back in and all is fine EXCEPT I did not realize I would need to get my cable card paired again. *My cable company requires a tech to visit my home. Yes it irritates the living crap out of me but that is their policy.*
> 
> So since I have until Thursday I am trying to decide if I want to get a 2tb or 3tb and try again.


That CAN'T be their policy and if it is, then they're going against FCC rules to allow customer self installation!

File a complaint with the FCC and watch how fast they allow you to come pickup a cablecard at their office!

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=33794


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## thyname

JOSHSKORN said:


> In my opinion, if you have the money and haven't paid for any lifetime service with your Bolt, I'd just give up on it. I got the Bolt+, got it activated today and got my Bolt deactivated. Otherwise, some have said they've had luck with the Red WD drives, which are 3.5" and won't fit. This requires replacing the SATA cable and some engineering, either cutting a hole in the back of the device or leaving the side cover exposed. In either case, if you have an internal hard drive, look for the Rosewill enclosure. Search the forums for the model number. In either case, give up on the Seagate drive if that's the one you've been trying to use.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


So what was the issue with your credit card payment and getting the new Bolt+ activated yesterday?


----------



## thyname

HarperVision said:


> That CAN'T be their policy and if it is, then they're going against FCC rules to allow customer self installation!
> 
> File a complaint with the FCC and watch how fast they allow you to come pickup a cablecard at their office!
> 
> https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=33794


Yes, it's definitely FCC mandate that CableCards are self-install.


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## JOSHSKORN

thyname said:


> So what was the issue with your credit card payment and getting the new Bolt+ activated yesterday?


I don't know. What had happened, was, I went to the site to activate, typed in my TSN, went to the next screen to pay, submitted my payment, then my Internet security browser popped up. In my case, I was using Google Chrome, and when submitting the payment my Kaspersky browser popped up to a white screen. As a result, the payment went through, but my device was not activated. My credit card company had marked it as pending. This was Wednesday night. After talking to Billing at TiVo today, they said to call back when THAT charge clears and they'll refund me. The agent seemed to think that the credit card company may see that as a double charge and may cancel out the original charge without my interaction.

They took a payment today as well. I called my credit card company and they said the charge from Wednesday night was still pending. It could take 7-14 days to clear. They said to talk to the merchant first for a refund, and if that's a hassle, they'll file a claim. But I have to wait that period for it to clear, first.

So in short, had I known that I needed to call TiVo anyway to deactivate my Bolt, I would've just done it all over the phone. If you're a new TiVo customer or are adding another DVR, I would disable your secure browser first before attempting to activate or pay for service online, well, particularly if it's Kaspersky. A couple of years ago, I had BitDefender, which also had a secure browser. Webroot did not.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Plumloco

JOSHSKORN said:


> In my opinion, if you have the money and haven't paid for any lifetime service with your Bolt, I'd just give up on it. I got the Bolt+, got it activated today and got my Bolt deactivated. Otherwise, some have said they've had luck with the Red WD drives, which are 3.5" and won't fit. This requires replacing the SATA cable and some engineering, either cutting a hole in the back of the device or leaving the side cover exposed. In either case, if you have an internal hard drive, look for the Rosewill enclosure. Search the forums for the model number. In either case, give up on the Seagate drive if that's the one you've been trying to use.


$ and the fact that it will not support OTA is a deal breaker but thanks for the suggestion.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Plumloco said:


> I forgot to mention I believe the 4tb is toast, I cannot get my pc to even acknowledge it's existence.


I had the same problem, but I still have the 4TB drive inside the 2.5" to 3.5" converter, which is all inside of the Rosewill enclosure, as well still. I did work, but not any longer. I will at some point remove it from those two devices and put it back into its original enclosure but I think it's toast. I have a feeling that at some point, TiVo turned on a feature through an update that requires extra power draw and forces the hard drive to work harder, thus the Seagate drive was overworked and burned out. This, in conjunction with more updated firmware being used on the Seagate drive vs the original firmware, seems to cause this problem. I looked into downgrading the firmware on my Seagate drive, it was a no-go, unless I was doing something wrong.

It looks like that as of now, the only solution for upgrading your drive is basically this one: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001

You can go about it two different ways. If you don't want to cut a hole or don't trust your skills, just leave the side cover open and connect it. Of course, the internals will be exposed, but it'll still work, but it doesn't look neat by any means. Definitely a problem if you have a significant other that cares about that.

In any event, from what I'd seen or read on various posts, I wouldn't try anything other than a WD RED Drive. I've read about people using the 6TB and 8TB WD Red Drives with success. I'm not sure why those work and others..."may not". I say that because I don't know if others work or not, but that's what I've seen people try. Maybe the WD Red line is lower power, I don't know. Good luck.


----------



## HarperVision

JOSHSKORN said:


> ........ It looks like that as of now, the only solution for upgrading your drive is basically this one: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=540001 .........


Nope, the 2TB version of the Seagate harvested from the external enclosure works just fine.


----------



## nyjklein

JOSHSKORN said:


> So you're absolutely confident that the 8 TB RED drive will work?


YES. Nice, but pricey WD Red drive - WD80EFZX. Prepped simply with MFSR

(and for Bob Camp, yes the 4TB Toshiba drives that many people (other than Aaron) had problems with are PMR drives)



JOSHSKORN said:


> EDIT: Did you leave your fan plugged in as well or did you unplug it? I'd unplugged mine, got the idea somewhere, not sure if it was you or not.


Yes. I left the internal fan plugged in. I even placed the original 2.5" drive back in (but disconnected) to minimize disruption of the internal air flow.

Jeff


----------



## BobCamp1

nyjklein said:


> YES. Nice, but pricey WD Red drive - WD80EFZX. Prepped simply with MFSR
> 
> (and for Bob Camp, yes the 4TB Toshiba drives that many people (other than Aaron) had problems with are PMR drives)
> 
> Yes. I left the internal fan plugged in. I even placed the original 2.5" drive back in (but disconnected) to minimize disruption of the internal air flow.
> 
> Jeff


Thanks!

It could be those drives are pieces of crap. It does happen, especially with WD, that certain drive models are horrendously unreliable. Or maybe their is some sort of weird compatibility thing happening.

I don't think it's heat causing the problem, as hard drives prefer to run hot (40 C).


----------



## Plumloco

Just in case anyone is keeping score, the 4TB Seagate that failed on me was Firmware V3.


----------



## JCN

nyjklein said:


> YES. Nice, but pricey WD Red drive - WD80EFZX. Prepped simply with MFSR
> 
> (and for Bob Camp, yes the 4TB Toshiba drives that many people (other than Aaron) had problems with are PMR drives)
> 
> Yes. I left the internal fan plugged in. I even placed the original 2.5" drive back in (but disconnected) to minimize disruption of the internal air flow.
> 
> Jeff


WD 8TB RED on ebay from reputable sellers for $265. Bought one myself.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

JCN said:


> WD 8TB RED on ebay from reputable sellers for $265. Bought one myself.


This post is more in reference to the drive, itself. Instead of replacing the stock drive, would this drive work in the existing ESATA port?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke

JCN said:


> WD 8TB RED on ebay from reputable sellers for $265. Bought one myself.


Any links? I paid about $375 for mine, plus tax and shipping.


----------



## JCN

ggieseke said:


> Any links? I paid about $375 for mine, plus tax and shipping.


This is one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Dig...832402&pid=100011&rk=4&rkt=10&sd=282190419051


----------



## JCN

ggieseke said:


> Any links? I paid about $375 for mine, plus tax and shipping.


Just a heads received mine and opened today. WD80EFZX factory sealed box. Build date 10-AUG-2016. $265 free ship no tax.


----------



## JohnnyM

This sounds interesting. This goes to overall power loading.

I am using a small lap top cooler that is USB powered and it might be just enough to put the power supply over the edge.


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## JOSHSKORN

I am editing the OP in an attempt to help others before attempting to upgrade the drive. If you have experienced the 4 Flashing Lights, please post your hard drive's model number and I'll add yours to the list.


----------



## johnfarmer55

Well, it happened to me as well. Replaced the 500gb with the 4tb seagate FW 0002. Worked great for 6 months then I started getting the 4 lights. The only way I seem to be able to get it to work after the blinking lights is to pull the power, remove the cable card, then power up again. once it loads I insert the card again and all is well for a few days before it does it again. I'm thinking of going with the 2tb drive since I've never gone above 30% capacity on the 4tb. Do all seagate drives have issues or just the 4tb?


----------



## JOSHSKORN

johnfarmer55 said:


> Well, it happened to me as well. Replaced the 500gb with the 4tb seagate FW 0002. Worked great for 6 months then I started getting the 4 lights. The only way I seem to be able to get it to work after the blinking lights is to pull the power, remove the cable card, then power up again. once it loads I insert the card again and all is well for a few days before it does it again. I'm thinking of going with the 2tb drive since I've never gone above 30% capacity on the 4tb. Do all seagate drives have issues or just the 4tb?


I don't think we know for sure if other drives may work, but based on your post, I think it's safe to say that the ONLY firmware version for the Seagate that will work is 0001.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


----------



## aaronwt

johnfarmer55 said:


> Well, it happened to me as well. Replaced the 500gb with the 4tb seagate FW 0002. Worked great for 6 months then I started getting the 4 lights. The only way I seem to be able to get it to work after the blinking lights is to pull the power, remove the cable card, then power up again. once it loads I insert the card again and all is well for a few days before it does it again. I'm thinking of going with the 2tb drive since I've never gone above 30% capacity on the 4tb. Do all seagate drives have issues or just the 4tb?





JOSHSKORN said:


> I don't think we know for sure if other drives may work, but based on your post, I think it's safe to say that the ONLY firmware version for the Seagate that will work is 0001.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


Yes my two 4TB firmware 0001 drives are still humming along. And they have been used extensively since October 2015. I just hope they continue to have no issues.


----------



## Bradl001

I just got the flashing lights today on a 4 month old original TiVo Bolt. It still has the original 500 GB drive.


----------



## scht99

I got 4 flashing lights on a 3TB Seagate SMR drive (ST3000LM016). After about a year of use.

Got 4 flashing lights on a 2TB Seagate ST2000LM007 after 1 month of use

The crazy thing is both drives seem to be perfectly fine. They pass all tests. I have been using the 3TB on my xbox one for a month with no issue post TiVo crash.

I am trying ddrescue on the 2TB to a new seagate ST2000LM015. I never tried ddrescue on the 3TB as I didn't have a spare 3TB and didn't want to buy another one.

Anyone successfully recover from a 4 flashing light?

I think the bolt must be really picky about HDDs. the tests I ran on the 3TB all passed, but some of the sectors read really really slow.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

scht99 said:


> I got 4 flashing lights on a 3TB Seagate SMR drive (ST3000LM016). After about a year of use.
> 
> Got 4 flashing lights on a 2TB Seagate ST2000LM007 after 1 month of use
> 
> The crazy thing is both drives seem to be perfectly fine. They pass all tests. I have been using the 3TB on my xbox one for a month with no issue post TiVo crash.
> 
> I am trying ddrescue on the 2TB to a new seagate ST2000LM015. I never tried ddrescue on the 3TB as I didn't have a spare 3TB and didn't want to buy another one.
> 
> Anyone successfully recover from a 4 flashing light?
> 
> I think the bolt must be really picky about HDDs. the tests I ran on the 3TB all passed, but some of the sectors read really really slow.


I haven't seen one person with the 4 flashing lights issue actually recover from it. I've also never heard of 2TB and 3TB models having the same problem. This must be a generic problem with all Seagate drives for this particular use, which it's not meant for, anyways.

2TB and 3TB models might be similar to the 4RB model that we've all tried and have failed (unless your name is aaronwt). That is, I'm thinking later firmware revisions of the drive enable more SMR capabilities whereas Firmware version 0001 may not.

Long story short, don't bother with your Seagate drives. Look around the forums for people that have connected a 3.5" drive externally by replacing the internal cable, and those that have done it, use the same drives they are using. You might not like all of this dirty work, nor the way the setup looks afterwards, though but it seems functional.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## Bradl001

I had unplugged my TiVo Bolt for an hour or so (I was busy) then plugged it back in. It said something about being upgraded and all my stuff is still there on the 500 GB disk. I haven't recorded anything since but I can get to whatever was there.


----------



## sfhub

scht99 said:


> \I think the bolt must be really picky about HDDs. the tests I ran on the 3TB all passed, but some of the sectors read really really slow.


I don't have experience with SMR drives, but with regular drives if it is reading a sector really slow, usually it is failing and getting remapped.


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## scht99

ddrescue worked. When plugged back in with the cloned drive I got a message about applying an upgrade, which succeeded and I am back in business.

I don't think there is enough evidence pointing to anything to do with all Seagate drives. I do think my SMR drive (the 3TB is exactly the same as the 4TB, just 1TB less) got old. I do think there is enough evidence that the SMR drives will prematurely fail. I would stay away from them for Bolt usage. 

If anyone else has problems with 2TB segate baracuda drives do let us all know but I think this was a fluke. Time will tell. Could also be a heat issue with my setup that kills drives. Impossible to know for sure.

My Kids went a day without TV. oh the horror! At least they had video games and ipad...


----------



## johnfarmer55

Well, I got a Seagate 2tb drive ST2000LM003 FW:2bc10009 that I will be using to replace the 4tb drive today. I'll keep good notes and hopefully it will work. I'm glad I used Archivo to keep the SWMBO's shows!


----------



## JOSHSKORN

scht99 said:


> ddrescue worked. When plugged back in with the cloned drive I got a message about applying an upgrade, which succeeded and I am back in business.
> 
> I don't think there is enough evidence pointing to anything to do with all Seagate drives. I do think my SMR drive (the 3TB is exactly the same as the 4TB, just 1TB less) got old. I do think there is enough evidence that the SMR drives will prematurely fail. I would stay away from them for Bolt usage.
> 
> If anyone else has problems with 2TB segate baracuda drives do let us all know but I think this was a fluke. Time will tell. Could also be a heat issue with my setup that kills drives. Impossible to know for sure.
> 
> My Kids went a day without TV. oh the horror! At least they had video games and ipad...


Hopefully it stays but I have a feeling it may fail in a couple days, maybe a week or so. That's what mine did. I never figured out if it's due to just being overworked after a certain amount of time or if it arbitrarily died at a certain percentage full. I don't think I got more than 20% full before it died again. Good luck.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


----------



## scht99

JOSHSKORN said:


> Hopefully it stays but I have a feeling it may fail in a couple days, maybe a week or so. That's what mine did. I never figured out if it's due to just being overworked after a certain amount of time or if it arbitrarily died at a certain percentage full. I don't think I got more than 20% full before it died again. Good luck.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


By ddrescue I meant I put in a newly cloned brand new drive. The old drive had to be bad in some way since it worked with the new drive. If it fails again then I suspect its not HDD related, but I will be surprised if it isn't just a bad drive. I returned the old failed drive as it was still in the return window.

So I was able to save my season passes and recording. I have them all backed up with kmttg so its not a big deal, but the family gets cranky when TV is down for any amount of time.


----------



## Scrumpy!

Sorry to say that my unmodified 1 TB bolt failed (4 flashing lights) on week 14. Have you read the 1, 2, and 3 star reviews on Amazon? I wish I had before I bought my Bolt. Most of those people had the same problem I have now (19% of reviewers). I don't know whether to throw it out and find every forum I can to warn others about the shoddy workmanship or engineering that went into this thing or pay to have it replaced. I'm glad I didn't pay the year in advance subscription and really glad I didn't fall for the "lifetime" subscription scam.


----------



## atmuscarella

Scrumpy! said:


> Sorry to say that my unmodified 1 TB bolt failed (4 flashing lights) on week 14. Have you read the 1, 2, and 3 star reviews on Amazon? I wish I had before I bought my Bolt. Most of those people had the same problem I have now (19% of reviewers). I don't know whether to throw it out and find every forum I can to warn others about the shoddy workmanship or engineering that went into this thing or pay to have it replaced. I'm glad I didn't pay the year in advance subscription and really glad I didn't fall for the "lifetime" subscription scam.


It is still under warranty from TiVo and should only cost you $50 to get a warranty replacement.


----------



## aaronwt

Fortunately my two Bolts with 4TB drives in them are still fine. The drives will have sixteen months of use in Bolts later this month. At this point I want to keep these BOlts running as long as possible. Just to see how long my 4TB drives will last.

And that is hopefully a long time. Since my two Bolts are where I primarily watch my TV recordings from. With over two hundred One Passes between them.


----------



## allanmac

Rebooted the TiVo Bolt (refurb) last night and was greeted with the sporadically flashing red/amber/green (where is 4th light?) christmas tree.

I had installed a 3.0TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 2.5-inch in the unit 2.5 months ago.

After several power cycles and hoping the problem would go away, I pulled the 3TB drive and reinstalled the original 500GB... and it booted fine.

Inspecting the 3TB Toshiba drive with CrystalDiskInfo revealed hundreds of current pending sectors. A surface scan also reported major issues.

So... a new Toshiba will be acquired (drive was 72 days old) and, maybe, I'll try the ddrescue route to try to recover some of my old recordings.

Is there any reason to think that not having a beefy enough power supply could've created this problem? I don't think so but I have a new LiteOn 12V coming as well.

Additionally, I guess OnePass's and channel settings are stored in the cloud? Or in flash? They were intact with the 500 GB drive.


----------



## Tigeralum2001

Add me to the list of failed Seagate 4TB, firmware 003. 

My 4TB drive had been running flawlessly for 8 months. All of a sudden, 4 flashing lights. The only thing I did was swap from an indoor antenna to an outdoor antenna. I pulled the USB powered antenna part out and the TiVo died. I thought it could be related to that somehow, but google led me here. Antenna/USB switching seems oddly timed, but irrelevant?

I removed the 4TB drive from the TiVo and reformatted it to FAT32 using an external case. It worked fine and had no issues, so I reformatted it back to MFS and replaced it in the TiVo. Still 4 flashing lights. 

The original drive had been repurposed and formatted as ext4. I couldn't format it to MFS using an external housing and neither would the TiVo. I formatted it to FAT32, then the TiVo recognized the disk and reformatted it automatically. TiVo is back up and running on the 1TB, original disk. 

I'm stumped. My 4TB disk seems functional, only the TiVo can't use it. This also happened suddenly and after many months of stable use. 

What was the ultimate resolution, going back up to 3TB?


----------



## sfhub

Tigeralum2001 said:


> I'm stumped. My 4TB disk seems functional, only the TiVo can't use it. This also happened suddenly and after many months of stable use.
> 
> What was the ultimate resolution, going back up to 3TB?


If you have another power supply with more amperage but same voltage, try that. Sometimes drives are sensitive to how much power they get and the power supplies degrade over time. That was a common problem with old S3 units with capacitors going bad. With Bolt, you have external power brick, so much easier to test if you have access. Some people who have had drive problems were able to resolve with different power supplies. That usually happened right away after upgrading, but power supplies do degrade over time. I've had netgear and slingbox power bricks start outputing lower voltage, eventually going below threshold limit. Alternatively, test the voltage output using multimeter. Sometimes a degrading power supply will show lower voltage. Sometimes it won't as the voltage issues are transient, under load or with heat.


----------



## TydalForce

The four flashing lights started for me the morning of May 12. 
I have a "500GB Bolt", which I've upgraded with a 3.0TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300
My Bolt's a refurb - one of the models where Kickstart 54 does't work. 

My first round with TiVo Support had me disconnect everything, power it on, connect things one-at-a-time.... and that held for like 20 minutes. I basically don't have a stable TiVo right now. 
I have yet to swap the original drive back in. Just wanted to throw my info into the thread.


----------



## allanmac

I'm also on a 500GB refurb Bolt and yesterday I finally got around to installing the replacement Toshiba 3TB (from OWC -- they immediately provided a replacement).

This time I used the MSFR utility to massage the freshly formatted drive.

The kmttg tool made it pretty easy to save and then restore my One Passes, OTA TV channels and recordings from the original 500 GB drive that I was using in the interim.

Also, I'm now using a beefy LiteOn power supply.

Knock on wood that my second Toshiba 3TB doesn't die like that last one.


----------



## aaronwt

Does the 3TB Toshiba really use that much power? I've just been using the normal Bolt power supply with my 4TB Seagate drives.


----------



## BobCamp1

TydalForce said:


> The four flashing lights started for me the morning of May 12.
> I have a "500GB Bolt", which I've upgraded with a 3.0TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300
> My Bolt's a refurb - one of the models where Kickstart 54 does't work.


Since several people have had problems with this drive, I don't think anybody should use it going forward.


----------



## allanmac

aaronwt said:


> Does the 3TB Toshiba really use that much power? I've just been using the normal Bolt power supply with my 4TB Seagate drives.


I don't think the Toshiba has any special power requirements but I used to run my Roamio with a LiteOn and am now doing the same with the Bolt.

There are other people on the forums who have been running the Toshibas for a long time so hopefully our negative experiences aren't indicative.


----------



## Mikeguy

BobCamp1 said:


> Since several people have had problems with this drive, I don't think anybody should use it going forward.


Is it a systemic issue? I don't recall seeing that and isn't this drive/hasn't it been the drive of choice (and what other good options are there)?


----------



## idksmy

To state the obvious, the recent posts also have the fact their Bolts are refurbished devices in common. 

Should the recommendation also be we don't install the Toshiba 3TB drive in refurb Bolts?

Saying either of these, i.e., don't buy a refurb and don't use the Toshiba 3TB drive, are equal premature.


----------



## TydalForce

sfhub said:


> If you have another power supply with more amperage but same voltage, try that. Sometimes drives are sensitive to how much power they get and the power supplies degrade over time.





allanmac said:


> I don't think the Toshiba has any special power requirements but I used to run my Roamio with a LiteOn and am now doing the same with the Bolt..


So I think I got this all worked out. (Watch, as soon as I post this it'll reboot...)

Someone in a post somewhere that I can't find suggested removing the door to the CableCARD - which I did, and that seemed to help, but did not resolve the issue. From sfhub's suggestion above, I got a better power adapter - surprisingly I didn't have one with enough amps in my Big Box Of Adapters, but this one was cheap + powerful enough:

Amazon.com: XINY AC 100-240V To DC 12V 8.5A Switching Power Supply Adapter DC 5.5mm X 2.5mm Plug 12V 8.5A Power Supply: Home Audio & Theater

That didn't seem to make a difference though. At this point it seemed that if I left it unplugged for " a few hours", it would recover and be OK for a day or two. But a quick unplug-replug was insufficient.

The CableCARD cover and some other posts made me start thinking about heat, so I got one of those laptop cooling pads. Specifically, this one:

Amazon.com: Pwr+ 17" Laptop Cooling Stand Pad for Macbook - Samsung Ultrabook Toshiba Lenovo Acer Asus Dell Hp Sony Quiet Fans Silver Metal Mesh Light Fully Adjustable Ergonomic: Computers & Accessories

It's a little louder than I'd like, and I didn't realize it had glowy LEDs, but since putting my BOLT on it I don't think it's rebooted once. That was 3.5 days ago, and previously the reboots kicked in under 48 hours.

So I'm thinking/hoping the added power boost plus the added cooling is keeping things 


sfhub said:


> If you have another power supply with more amperage but same voltage, try that. Sometimes drives are sensitive to how much power they get and the power supplies degrade over time.





allanmac said:


> I don't think the Toshiba has any special power requirements but I used to run my Roamio with a LiteOn and am now doing the same with the Bolt..


So I think I got this all worked out. (Watch, as soon as I post this it'll reboot...)

Someone in a post somewhere that I can't find suggested removing the door to the CableCARD - which I did, and that seemed to help, but did not resolve the issue. From sfhub's suggestion above, I got a better power adapter - surprisingly I didn't have one with enough amps in my Big Box Of Adapters, but this one was cheap + powerful enough:

Amazon.com: XINY AC 100-240V To DC 12V 8.5A Switching Power Supply Adapter DC 5.5mm X 2.5mm Plug 12V 8.5A Power Supply: Home Audio & Theater

That didn't seem to make a difference though. At this point it seemed that if I left it unplugged for " a few hours", it would recover and be OK for a day or two. But a quick unplug-replug was insufficient.

The CableCARD cover and some other posts made me start thinking about heat, so I got one of those laptop cooling pads. Specifically, this one:

Amazon.com: Pwr+ 17" Laptop Cooling Stand Pad for Macbook - Samsung Ultrabook Toshiba Lenovo Acer Asus Dell Hp Sony Quiet Fans Silver Metal Mesh Light Fully Adjustable Ergonomic: Computers & Accessories

It's a little louder than I'd like, and I didn't realize it had glowy LEDs, but since putting my BOLT on it I don't think it's rebooted once. The CableCARD cover is still off. I have the cooling pad plugged into an AC/USB adapter (not the TiVo). 
That was 3.5 days ago, and previously the reboots kicked in around 2 days.

So I'm thinking/hoping the added power boost plus the added cooling is keeping things happy. Either that or I'm just getting lucky!

Perhaps the extra height of the Toshiba drive restricted airflow, and/or perhaps it gets hotter than stock drives. I am still unsure why this suddenly started happening after working fine for months, but at the moment it seems to have stopped.


----------



## TydalForce

Also, just found this thread:
Temperature?
which talks about internal temperature, and how to find it (it's labeled "ODT"). Might be worth getting some numbers here? 
I'm currently showing 48.


----------



## TydalForce

welp, yesterday it started again with the reboots and the flashing. Lasted longer this time though! 
grr.


----------



## sfhub

TydalForce said:


> Also, just found this thread:
> Temperature?
> which talks about internal temperature, and how to find it (it's labeled "ODT"). Might be worth getting some numbers here?
> I'm currently showing 48.


My impression is 48 is pretty low for a bolt. Most people were posting 58-68.


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## TydalForce

sfhub said:


> My impression is 48 is pretty low for a bolt. Most people were posting 58-68.


I'm getting 54 now, after watching some Netflix. I've got it sitting on a laptop cooling pad.


----------



## sfhub

TydalForce said:


> I'm getting 54 now, after watching some Netflix. I've got it sitting on a laptop cooling pad.


I started installing a Bolt I recently received.

58C/136F (ODT)
24C/75F (Ambient)

at some point I had the bolt on a soft cardboard box that was blocking some of the vent holes on the bottom and the ODT was up to 68C/154F.

This is with stock 500GB HD.


----------



## TydalForce

Mine just started into a reboot loop while I was sitting here not doing anything with it. 
Checked ODT as soon as it came back up: 50-51
So maybe temp isn't always the thing here...


----------



## sfhub

TydalForce said:


> Mine just started into a reboot loop while I was sitting here not doing anything with it.
> Checked ODT as soon as it came back up: 50-51
> So maybe temp isn't always the thing here...


I've lost track, you've tried the original drive or are still using the original drive?


----------



## TydalForce

sfhub said:


> I've lost track, you've tried the original drive or are still using the original drive?


Ah I still have the Toshiba in there. I did swap the original back in once, months back, and it acted weird too - but maybe I should wipe it first and put it in and see what happens, start fresh.

My first Toshiba drive was, I think, defective. I got it swapped and things had been fine until this 4 lights thing started.


----------



## TydalForce

TydalForce said:


> - but maybe I should wipe it first and put it in and see what happens, start fresh.
> .


Original drive wiped, and in. 
Put the CableCARD cover on, not using the cooling pad, using the original power adapter, everything as "original" as possible. ODT is 57 after running Guided Setup and configuring a few things. 
Now we wait... This may take a while, if at all...


----------



## aaronwt

Ruh-roh!! I came home today and one of my Bolts had four flashing lights with the fan spinning at full speed. I unplugged the power and reconnected it and the Bolt booted up without issue. So I'm hoping this is just a one off and not a sign of things to come. My 4TB drives have been in use for 22 months now and had been working great so far. This is the first time I've ever seen four flashing lights with any of the seven or eight Bolts I've owned.

The Bolt had updated to RC22 a couple of weeks ago without issue. I thought maybe it had updated to RC24 but it was still on RC 22. And I'm still waiting for my other 4TB Bolt to update to 20.7.2, It's still on 20.7.1.


----------



## sfhub

What was that saying? Once you go flash you are out some cash?


----------



## FreydNot

I had the 4 lights flashing problem starting a few days ago. Why does nobody mention the weird erratic pattern that the lights flash in? It's weird and doesn't feel like an error pattern, more like a hard drive activity light. 

I have a white bolt that I put a 4TB 2.5" drive in. It was a Seagate Backup Plus 4TB (STDR4000100) that I took the drive out of. It was firmware version 103. The drive worked fine for 1 year and 1 week before crapping out.

It happened about 20 minutes after we had a test from the emergency broadcast system. If you've experienced this on Tivo, you will understand the hassle it is to try to watch video that was already back in the buffer. Basically, when you get to the part where the EBS test happened, Tivo will jump to real time. If you jump back to the end of the buffer again the fast forward it will happen again. You have to start out at real time and rewind and hope you can figure out where to stop just before the EBS test happened. Anyway I was doing this dance when the Bolt decided to reboot and never came back :-( Just 4 flashing lights no matter what I tired. My wife is convinced I broke it somehow by using it. Great, thanks for that Tivo.

I've tried everything... I unplugged and let it cool down overnight. I removed the cable card. I even tried using an external sATA power supply and a different sATA cable. No joy.

The drive passed the checks in Seatools when installed on my PC, so it doesn't appear to be a physical defect on the drive but rather some kind of software incompatibility. 

Fortunately I happen to have a 3.5" WD red 5TB drive laying around that I could press into service. For about a day I've been using ddrescue to copy the failed 4TB drive over to the WD red drive. It's only got an hour and a half before it finishes and I find out if I've lost a years worth of recordings. Fingers Crossed...

EDIT: No joy. The ddrescue completed without any errors, but the new drive acted the same as the 4TB drive (4 flashing lights). Next I'll try to figure out how to reformat the 5TB drive to make Tivo see it properly again. I hear the trick is to format it fat32 in windows first.


----------



## BobCamp1

FreydNot said:


> The drive passed the checks in Seatools when installed on my PC, so it doesn't appear to be a physical defect on the drive but rather some kind of software incompatibility.
> 
> Fortunately I happen to have a 3.5" WD red 5TB drive laying around that I could press into service. For about a day I've been using ddrescue to copy the failed 4TB drive over to the WD red drive. It's only got an hour and a half before it finishes and I find out if I've lost a years worth of recordings. Fingers Crossed...
> 
> EDIT: No joy. The ddrescue completed without any errors, but the new drive acted the same as the 4TB drive (4 flashing lights). Next I'll try to figure out how to reformat the 5TB drive to make Tivo see it properly again. I hear the trick is to format it fat32 in windows first.


Note that those tools very often do not detect a hardware fault.


----------



## Jimbo687

Just got the 4 flashing lights this morning. Bolt plus w the 8TB up grade (WD Red). TiVo unit did a system update last night that required a "restart". I initiated the restart and went to sleep. The 8TB is in a separate enclosure w own power supply and would not have powered off during the required restart. So far I have unplugged both units and restarted with no luck. Still have 4 flashing lights. Thanks for any suggestions.


----------



## fcfc2

Jimbo687 said:


> Just got the 4 flashing lights this morning. Bolt plus w the 8TB up grade (WD Red). TiVo unit did a system update last night that required a "restart". I initiated the restart and went to sleep. The 8TB is in a separate enclosure w own power supply and would not have powered off during the required restart. So far I have unplugged both units and restarted with no luck. Still have 4 flashing lights. Thanks for any suggestions.


I have seen several reports of the external drives failing/dropping out after recent firmware upgrades. I have also seen reports of "some" who switched from using the Esata port to going strait from the sata connector on the Bolt with a strait sata connection on the external drive and got up running again.


----------



## CaseyJ

Jimbo687 said:


> Just got the 4 flashing lights this morning. Bolt plus w the 8TB up grade (WD Red). TiVo unit did a system update last night that required a "restart". I initiated the restart and went to sleep. The 8TB is in a separate enclosure w own power supply and would not have powered off during the required restart. So far I have unplugged both units and restarted with no luck. Still have 4 flashing lights. Thanks for any suggestions.


This is a common problem with this update, large drives, and extrreal enclosures. Do not install another drive or you will lose all your recordings. Try to use a SATA cable to plug directly to the drive. See this thread for more info Latest Software Update Broke my Hard eSATA Drive Hack on Bolt


----------



## Jimbo687

Thanks for info CaseyJ. Googled 4 flashing lights on Bolt and somehow missed the thread you referenced. Saw your post within 5 min of booting up original hard drive. I did lose all of my recordings. All is back to normal w/ the 8TB minus almost 4TB of recordings. Would be nice to know if the recommended SATA to SATA cabling would have prevented the 4 flashing lights after system update.


----------



## aaronwt

So far I haven't see the four flashing lights again on that 4TB Bolt. And I've not run into it yet on my other 4TB Bolt.

But it hasn't even been a week yet. So I'm hoping it doesn't crop up again. But the fact that it happened once is disconcerting.


----------



## tivobw

CaseyJ said:


> This is a common problem with this update, large drives, and extrreal enclosures. Do not install another drive or you will lose all your recordings. Try to use a SATA cable to plug directly to the drive. See this thread for more info Latest Software Update Broke my Hard eSATA Drive Hack on Bolt


See this thread! Fix for the 20.7.2 upgrade which breaks eSATA external HD upgrades with HD greater than 3TB. Dammit Tivo, what are you doing?! I'm back up and running... thanks gor88!

Latest Software Update Broke my Hard eSATA Drive Hack on Bolt


----------



## slicer

I am having the same issue but my drive is the 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300. I only just bought this drive (and Bolt) back in May. Is it possible the HD is failing already? I see the link above but it seems the firmware only broke eSATA drives > 3TB, with this one being SATA and 3TB. What gives?

ETA: Just hooked up old 500GB stock drive it's working. Had to call Time Warner to re-pair the Cable Card but that's to be expected. My guess is that something in most recent firmware update doesn't like my 3TB drive. Now how to re-format/work around this issue? I will be digging around the threads but please someone chime in if the fix is known. Thanks.


----------



## FreydNot

slicer said:


> Now how to re-format/work around this issue? I will be digging around the threads but please someone chime in if the fix is known. Thanks.


You and me both. The 5TB 3.5" drive I was testing with only gives the 4 flashing lights. I've tried doing all sorts of things to the partitions before putting it back into the Bolt; all resulting in 4 flashing lights. I've removed all partitions in windows. I've created a 2TB FAT32 partition in windows (since 2TB is the largest MBR will allow). I've converted it from MBR to GTP, I've created a data partition as a GTP disk.

I previously said my 5TB 3.5" drive was a WD red, but it turns out I was confused and it is actually a Seagate ST5000DM000. Maybe the problem is an issue only with Seagate drives? I understand the stock drives in the Bolt and Bolt+ are both WD blue drives?

It would take some work, but I could swap the Seagate 5TB 3.5" drive for a WD 4TB Blue 3.5" drive that is currently a data drive in my Windows PC.

I have three questions...

#1 - Does anyone know a surefire trick to reset a drive that has had the 4 flashing lights problem so that the Bolt will see it as a new drive and use it again?

#2 - has anyone successfully used a Seagate 3.5" drive in a Bolt? If yes, is it common for them to fail with 4 flashing LEDs like the 2.5" drives do?

#3 - would it be worth the effort to swap my PC drives around so I can test a WD blue on my Bolt? I'm looking for anecdotal experiences or educated guesses.


----------



## HerronScott

FreydNot said:


> #2 - has anyone successfully used a Seagate 3.5" drive in a Bolt? If yes, is it common for them to fail with 4 flashing LEDs like the 2.5" drives do?


The issue on the Seagates appears to be if it uses SMR. I found one reference that indicated your 3.5" ST5000DM000 also uses SMR but not sure if it's accurate.

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

HerronScott said:


> The issue on the Seagates appears to be if it uses SMR. I found one reference that indicated your 3.5" ST5000DM000 also uses SMR but not sure if it's accurate.
> 
> Scott


From what I've read if they had 1TB platters it used PMR. But if it had 1.25TB platters then it used SMR. No idea if that is still the case though since those 5TB drives have been out for several years now.


----------



## guykuo

Same problem here. Four flashing lights + Rosewill external case.

Bypassing the Rosewill bridge board with a direct SATA connection to the drive cleared the problem.


----------



## bilj65

I too woke up yesterday to the flashing lights. I have the 4TB WD40EURX in a Rosewill RX304 eSata enclosure and had the little Addonics SATA to eSATA pigtail cable connected to the Bolt and sticking out through the case, and then a regular eSATA to eSATA cable to the Rosewill chassis.
Sure enough, when I attached a regular PC SATA cable (with right angle on one end for inside the Bolt) directly between the Bolt and the drive it worked.
Does anyone know if this a permanent limitation we must live with, or if after the update completes (20.7.2.RC24-USC-11-849) can we go back to using the eSATA? I'm not going to open up my Bolt again unless I hear that I can go back to how it was.
If I have to live with this, I'm putting a short SATA extension cable (male to female: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008635ATO) on the drive and will make a small slot for it to come out of the Rosewill chassis. Then I can attach the PC SATA cable already coming out of the Bolt to the female end of SATA extension coming out of the Rosewill. This way I can easily disconnect the drive from the Bolt when needed because it's very awkward having them "permanently" tethered to each other with the back plate of the Rosewill removed.


----------



## FreydNot

Well I've got it up and working again. I was able to liberate a 4TB 3.5" WD40EZRZ from my windows PC which worked on the bolt. I only had to remove the windows partition and I was able to follow the usual procedure. 

I put the old 2.5" drive into the PC to see what StableBit Scanner had to say about it, but it started clicking after a bit so maybe it was a true hardware failure after all.

Right now I've got it bare and sitting on the shelf next to the bolt. I suppose it would be a good idea to put it in an enclosure.

I see most people are using the Rosewill RX304. Is it easy to rip out the eSata connector but leave the power connection in place?


----------



## guykuo

FreydNot said:


> Is it easy to rip out the eSata connector but leave the power connection in place?


Yes. The power and SATA cables in the Rosewill enclosure are independent. You can disconnect the SATA without affecting the power connector. You will need to either leave the back panel off or cut a hole in it to pass your SATA cable into the enclosure.


----------



## fcfc2

I have been using a Toshiba MQ03ABB300 3TB for just 7 months. I have run it up to about 90% full and back down again twice and so far so good, it also has the 20.7.2.RC22 update. So far I have only seen 2 or three reports of these failing and the one guy who responded said he did not run it through MSFR, which I did, thinking it might cause less wear and tear on the drive. I am not sure that is a factor but it is easy and will cause no known harm for sure. 
The other internal Seagate drives which have been problematic are the all the SMR versions and these with the exception of aaronwt who got a few with the "original" earliest firmware are the folks having the most reported trouble. 
The common denominator on the more recent firmware related failures are the folks using external esata drives with their Bolts, but this seems to be fixed for some/most by simply going back to a direct sata connection with the external drives, the only thing the same is that the Bolt flashes it's 4 lights, but that appears to be it. I don't know if it has anything to do with some reports/posts saying that Tivo has dropped support for it's older Esata externals or if that is even accurate.
The point I am trying to make is that these problems may well be totally unrelated to each other, the SMR drives have been problematic for some time now, but the External drive issue is unrelated.


----------



## BobCamp1

sastexan said:


> My Bolt went down about a week and a half ago (I was out of town so not sure what day it went down). Flashing 4 lights and leaving the bolt unplugged for a day failed to revive it. I replaced the original 500GB drive with the Toshiba MQ03ABB300 back in January and it has been working great up until now. I yanked the drive and did a S.M.A.R.T. analysis on it using HDDScan and got back two errors - "197 - Current Pending Errors Count" of 20, and "199 - UltraDMA CRC Errors" of 1. Everything else seems to work ok.
> 
> Is this salvageable? And even if I figure out how to run MFS Tools on my windows 10 machine, and I copy everything over, will the data have integrity if I copy it back over to my original 500 GB drive (just the season passes and setup - I don't need the shows)?
> 
> Thanks!


"197 - Current Pending Errors Count" means you have 20 sectors that are waiting to be remapped and marked as "bad." For a 3 TB hard drive, that's not horrible but it's not great. If that had continue to increase, it would be a sign that the drive was dying.

Note that SMART isn't, so if it's detecting errors that's never a good sign.


----------



## CaseyJ

sastexan said:


> Is this salvageable? And even if I figure out how to run MFS Tools on my windows 10 machine, and I copy everything over, will the data have integrity if I copy it back over to my original 500 GB drive (just the season passes and setup - I don't need the shows)?
> 
> Thanks!


If you've connected any other drive to the TiVo after this one, all shows (except the deleted ones, how convenient) are lost. I think season passes and channels are also lost. If you haven't and can get it to boot one more time (though that seems unlikely) check out KMTTG. You can backup and restore your season passes and channels. It also can copy your shows to a computer. It's a very powerful tool. I use it to auto skip comercials with no button pushes. There's a lot of info about it on here.


----------



## BobCamp1

FreydNot said:


> I let StableBit Scanner do a full scan of the 4TB 2.5" WD drive that Tivo rejected and it came up with a lot of physical problems. See the attached screenshots for details.
> 
> I've installed a 4TB 3.5" WD Blue drive in an enclosure with a since SATA to SATA cable and all is well again.


The only problem is the number of unreadable sectors. But it's a critical one. If they all happened in the past 2-3 weeks, panic. If you get one every few months or so it's usually not a huge deal unless it happens in a critical spot.


----------



## fcfc2

BobCamp1 said:


> "197 - Current Pending Errors Count" means you have 20 sectors that are waiting to be remapped and marked as "bad." For a 3 TB hard drive, that's not horrible but it's not great. If that had continue to increase, it would be a sign that the drive was dying.
> 
> Note that SMART isn't, so if it's detecting errors that's never a good sign.


You might download HD Tune, it's free, and run that on the Toshiba drive, it can tell you if you have lost sectors but takes a while.


----------



## sastexan

BobCamp1 said:


> "197 - Current Pending Errors Count" means you have 20 sectors that are waiting to be remapped and marked as "bad." For a 3 TB hard drive, that's not horrible but it's not great. If that had continue to increase, it would be a sign that the drive was dying.
> 
> Note that SMART isn't, so if it's detecting errors that's never a good sign.


Thanks to all for the responses. I downloaded HDTunePro to test the drive as suggested, with a more dire result than what CrystalDiskInfo gave me. See below. I think this is a death sentence so I might as well hook up the original drive so at least we can watch regular broadcast and the streaming options, then over this week, get another drive and buy an enclosure to set up next weekend.


----------



## CaseyJ

sastexan said:


> Thanks to all for the responses. I downloaded HDTunePro to test the drive as suggested, with a more dire result than what CrystalDiskInfo gave me. See below. I think this is a death sentence so I might as well hook up the original drive so at least we can watch regular broadcast and the streaming options, then over this week, get another drive and buy an enclosure to set up next weekend.
> 
> View attachment 30363
> View attachment 30364
> View attachment 30365


A new hard drive in an external enclosure is certainly an option. In fact that is what I set up a month ago. Today, however, I would choose a different solution. There is a new version of KMTTG that will cut comercials using Skipmode points as it auto transfers shows to a pc and re-encodes as .mpg files. I'd still have a drive in an external enclosure but I'd connect it to the pc, auto transfer nightly, and watch them via Plex (running on the same 7 year old laptop as KMTTG). I'd use the Bolt for live TV, programs recorded the same day, set up one passes, and even for the Plex client.
I think the external drive will get less wear, can be easily expanded by adding another drive, and could be setup for auto backup. Additionally, the files can be played on any device (pc, Firestick, Roku, etc) so no need for Minis.
A couple of caveats, first I'm OTA only, no cable. So all of my programs can be copied. If you record a lot of cable programs, this may not be the way to go. Second, KMTTG will require some setup to get the Skipmode points, do the transfers, and work well with Plex.
Now that I've written this, I'd really like to to have this set up. I've done virtually all of the steps individually, but not in an automated fashion.


----------



## sastexan

CaseyJ said:


> If you've connected any other drive to the TiVo after this one, all shows (except the deleted ones, how convenient) are lost. I think season passes and channels are also lost. If you haven't and can get it to boot one more time (though that seems unlikely) check out KMTTG. You can backup and restore your season passes and channels. It also can copy your shows to a computer. It's a very powerful tool. I use it to auto skip comercials with no button pushes. There's a lot of info about it on here.


Good news for once! After putting the original 500GB drive back in the Bolt, and having it connect (twice), I saw that all the OnePasses are listed but yet the TiVo is not recognizing them to be valid and I cannot edit them. HOWEVER, I just went to TiVo Online and all those OnePasses are listed and I am able to quickly click on them and resave them - so I can restore them all quickly. Hope this helps anyone else stymied by a dead drive.


----------



## aaronwt

I just downloaded HD Tune Pro to check out my 4TB seagate drive. But on my way carrying it over to the PC I dropped it and it hit the corner of a wire shelf. It doesn't look like there is any damage but I will never know if that dropped caused an issue or if my Drive just died in the Bolt. Because all it does is spin up and make a bunch of clicking sounds, and then spins down. So the drive either did this in my Bolt or from the fall. 

Hopefully my other 4TB drive continues to work for a while. But just in case I will need to make some changes. And make sure everything is backed up to KMTTG regularly. Well at least from the channels that allow a transfer. 

Not sure if it's even worth me getting a larger hard drive. I have four of the 500 GB AV drives that originally came in the Bolts. So I might was well use them. I put one in the Bolt that had the dead 4TB drive and for my news programs that works well. Since those One Passes are only set to keep two copies.


----------



## ClaytonK

I replaced our 500gb Bolt hard drive with a 2tb Seagate drive (ST2000LM007) that worked fine for several months. After returning from a long vacation we have the four lights flashing. Putting in the original drive the Bolt works fine. And I've accepted that we are starting from scratch. What I don't understand is why the 2tb drive still won't work in the Bolt. I've tried formatting it on my computer (MBR, FAT32) and it works fine as a hard drive on my computer. But returning it to the Bolt I still get four flashing lights. Did it somehow become incompatible with my Bolt? Is there something I can do to make it work again, rather than settling for 500gb?
Thanks for insight.


----------



## aaronwt

Those Seagates also use SMR. Maybe that is part of it? I had hoped I could continue to use my 4TB with a PC or XBox. But I guess i need to trash it.


----------



## TydalForce

FreydNot said:


> I have three questions...
> 
> #1 - Does anyone know a surefire trick to reset a drive that has had the 4 flashing lights problem so that the Bolt will see it as a new drive and use it again?


Stick it in a computer, use your OS tools to delete the partitions / partition table (or just write zeroes to the device) and stick it back in your TiVo. 
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=8m
(WARNING: Verify device ID first; don't just copy paste) -- let that run for like, a minute, Ctrl-C to cancel, bam. Zeroed the partition table.



> #3 - would it be worth the effort to swap my PC drives around so I can test a WD blue on my Bolt? I'm looking for anecdotal experiences or educated guesses.


I have a WD WD20NPVZ (Blue, 2TB) in there now. I JUST started getting the weird behavior that always precedes the 4-lights-flashing. Dammit.


----------



## HerronScott

TydalForce said:


> I have a WD WD20NPVZ (Blue, 2TB) in there now. I JUST started getting the weird behavior that always precedes the 4-lights-flashing. Dammit.


What weird behavior is that? Curious since I was going to use that drive in the Bolt I got my son to try and stay with the family they are using for the Bolt+.

Scott


----------



## sastexan

sastexan said:


> Good news for once! After putting the original 500GB drive back in the Bolt, and having it connect (twice), I saw that all the OnePasses are listed but yet the TiVo is not recognizing them to be valid and I cannot edit them. HOWEVER, I just went to TiVo Online and all those OnePasses are listed and I am able to quickly click on them and resave them - so I can restore them all quickly. Hope this helps anyone else stymied by a dead drive.


Nope; it is weird. All the old OnePasses are listed but not recognized as valid so the TiVo will not record on them. And if I create another OnePass from the original, that too is listed and ignored by the TiVo.


----------



## TydalForce

HerronScott said:


> What weird behavior is that? Curious since I was going to use that drive in the Bolt I got my son to try and stay with the family they are using for the Bolt+.
> 
> Scott


Random freezes during playback of recorded video. Poor performance navigating the UI. Soon this will start randomly rebooting. General "this ain't right" stuff. 
I had a Toshiba 3TB MQ03ABB300 in their first; after all the reports of similar problems I pulled it and tried this WD... and now it's starting. SMDH


----------



## aaronwt

I never saw any issues with my 4TB drive prior to getting the four flashing lights. It was working great and then one day I had the flashing lights. And then I rebooted it and it was still working fine until a few hours later when the flashing lights happened agqin. Then it wouldn't boot again.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


----------



## slicer

sastexan said:


> I think this is a death sentence so I might as well hook up the original drive so at least we can watch regular broadcast and the streaming options, then over this week, get another drive and buy an enclosure to set up next weekend.


I have the Toshiba MQ03ABB300 as well. I'm hard pressed to believe it's a coincidence that all our drives "failed" around the same time after previously working without issue. I'm more inclined to believe there is something in this new software that the drives don't like. I think I'll just live with stock 500 GB. Way less capacity but I don't want to have to worry that the next update will bring back the 4 flashing lights. If I struggle enough with the 500 GB then I'll consider upgrading to the Bolt+.


----------



## shwru980r

slicer said:


> I have the Toshiba MQ03ABB300 as well. I'm hard pressed to believe it's a coincidence that all our drives "failed" around the same time after previously working without issue. I'm more inclined to believe there is something in this new software that the drives don't like. I think I'll just live with stock 500 GB. Way less capacity but I don't want to have to worry that the next update will bring back the 4 flashing lights. If I struggle enough with the 500 GB then I'll consider upgrading to the Bolt+.


I would think you could move up to a 3TB internal drive and be safe since the Bolt+ is shipped with a 3TB drive.


----------



## slicer

shwru980r said:


> I would think you could move up to a 3TB internal drive and be safe since the Bolt+ is shipped with a 3TB drive.


The Toshiba drive I am referencing is 3 TB.


----------



## shwru980r

slicer said:


> The Toshiba drive I am referencing is 3 TB.


Did you format the drive on a PC or just let the Bolt format the drive? My internal 3TB Seagate ST3000LM016 survived the update. I just put the drive in and let the Bolt format it.


----------



## slicer

shwru980r said:


> Did you format the drive on a PC or just let the Bolt format the drive? My internal 3TB Seagate ST3000LM016 survived the update. I just put the drive in and let the Bolt format it.


I went direct into the Bolt and let it format it.


----------



## sfhub

aaronwt said:


> I never saw any issues with my 4TB drive prior to getting the four flashing lights. It was working great and then one day I had the flashing lights. And then I rebooted it and it was still working fine until a few hours later when the flashing lights happened agqin. Then it wouldn't boot again.


Are you sending the 4TB that failed in for warranty replacement (or maybe Toshiba does refunds, I forget)

If your other 4TB fails, you might want to do a dd_rescue copy from one 4TB drive to a warrantied 4TB and see if you can recover (prior to sticking a 500GB drive in the TiVo, which would cause your shows on the 4TB to be unusable)

I was able to survive a 750GB HD failure and 1TB HD failure on my original S3 OLED by doing this cloning and having dd_rescue substitute zeros for bad sectors it couldn't read. I would have a few shows that wouldn't play back completely, but 99% of my shows were saved.


----------



## sfhub

BobCamp1 said:


> "197 - Current Pending Errors Count" means you have 20 sectors that are waiting to be remapped and marked as "bad." For a 3 TB hard drive, that's not horrible but it's not great. If that had continue to increase, it would be a sign that the drive was dying.


I can't speak for every drive and each manufacturer has their own nuances when reporting SMART data, but in my experience, the errors are usually remapped on the fly. Once you start seeing "pending" errors, something has gone wrong and the on-the-fly remapping isn't working or working well anymore, possibly because the space it has reserved for remapping has been exhausted by past error remapping.


----------



## aaronwt

sfhub said:


> Are you sending the 4TB that failed in for warranty replacement (or maybe Toshiba does refunds, I forget)
> 
> If your other 4TB fails, you might want to do a dd_rescue copy from one 4TB drive to a warrantied 4TB and see if you can recover (prior to sticking a 500GB drive in the TiVo, which would cause your shows on the 4TB to be unusable)
> 
> I was able to survive a 750GB HD failure and 1TB HD failure on my original S3 OLED by doing this cloning and having dd_rescue substitute zeros for bad sectors it couldn't read. I would have a few shows that wouldn't play back completely, but 99% of my shows were saved.


My 4TB drives were pulled out of enclosures. So there is no warranty on them. The one I had an issue with doesn't work now anyway. It spins up for a few seconds then spins down. I don't know if it became that way in the TiVo or afterwards. Since when I was carrying it over to my PC to test it, I dropped it and it hit the metal support of some shelving. I see no physical damage, but I have no idea if I caused the spin up issue or it was already there.

I tried the Toshiba 1TB drive that came with my PS4 PRo. And it worked fine in the Bolt, but it would make a sound every few seconds that was annoying to me. A sound that the 4TB drives and 500GB A/V drives didn't make in the Bolts. So I just put back in one of the four 500 GB A/V drives I had lying around from other Bolts. I only use this Bolt for news and sports so 500 GB seems to work. But if My other 4TB drive dies, I will need to purchase a 2TB drive from somewhere.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Is the Toshiba - 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 HDD having problems also?

Has anyone upgraded to this drive since 20.7.2


----------



## genebopp

I put a Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 in a bolt in on May 30. It is currently running perfectly. So it started with something less than 20.7.2 but did upgrade without me noticing at all. I hope that helps.


----------



## Barrister

I am a new owner of a 500GB Bolt through the premier upgrade program allowing transfer of my lifetime service and have not yet opened the unit to put it in service. I bought it fully intending to upgrade it to the Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 right away. However, now it appears that the Toshibas are failing also. I will say that I have read all 15 pages of this thread on the same day, and the most common denominator has been flashing lights after a Tivo system update. At this point I am going to take a wait and see. Two questions I have are: 1) is the WD drive in the 3TB Bolt available online separately, or manufactured specifically for TiVo, being available only to TiVo and 2) does anyone know the exact HDDs used in the Weaknees upgrade kits and whether they are failing, because they should be subject to the same problems.


----------



## sfhub

Barrister said:


> I will say that I have read all 15 pages of this thread on the same day, and the most common denominator has been flashing lights after a Tivo system update.


Not sure which specific posts you are reading, but many of the "flashing lights right after update" posts were regarding a special non-standard config where people ran a sata cable from the motherboard to an esata enclosure. Once they eliminated the esata portion by using a long sata cable direct to drive, things worked again. Also many people using that config were doing so to run 3.5" drives. If you are talking about just 4 flashing lights, with no update involved, usually those were with seagate drives with SMR technology.

The drive they use in the Bolt+ is WD30NPRZ which is hard to locate and relatively expensive, but weaknees does carry.

WD30NPRZ 3TB 2.5" Western Digital Laptop Hard Drive - TiVo Part - WeaKnees - the DVR Superstore


----------



## sfhub

Barrister said:


> However, now it appears that the Toshibas are failing also. I will say that I have read all 15 pages of this thread on the same day, and the most common denominator has been flashing lights after a Tivo system update.


I tabulated the reported failures on this thread back to around page 12 (May)

4 esata -> sata recovered

4 Toshiba 2.5" fail

9 Seagate 2.5" fail

Given the Toshiba has been the most recommended drive (meaning the number of installs is probably much higher) 4 fails is not that high. There were 9 Seagate fails with probably much fewer installs (because everyone got concerned with SMR drives)

As I posted in a different thread, industry average failure rates for 24/7 usage are likely in the 1-5% range. If you have 3% failure and 1000 units, that is 30 failures. If you have 100 units and 5 failures, that is 5% failures. If you just look at the raw 30 reports without knowing how many units, it may look like the 1000 unit brand is failing more often, but in reality the 5 failures represent a higher percentage.

The reality is you are going to see noticeable # of drive failures in 24/7 usage situations for any drive if you have enough units. Industry average is probably around 1-5%. You can guesstimate the # of installs and see if you feel the reported failures is extraordinary, or just ordinary.

IMO given the Toshibas have been the recommended drive for a while, with the Seagate drives being out of favor due to SMR concerns, the Seagate SMR failures are extra-ordinary given the number of units installed is probably significantly less than the Toshiba.

guykuo - esata -> sata = recovered
tivobw - esata -> sata = recovered
bilj65 - esata -> sata = recovered
Jimbo687 - esata -> sata = recovered

slicer - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
TydalForce - Toshiba 2.5" = fail, Western Digital 2.5" = failing
sastexan - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
fis - Toshiba 2.5" = fail

ClaytonK - Seagate 2.5" = fail
aaronwt - Seagate 2.5" = fail
FreydNot - Seagate 2.5 = fail
Lenarro - Seagate 2.5" = fail
tivobw #2 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
tivoboy - Seagate 2.5" = fail
krazyboy13 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
mb117 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
rburriel - Seagate 2.5" = fail


----------



## tivobw

sfhub said:


> [...]
> guykuo - esata -> sata = recovered
> tivobw - esata -> sata = recovered
> bilj65 - esata -> sata = recovered
> Jimbo687 - esata -> sata = recovered
> 
> slicer - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
> TydalForce - Toshiba 2.5" = fail, Western Digital 2.5" = failing
> sastexan - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
> 
> ClaytonK - Seagate 2.5" = fail
> aaronwt - Seagate 2.5" = fail
> FreydNot - Seagate 2.5 = fail
> Lenarro - Seagate 2.5" = fail


You can add me to the list of folks with a failed Seagate 2.5". Mine failed in September of 2016. Thread - 4TB 2.5" drive for Bolt


----------



## sfhub

tivobw said:


> You can add me to the list of folks with a failed Seagate 2.5". Mine failed in September of 2016. Thread - 4TB 2.5" drive for Bolt


Done. I left the esata -> sata entry there because I think you have one using a Rosewill enclosure also. If not, let me know and I'll update.

4 Lights Flashing on Bolt


----------



## husky55

TydalForce - Toshiba 2.5" = fail, Western Digital 2.5" = failing. The failing WD 20NPVZ which is as close to the 3 TB Tivo OEM as possible, is a shocker!!!!


----------



## tivobw

sfhub said:


> Done. I left the esata -> sata entry there because I think you have one using a Rosewill enclosure also. If not, let me know and I'll update.
> 
> 4 Lights Flashing on Bolt


That's right! I moved to the external Rosewill enclosure after the Seagate died.


----------



## tivoboy

Well, woke up this am to have the dreaded four flashing lights horsemen of the apocalypse. This was a 3TB Seagate (upgraded at birth) bolt that has been running fine about 1 year. Nothing really seemed to be wrong going into this event. Drive was about 25% full. Didn't have any stutters.

I've tried unplugging it, taking out the cable card, disco coax and networking. Let it sit. Tried plugging it in again, still four flashing lights. It start with TIVO and never gets farther than that.

Is there a list of things to try? If this is a drive failure, it would be the first in nearly 17 years. (well, there WAS A beta H10-250 that failed, but that was a bit to be expected in that history) ;-)

update: Is there some sort of kickstart that one can employ? Also, for people who have had the issue and somehow resolved it, did you leave the unit plugged in or unplugged? Any reason NOT to leave it plugged in? I had it unplugged about 2 hours, disco'd everything and have tried plugging it back in with just power but we've got just the four blinking lights seem more like drive activity lights than anything else


----------



## sfhub

tivoboy said:


> update: Is there some sort of kickstart that one can employ? Also, for people who have had the issue and somehow resolved it, did you leave the unit plugged in or unplugged? Any reason NOT to leave it plugged in? I had it unplugged about 2 hours, disco'd everything and have tried plugging it back in with just power but we've got just the four blinking lights seem more like drive activity lights than anything else


BTW which drive brand/model did you install in your TiVo?

IMO 4 flashing lights is most likely drive failure (at least from TiVo's standpoint, not necessarily from a PCs standpoint). The only time people have recovered is those who did an external sata->esata custom config. There was a software upgrade that broke that but they were able to recover using a longer direct SATA cable.

I wouldn't really run any of the kickstarts. I would take out the drive and run diagnostics from a PC.


----------



## tivoboy

sfhub said:


> I wouldn't really run any of the kickstarts. I would take out the drive and run diagnostics from a PC.


any suggestions from the forum about best way to test the drive with a mac? Hate the reboot and setup the PC just for this. ;-(


----------



## sfhub

tivoboy said:


> any suggestions from the forum about best way to test the drive with a mac? Hate the reboot and setup the PC just for this. ;-(


You didn't post what drive brand you have. Western Digital has there DLG for Mac available.

Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support


----------



## tivoboy

sfhub said:


> You didn't post what drive brand you have. Western Digital has there DLG for Mac available.
> 
> Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support


Its the Seagate 3TB..


----------



## sfhub

tivoboy said:


> Its the Seagate 3TB..


Look on seagates site for seatools or equivalent for mac. I don't remember what they call it now.


----------



## atmuscarella

tivoboy said:


> Its the Seagate 3TB..


I think we have determined that pretty much all the larger Seagate drives use SMR tech. Even if they replace it under warranty I am not sure I would use the replacement drive in your TiVo.


----------



## aaronwt

atmuscarella said:


> I think we have determined that pretty much all the larger Seagate drives use SMR tech. Even if they replace it under warranty I am not sure I would use the replacement drive in your TiVo.


Even the smaller Seagate drives use SMR now.


----------



## tivobw

aaronwt said:


> Even the smaller Seagate drives use SMR now.


If that's the case, even more reason to avoid using Seagates in a Tivo.


----------



## HerronScott

tivoboy said:


> Well, woke up this am to have the dreaded four flashing lights horsemen of the apocalypse. This was a 3TB Seagate (upgraded at birth) bolt that has been running fine about 1 year. Nothing really seemed to be wrong going into this event. Drive was about 25% full. Didn't have any stutters.
> 
> I've tried unplugging it, taking out the cable card, disco coax and networking. Let it sit. Tried plugging it in again, still four flashing lights. It start with TIVO and never gets farther than that.
> 
> Is there a list of things to try? If this is a drive failure, it would be the first in nearly 17 years. (well, there WAS A beta H10-250 that failed, but that was a bit to be expected in that history) ;-)
> 
> update: Is there some sort of kickstart that one can employ? Also, for people who have had the issue and somehow resolved it, did you leave the unit plugged in or unplugged? Any reason NOT to leave it plugged in? I had it unplugged about 2 hours, disco'd everything and have tried plugging it back in with just power but we've got just the four blinking lights seem more like drive activity lights than anything else


Unfortunately this seems standard for the Seagate drives that use SMR and there are no fixes for it in this case that I've seen. I do wonder if it would be possible to use MFStools to copy the drive to a replacement 3TB drive (Toshiba seems to be the current recommendation) and have it work assuming the drive isn't really dead. The drive hardware change might cause the TiVo to reformat it though.

Scott


----------



## tivoboy

HerronScott said:


> Unfortunately this seems standard for the Seagate drives that use SMR and there are no fixes for it in this case that I've seen. I do wonder if it would be possible to use MFStools to copy the drive to a replacement 3TB drive (Toshiba seems to be the current recommendation) and have it work assuming the drive isn't really dead. The drive hardware change might cause the TiVo to reformat it though.
> 
> Scott


I might try that.. sadly don't have the time at the moment.

At the time I did the upgrade to 3TB (it was a first install actually the bolt hadn't been activated yet) I think the Seagate was the only 3tb drive available. this was about 1 year ago, maybe a bit more. That toshiba either wasn't available or was so back ordered as to be not available no matter the price.

UPDATE:

Well, when i opened the case I was surprised to find that it would appear a bit that the harddrive main connector (SATA and POWER) might have been a bit loose. so, somewhat excited I pushed it in further and set the lid back down ontop (enough for the LED contacts in the front to seat on the motherboard) Alas, same thing.

Opening up the unit and trying to plug the drive into my laptop with a USB to SATA connector and 2A power supply, all I heard was clicking.. hadn't heard that when it was inside the bolt but the fan could have made it sound that way. Again, plugging into laptop it won't even mount. Seems to be a total catastrophic failure at this point. Do drives like this require more power? the regular power supply that I use is 12v/2a and 5v/2a.. historically has worked for all the 2.5 and 3.5 drives I needed to test.

I took a shot and popped in the original 500gb drive that came with it, and it seemed to boot with no flashing lights - so I'm thinking that the device is ok, but the drive is toast.

At this point, I'm thinking I'll order one of the toshiba 3TB drives and try and replace it. I guess I won't be getting any of the shows off this puppy... alas, when we die most don't say "I wish I watched more TV".

thoughts?


----------



## CaseyJ

tivoboy said:


> I took a shot and popped in the original 500gb drive that came with it, and it seemed to boot with no flashing lights - so I'm thinking that the device is ok, but the drive is toast



Once another drive is put in a bolt, there's no getting recordings off the drive removed (except maybe your deleted recordings). Although, in your case I don't think there was any way to recover your recordings.


----------



## sfhub

tivoboy said:


> At this point, I'm thinking I'll order one of the toshiba 3TB drives and try and replace it. I guess I won't be getting any of the shows off this puppy... alas, when we die most don't say "I wish I watched more TV".
> 
> thoughts?


Pretend you've never had TiVo before, and the TiVo Bolt and Toshiba 3TB just came in the mail. You are real excited to try out your new toy again. Install 3TB Toshiba and continue.


----------



## fis

Well, I'm sad to report that I had the 3TB Toshiba installed and I also got the blinking lights problem. Advice needed. Specifically:

1) In April, I swapped the 500GB Bolt drive for a 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300. The new drive was recognized immediately and it ran perfectly for six months.

2) Yesterday it wouldn't start up. Got blinking lights on front of the bolt. Tried uplugging for hours. Nothing worked.

3) Removed 3TB drive. Swapped back in the original 500GB drive and everything worked again. Lost all recordings, of course.

I'm disappointed, but happy that the Bolt works, and of course the Toshiba drive is still under warranty. I'm just wondering what I should do next. When I put the Toshiba drive in an external enclosure, I can't read it, but under Disk Management, it sees the drive as an unformatted 2.8GB. Under "properties" it says "This device is working properly." 

Advice? Should I format the 3TB drive to see if it works? Try it again? Attempt a Toshiba warranty claim?


----------



## TydalForce

husky55 said:


> TydalForce - Toshiba 2.5" = fail, Western Digital 2.5" = failing. The failing WD 20NPVZ which is as close to the 3 TB Tivo OEM as possible, is a shocker!!!!


Update on my saga. I contacted TiVo and got a swap on my Bolt. 
Immediately I threw the WD drive in there, never even booting with the stock drive. This was probably around the 12-15th of September. So far, it's been behaving itself, but it historically took a few months before the problems started.

Although this new box has a much newer (re)manufacture date on it, it still doesn't Kickstart 54 (SMART diagnostics). Bummer.

--
My impression of all this drive mayhem is not that the hard drives themselves are failing, but that somehow the data is getting corrupted over time, and then the data corruption starts snowballing. I can't say why or how it starts, but I blame the Bolts themselves somehow - I can't believe that we're all getting bad drives. Formatting the drives and starting over always "fixes" the issue for a while. 
I'm wondering if it's some kind of firmware issue, something incompatible somehow with all but a select couple drives.


----------



## shamilian

TydalForce said:


> Update on my saga. I contacted TiVo and got a swap on my Bolt.
> Immediately I threw the WD drive in there, never even booting with the stock drive. This was probably around the 12-15th of September. So far, it's been behaving itself, but it historically took a few months before the problems started.
> 
> Although this new box has a much newer (re)manufacture date on it, it still doesn't Kickstart 54 (SMART diagnostics). Bummer.
> 
> --
> My impression of all this drive mayhem is not that the hard drives themselves are failing, but that somehow the data is getting corrupted over time, and then the data corruption starts snowballing. I can't say why or how it starts, but I blame the Bolts themselves somehow - I can't believe that we're all getting bad drives. Formatting the drives and starting over always "fixes" the issue for a while.
> I'm wondering if it's some kind of firmware issue, something incompatible somehow with all but a select couple drives.


Drives are failing, because they are not meant to operate in the extreme heat of the Bolt design.

_From seagate:
With our newer model drives the *maximum* temperature is now at *60 degrees Celsius*.
The operating temperature range for *most Seagate hard drives *is 5 to *50 degrees Celsius.*
Western Digital:
WD operating range 0 to *60C*_

These are maximum temperatures...

When operating at max temperatures ( or over them ) the failure rate will increase and the mtbf will decrease.

This is a major flaw in the bolt design. (Fashion over Function)

The old tivo design produced temperatures of 40-45C
This new bolt design produces temperatures of 60-70C.

Most ICs are ok at these temperatures but not disk drives.

The only solution is external disk drives.


----------



## sfhub

shamilian said:


> The old tivo design produced temperatures of 40-45C
> This new bolt design produces temperatures of 60-70C.


ODT (on die temperature) != drive temperature

Also I believe TiVo changed what the temperature was measuring on the newer designs, so comparing old and new design is Apples to Oranges.


----------



## BobCamp1

TydalForce said:


> My impression of all this drive mayhem is not that the hard drives themselves are failing, but that somehow the data is getting corrupted over time, and then the data corruption starts snowballing. I can't say why or how it starts, but I blame the Bolts themselves somehow - I can't believe that we're all getting bad drives. Formatting the drives and starting over always "fixes" the issue for a while.
> I'm wondering if it's some kind of firmware issue, something incompatible somehow with all but a select couple drives.


That's how an SMR drive would "fail" -- it's an incompatibility problem and not a true failure. But the Toshiba's not an SMR drive because the datasheet says so...right? It's not like manufacturers would make a mistake, right?

Or it could just be that this model of Toshiba drive sucks. It happens.


----------



## m.s

TydalForce said:


> My impression of all this drive mayhem is not that the hard drives themselves are failing, but that somehow the data is getting corrupted over time, and then the data corruption starts snowballing.


... and, that's not "hard drive failing" in exactly what way?


----------



## m.s

BobCamp1 said:


> That's how an SMR drive would "fail" -- it's an incompatibility problem and not a true failure.


It's exactly a failure. Any storage device should accurately and reliably store data. SMR requires more time to do a small write, since a lot of data needs to be re-written. But, the only tradeoff should be performance (speed). Not reliability. A storage device not being able to reliably store data IS as "true failure", no excuses.


----------



## sfhub

m.s said:


> A storage device not being able to reliably store data IS as "true failure", no excuses.


You are absolutely right. Modern drives include advanced algorithms not only for error detection but also for error correction and subsequent remapping. By the time one actually sees corruption, lots of things would have gone wrong.


----------



## TydalForce

m.s said:


> ... and, that's not "hard drive failing" in exactly what way?


It's not physical / mechanical 
The drives aren't >dying<; formatted they're good-to-go again, and put in another device (like a computer) they're likely perfectly fine. This is a data issue specific to the Bolt somehow. 
I actually intend to toss my Toshiba 3TB into my Mac mini server, soon as I find the time to pop the thing open


----------



## sfhub

TydalForce said:


> It's not physical / mechanical
> The drives aren't >dying<; formatted they're good-to-go again


First, many of the drives were dead, even on a PC.

Second, even if you could format them and they work on a PC, that doesn't mean the drive wasn't failing. If you had a sector that had too many errors for the reed solomon error recovery (or whatever they are using on a particular drive for error recovery) to account for, the drive won't remap that sector and it won't be usable either because it'll fail error detection.

If you format the drive with 0s, then the drive can remap the sector, because you no longer care about the data, so it doesn't have to assure the data read is consistent.

I've had many drives that failed in this way and I'd format 0s then they would be usable again. Some would last many years. Others would last a few days before they started acting up again.

Drives don't just fail for physical / mechanical reasons. The sectors on the platter can become unstable or they can run out of sectors for remapping. This is still a drive fail.


----------



## TydalForce

sfhub said:


> First, many of the drives were dead, even on a PC.


I hadn't seen that reported anywhere. If so, I stand corrected. My own testing to-date hasn't revealed any issues with the drives out of the TiVo. I may perform more tests on my Toshiba and see what comes up...


----------



## shamilian

sfhub said:


> ODT (on die temperature) != drive temperature
> 
> Also I believe TiVo changed what the temperature was measuring on the newer designs, so comparing old and new design is Apples to Oranges.


FYI

I did an experiment using tivos reported temp and a probe placed in the air cavity above the heat sink.

Tivo ODT ~= Air/Operating Temp + 10C.

so I think the Operating environment is close to (ODT - 10C) or ranges from 50C to 60C.
Still at the high end of the recommended operating temp environment......


----------



## tivobw

shamilian said:


> Drives are failing, because they are not meant to operate in the extreme heat of the Bolt design.
> [...]
> This is a major flaw in the bolt design. (Fashion over Function)
> 
> The old tivo design produced temperatures of 40-45C
> This new bolt design produces temperatures of 60-70C.
> 
> Most ICs are ok at these temperatures but not disk drives.
> 
> The only solution is external disk drives.


What's surprising is that Tivo actually touts the new design for cooling purposes. From TiVo BOLT+ | Replace your Cable Box DVR with a Unified Entertainment System:
"Oh, and that distinctive, arched design isn't just for looks, it serves as a clever cooling system."

While I really like the Bolt's new features compared to the previous DVR we bought (Tivo HD) (2 more tuners, streaming services, unified search, RF remote), the reliability of the Bolt is substantially worse.

Our Tivo HD is about 10 years old (and has finally started to fail; if we unplug it or power is lost, we need to use the blow-dryer-on-the-motherboard trick or it won't power back up). In all this time, we have never had a tuner fail. Compare that to the Bolt series, for which we're on our 2nd replacement in 2 years for crappy tuners (they will stop tuning, we'll get artifacting on some channels, etc.). So frustrating, because the software is really great. But if the hardware doesn't last, it's a losing proposition...


----------



## BobCamp1

sfhub said:


> First, many of the drives were dead, even on a PC.
> 
> Second, even if you could format them and they work on a PC, that doesn't mean the drive wasn't failing. If you had a sector that had too many errors for the reed solomon error recovery (or whatever they are using on a particular drive for error recovery) to account for, the drive won't remap that sector and it won't be usable either because it'll fail error detection.
> 
> If you format the drive with 0s, then the drive can remap the sector, because you no longer care about the data, so it doesn't have to assure the data read is consistent.
> 
> I've had many drives that failed in this way and I'd format 0s then they would be usable again. Some would last many years. Others would last a few days before they started acting up again.
> 
> Drives don't just fail for physical / mechanical reasons. The sectors on the platter can become unstable or they can run out of sectors for remapping. This is still a drive fail.


You were good until the last sentence. The sectors on the platter becoming unstable is technically considered a physical failure.

Logical failures (the ones you were talking about in this post) are rare but can happen. They usually happen when power is lost in the middle of a write operation.


----------



## aaronwt

I've had a 3.5" drive in the past stop spinning because the motor died. It was replaced under warranty. But it certainly failed because of a mechanical reason.


----------



## BobCamp1

m.s said:


> It's exactly a failure. Any storage device should accurately and reliably store data. SMR requires more time to do a small write, since a lot of data needs to be re-written. But, the only tradeoff should be performance (speed). Not reliability. A storage device not being able to reliably store data IS as "true failure", no excuses.


It's a system failure, not a drive failure as (I think) you were implying. The system failure is a result of trying to use the drive in a system it was not designed for. That's an incompatibility issue. The hard drive did not fail.

Linux and Windows have modifications to account for long write latencies and to take advantage of the unique commands that SMR drives have (GitHub - Seagate/SMR_FS-EXT4). Is any of that being used in the Tivo? Nope. The Tivo is designed for PMR drives. SMR drives are for archiving purposes only. From a reliability point of view, the failure isn't with either of the individual components but the system as a whole. The true failure is with the operator.

Anyway, I still think these Toshiba 3 TB drives have issues as a hard drive replacement in a Tivo.


----------



## sfhub

BobCamp1 said:


> Logical failures (the ones you were talking about in this post) are rare but can happen. They usually happen when power is lost in the middle of a write operation.


The post was talking about detecting/correcting forms of physical sector failure throughout, not the logical failures you are describing. The error detection / correction described is done at the hardware level, but can be re-done at the software level per application.


> It's *not physical / mechanical*
> The drives aren't >dying<; *formatted they're good-to-go* again


The reason Physical failure was used in that way was referring to what OP had in their mind was a physical failure based on the context of their post.

In OPs mind, bad sector would not be considered "physical/mechanical" because "formatted they're good-to-go"

If one has a bad sector that is failing hardware error detection and error correction during a read, the drive won't remap the sector, because it doesn't know the original data. This will give an error if the sector is read. If you susequently format this sector, the drive hardware knows you don't care about this sector (formatting the drive and starting over in OPs vernacular) because you are writing over it, so it can then safely remap, throwing away the original contents of that sector. The drive can then be used, even though there had been physical failure, which has now been re-mapped.


----------



## sfhub

BobCamp1 said:


> It's a system failure, not a drive failure as (I think) you were implying. The system failure is a result of trying to use the drive in a system it was not designed for. That's an incompatibility issue. *The hard drive did not fail.*


It is both poor system design (by end-user) and the drive is failing.


----------



## fis

I'm struggling with what to do next. To recap, My Bolt works fine with the original 500GB drive reinstalled, but gives me the flashing lights when I install the 3TB Toshiba drive (which had worked for 6 months). 

I don't care about the lost recordings, and the Toshiba drive is under warranty, but PC diagnostics say the Toshiba drive is readable and error-free, so I doubt that I have a warranty claim. 

Is it possible to reformat the Toshiba drive to MFS and try it in the Bolt again? 
(I downloaded the MFSR program to my PC and ran it in as administrator/Win7 compatability but it just says "No Roamio Drive Found")


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> I don't care about the lost recordings, and the Toshiba drive is under warranty, but PC diagnostics say the Toshiba drive is readable and error-free, so I doubt that I have a warranty claim.


Were any sectors remapped? Were there any pending?


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> Were any sectors remapped? Were there any pending?


I don't know what that means. Sorry not too much of a techie. Just enough to get myself in trouble.


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> I don't know what that means. Sorry not too much of a techie. Just enough to get myself in trouble.


Sorry, you said PC diagnostics said the drive is readable and error-free. What PC diagnostics are you running?


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> Sorry, you said PC diagnostics said the drive is readable and error-free. What PC diagnostics are you running?


Just chkdsk (or whatever the equivalent is now -- properties/tools/error checking)


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Just chkdsk (or whatever the equivalent is now -- properties/tools/error checking


I think if you run chkdsk from the UI it is doing a filesystem scan rather than a full disk scan, but I might be wrong. I recall you probably need to do a chkdsk /R for it to scan for bad sectors.

From the standpoint of re-using the drive, you could of course format it, run mfsr on it, and stick it back and see if it works. It doesn't take much time since you have the drive out already. You could just take the approach of trying it and monitoring it closely for strange behavior vs trying to look into more details.

The reason I was asking about whether there were remaps is because it could inform your decision about whether to return your drive or keep using it. If your Reallocated Sector Count under SMART is going up or some of the other error counts like uncorrectable errors are going up, even if the drive reads fine right now, there is a chance it'll go bad soon. On the other hand if those values are 0 then your drive might be fine or there might be an error somewhere else. Basically the SMART info can't tell you whether you should keep using the drive, that is a judgment call, but they can tell you if you probably shouldn't keep using the drive.

I usually just run the WD diagnostics and read the SMART info it gives me. I don't know if their tools will work with Toshiba drives. This one probably will work.

PassMark DiskCheckup - SMART hard drive monitoring utility

I don't know if I'm recalling correct, but I believe someone mentioned Toshiba doesn't exchange drives, but gives your money back instead. I could be remembering wrong.


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> From the standpoint of re-using the drive, you could of course format it, run mfsr on it, and stick it back and see if it works. It doesn't take much time since you have the drive out already.


Sincerest thanks for the detailed reply and advice. As for the above, that's what I tried. I downloaded and ran MFSR but it just returns the message "No Roamio Drive Found." Wondering what I might be doing wrong.


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Sincerest thanks for the detailed reply and advice. As for the above, that's what I tried. I downloaded and ran MFSR but it just returns the message "No Roamio Drive Found." Wondering what I might be doing wrong.


We were discussing 2 different trains of thought.

1) determining whether the drive had evidence it was starting to fail
2) reformatting the drive to use in TiVo again

I think it is better for you to investigate #1 first.

First step I think would be to look at the SMART disk stats (the program I linked to should be able to get that info for you. Then you can determine whether you want to proceed using the drive.

If you were to use the drive, IMO you should low-level format (what qualifies today for a low-level format) write zeros on the whole drive. This should remap the most marginal of sectors.

As to MFSR it is something for #2. MFSR for a 3TB drive would 4k-align the partitions to reduce future disk activity. On a 3TB drive you probably need to get the 1.0.0.5 version from ggieseke. I don't believe the public 1.0.0.4 would work on a 3TB drive. MFSR is only meant to run *after* TiVo formats the drive. Whether you run MFSR or not on a 3TB drive (you don't actually need to, it will work without it), you first need to zero out the first few sectors of the drive (in your case the drive has had other data on it so best to zero it out), then put the drive in TiVo and boot to the first screen. In the process TiVo will format the drive. You already went through that part when you first installed the drive. The added step I was suggesting is to run the 1.0.0.5 MFSR on it to 4k-align the partitions.

Really, IMO though you should get more info about your disk and why it might have failed before continuing to use it.

Most folks won't want to spend the effort/money, but spinrite can perform some non-destructive lower level surface analysis on your drives, including TiVo drives.
GRC | Hard drive data recovery software


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> I think it is better for you to investigate #1 first.


Thanks so much, again.
I downloaded Passmark DiskCheckup. Here's what I got:

Under the Device Info tab: 
Status says "Warning (One of more SMART threshold(s) exceeded)"

Under the SMARTInfo tab: 
All OK except #5:
Reallocated Sector Count FAIL - Value 22 Threshold 50 Raw Value 16024

Under Disk Self Test
It reaches 10% then says "The last self-test routine complted with a failure of an unknown test element"


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Under the Device Info tab:
> Status says "Warning (One of more SMART threshold(s) exceeded)"
> 
> Under the SMARTInfo tab:
> All OK except #5:
> Reallocated Sector Count FAIL - Value 22 Threshold 50 Raw Value 16024
> 
> Under Disk Self Test
> It reaches 10% then says "The last self-test routine complted with a failure of an unknown test element"


IMO you should take a screenshot and submit to Toshiba for Warranty. That number if it was just reallocated sectors isn't good but isn't totally horrible. That number of FAILed Reallocated Sectors is not good.


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> IMO you should take a screenshot and submit to Toshiba for Warranty. That number if it was just reallocated sectors isn't good but isn't totally horrible. That number of FAILed Reallocated Sectors is not good.


Thanks for all of your help. Much appreciated. This is a very valuable community.


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Thanks for all of your help. Much appreciated. This is a very valuable community.


I may have misread that FAIL as part of SMART diagnostics. I think that is the program actually saying it felt the reallocated count was a FAIL, not a count of how many reallocated sectors FAILED to reallocate.

Anyway, I would still warranty the drive, because it already showed that enough sectors are not readable that it affected your TiVo.

Also I am guessing the disk self test is terminating because the controller is punting because something is not right.


----------



## HerronScott

sfhub said:


> As to MFSR it is something for #2. MFSR for a 3TB drive would 4k-align the partitions to reduce future disk activity. On a 3TB drive you probably need to get the 1.0.0.5 version from ggieseke. I don't believe the public 1.0.0.4 would work on a 3TB drive. MFSR is only meant to run *after* TiVo formats the drive. Whether you run MFSR or not on a 3TB drive (you don't actually need to, it will work without it), you first need to zero out the first few sectors of the drive (in your case the drive has had other data on it so best to zero it out), then put the drive in TiVo and boot to the first screen. In the process TiVo will format the drive. You already went through that part when you first installed the drive. The added step I was suggesting is to run the 1.0.0.5 MFSR on it to 4k-align the partitions.


1.0.0.4 works on 3TB drives (I used it on the factory drive in my Roamio Pro). 1.0.0.5 is only for drives smaller than 3TB.

Scott


----------



## fis

HerronScott said:


> 1.0.0.4 works on 3TB drives (I used it on the factory drive in my Roamio Pro). 1.0.0.5 is only for drives smaller than 3TB.


Where would I download 1.0.0.4?


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Where would I download 1.0.0.4?


Didn't you run MFSR already? 1.0.0.4 can be found in the link below.

MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> Didn't you run MFSR already? 1.0.0.4 can be found in the link below.


Turns out I had version 1.0.0.1. 
So sorry but where exactly is it? (That's a link to a 136 page discussion).


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> Turns out I had version 1.0.0.1.
> So sorry but where exactly is it? (That's a link to a 136 page discussion).


Sorry, linked to the post right above the correct one. Here is the corrected one.

MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


----------



## HerronScott

But please note that as sfhub mentioned, MFSR only realigns an existing TiVo formatted drive so you have to get the TiVo to recognize the drive first and put an initial format on it before using it.

Scott


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> Sorry, linked to the post right above the correct one. Here is the corrected one.
> 
> MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


Thank you.


----------



## fis

Update: FWIW I had to call Toshiba for support on this model hard drive (no online RMA requests for model MQ03ABB300). They are processing an RMA but as member sfhub pointed out, Toshiba does _NOT _send replacements. In fact, they don't even issue a refund. I will be getting some yet-to-be determined amount on a VISA card, not to exceed the original purchase price, which will be based on their "market value assessment" of the drive. Not a great policy, particularly given that this model drive is selling for about 15% more than I paid earlier this year.

*Which puts me back where I was 6 months ago, trying to decided which drive to buy*. I sprung for the Toshiba because it seemed like the foolproof option at the time...


----------



## aaronwt

What about the WD drive? It's only 2TB but at least it's an option. That is what I will be purchasing if/when my 4TB Seagate dies in my Bolt. The other 4TB drive died a few weeks ago and I just put back in the 500GB WD AV drive.


----------



## fis

aaronwt said:


> What about the WD drive? It's only 2TB but at least it's an option. That is what I will be purchasing if/when my 4TB Seagate dies in my Bolt. The other 4TB drive died a few weeks ago and I just put back in the 500GB WD AV drive.


I was focused on 3TB+, so I guess I never considered it (which one is it?). At this point, is that considered the only sure thing for stability in a Tivo Bolt?

OR is running an external drive the more stable option (Mine's in a cabinet, so I could do that -- don't even need to keep the cover attached).

Or is there no such thing as a sure thing?


----------



## pj1983

FreydNot said:


> I had the 4 lights flashing problem starting a few days ago. Why does nobody mention the weird erratic pattern that the lights flash in? It's weird and doesn't feel like an error pattern, more like a hard drive activity light.
> (snip)


I'm working on a dead Bolt and noticed the same thing; did a search here and your post is the only one I could find that mentioned the odd flash pattern. Does anyone know if there is some significance to the flash pattern?

By comparison, the engine control computer on the old Chryslers (pre-OBD II) I work on for "fun" can tell you what it thinks a given problem is with a series of flashes on the "power loss" light. That's the sort of coding I'm looking for here.


----------



## krazyboy13

So I just had the dreaded 4 flashing lights happen to me. I am using the same setup as OP. 
*STDR4000100 *hard drive that was bought new and installed using the russ walker method to allow it to function as the full 4tb. I got the bolt about a month ago, and it was working fine until this. I can even get it to boot up at all now- it gives the single green light for a few seconds and then goes to all 4 flashing. Has this happened to anyone recently? Not looking forward to digging through 18 forum pages for answers but looks like that is what I'll be doing.


----------



## atmuscarella

krazyboy13 said:


> So I just had the dreaded 4 flashing lights happen to me. I am using the same setup as OP.
> *STDR4000100 *hard drive that was bought new and installed using the russ walker method to allow it to function as the full 4tb. I got the bolt about a month ago, and it was working fine until this. I can even get it to boot up at all now- it gives the single green light for a few seconds and then goes to all 4 flashing. Has this happened to anyone recently? Not looking forward to digging through 18 forum pages for answers but looks like that is what I'll be doing.


Ya that is a SMR drive that the forum has been warning against using. Many fail, yours seems to have been faster than most. That is what the flashing lights are telling you. There are no recommend 2.5 inch drives over 3TB.

Basically drives using SMR tech are designed for storage, not the continuous writing that DVRs do.

At this point there is a 2TB WD drive and a 3TB Toshiba that people are using. There have been some reported failures with the 3TB Toshiba, but hard to tell if they were just unlucky or if there are also issues with that drive.

Some people have removed the 2.5 inch drive and ran a SATA cable from the mother board to an external 3.5 inch drive you also have to use an external power sourse.


----------



## krazyboy13

atmuscarella said:


> Ya that is a SMR drive that the forum has been warning against using. Many fail, yours seems to have been faster than most. That is what the flashing lights are telling you. There are no recommend 2.5 inch drives over 3TB.
> 
> Basically drives using SMR tech are designed for storage, not the continuous writing that DVRs do.
> 
> At this point there is a 2TB WD drive and a 3TB Toshiba that people are using. There have been some reported failures with the 3TB Toshiba, but hard to tell if they were just unlucky or if there are also issues with that drive.
> 
> Some people have removed the 2.5 inch drive and ran a SATA cable from the mother board to an external 3.5 inch drive you also have to use an external power sourse.


Thanks. I pulled the 4tb drive and popped in the original 500gb one. It booted right up and instantly starting installing an update. Im hopeful that once it installs, I will be able to put the 4tb back in without any issues at least till the next update. Guess we will see. Of course Russ updated his website with more reliable drives for the bolt on 9/25/17, like 3 days after i installed mine, just my luck.

So if its the drive tech that is the issue, then i guess reformatting to fat32 and letting tivo then install it without running the MFS reformat tool (ie tivo will format it to tivo drive but only let it function as a 3tb drive) will not fix this issue? I'm curious as I have not found a post where someone tried this and figure it's worth a shot.


----------



## krazyboy13

No dice. getting the lights with the 4tb


----------



## atmuscarella

krazyboy13 said:


> No dice. getting the lights with the 4tb


Ya it is very likely dead. I do not remember anyone having success reviving one.


----------



## krazyboy13

atmuscarella said:


> Ya it is very likely dead. I do not remember anyone having success reviving one.


Seems like it. My PC wont even recognize that it is plugged in. Thought id be able to reformat and at least have a 4tb backup drive for my PC.

From Russ' update, "The current recommended model, in terms of cost, is a Seagate ST2000LM015 for 2TB and a Seagate ST4000LM024 for 4TB. "

I guess go with one of these?


----------



## aaronwt

Seagate uses SMR for even the lower size drives. And SMR is what the 4TB drive used. Which is what you want to stay away from. 

That is why if/when my last 4TB Seagate drive dies in my Bolt, I will be replacing it with a WD 2TB drive which uses PMR. And then there is the Toshiba 3TB drive as an option too which should also be using PMR.


----------



## krazyboy13

aaronwt said:


> Seagate uses SMR for even the lower size drives. And SMR is what the 4TB drive used. Which is what you want to stay away from.
> 
> That is why if/when my last 4TB Seagate drive dies in my Bolt, I will be replacing it with a WD 2TB drive which uses PMR. And then there is the Toshiba 3TB drive as an option too which should also be using PMR.


Thanks for the quick responses! Once you get up to 4tb, does WD tend to switch to SMR too?

The toshiba is $130 on macsales.com. I've seen some posts in this thread saying that the 3tb toshiba died on them. IDK. At this point, maybe I should have just shelled out for the tivo unit with increased storage.


----------



## fis

krazyboy13 said:


> So if its the drive tech that is the issue, then i guess reformatting to fat32 and letting tivo then install it without running the MFS reformat tool (ie tivo will format it to tivo drive but only let it function as a 3tb drive) will not fix this issue? I'm curious as I have not found a post where someone tried this and figure it's worth a shot.


I tried that with my Toshiba 3TB. No dice. Still got the 4 flashing lights. I RMA'd the drive back to Toshiba (it was just 6 months old) and I reinstalled the original 500MB drive (which worked but I'm getting wonky behavior since resetting -- can't access apps, OnePasses aren't working). Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out what the most reliable alternative is. Seems the choices are to try another 3TB Toshiba, switch to the 2TB WD, or connect an external 3.5" media rated SATA drive. I would happily choose whichever path is most reliable (regardless of size/capacity) but *there doesn't seem to be a consensus *.


----------



## fis

krazyboy13 said:


> The toshiba is $130 on macsales.com. I've seen some posts in this thread saying that the 3tb toshiba died on them. IDK. At this point, maybe I should have just shelled out for the tivo unit with increased storage.


Yes, I am one of those people, and I am wondering the same thing. My logic was 1) Why worry about the Bolt warranty when I can replace the Bolt 3 times for the money I've saved, and 2) The Toshiba has a 3 year warranty itself (plus another year from my credit card). However if the Bolt's just going to reject an otherwise perfectly good drive every 6 months then what a hassle!


----------



## Ajkimmins

So after reading the first page and skipping to the back here, I'm assuming the Morse code from the lights is a bad hdd? Mine's a two year old bolt with the original 500gb drive.


----------



## fis

Ajkimmins said:


> So after reading the first page and skipping to the back here, I'm assuming the Morse code from the lights is a bad hdd? Mine's a two year old bolt with the original 500gb drive.


Yes, that seems likely. Haven't heard a lot from folks who had this happen with the original drive. Perhaps those of us who installed our own should take some comfort from that? Or perhaps Tivo developers need to find the bug in their own software that's rendering their devices inoperable.


----------



## tivobw

fis said:


> I tried that with my Toshiba 3TB. No dice. Still got the 4 flashing lights. I RMA'd the drive back to Toshiba (it was just 6 months old) and I reinstalled the original 500MB drive (which worked but I'm getting wonky behavior since resetting -- can't access apps, OnePasses aren't working). Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out what the most reliable alternative is. Seems the choices are to try another 3TB Toshiba, switch to the 2TB WD, or connect an external 3.5" media rated SATA drive. I would happily choose whichever path is most reliable (regardless of size/capacity) but *there doesn't seem to be a consensus *.


I used the Seagate 4TB, 2.5" drive before and it worked great for about a year, then crapped out with the four flashing lights death march. Talk about a bummer. Lost all our recordings. My wife wanted to take a hammer to the Tivo.

I ended up going with a WD Red 4TB placed in an external enclosure; works good and it's been reliable. I miss having everything self-contained within the Tivo, but since the Tivo doesn't get moved much, it isn't a big deal I guess.


----------



## tivobw

krazyboy13 said:


> Seems like it. My PC wont even recognize that it is plugged in. Thought id be able to reformat and at least have a 4tb backup drive for my PC.
> 
> From Russ' update, "The current recommended model, in terms of cost, is a Seagate ST2000LM015 for 2TB and a Seagate ST4000LM024 for 4TB. "
> 
> I guess go with one of these?


I strongly recommend against ANY Seagate hard drive for Tivo use. They have changed to a cheaper techonology which does not work well in Tivos or anything else with 24x7x365 usage requirements. My former Seagate 2.5" failed after about a year and I've seen many others fail as recounted here on the forums.. enough for me to never, ever use a Seagate in my Tivo. I'll stick with Western Digital.


----------



## tivobw

Ajkimmins said:


> So after reading the first page and skipping to the back here, I'm assuming the Morse code from the lights is a bad hdd? Mine's a two year old bolt with the original 500gb drive.


Yep, looks like the drive failed. You could call Tivo customer support and complain, perhaps they'll offer you the $50 Tivo refurbished deal. That would be cheaper than getting a new hard drive.

Or.. you could use this opportunity to updrade to a larger hard drive. Up to you!


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> 2) The Toshiba has a 3 year warranty itself (plus another year from my credit card). *However if the Bolt's just going to reject an otherwise perfectly good drive every 6 months then what a hassle!*


? I thought your Toshiba drive actually was starting to fail according to SMART, not catastrophic failure, but sectors were starting to go bad at a higher rate.

4 Lights Flashing on Bolt


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> ? I thought your Toshiba drive actually was starting to fail according to SMART, not catastrophic failure, but sectors were starting to go bad at a higher rate.
> 
> 4 Lights Flashing on Bolt


True, fair enough. It wasn't "perfectly good," but when the Tivo rejected it, it was 100% usable by my laptop.


----------



## HerronScott

fis said:


> True, fair enough. It wasn't "perfectly good," but when the Tivo rejected it, it was 100% usable by my laptop.


If it's showing SMART failures then it's just a matter of time before it totally fails. Windows doesn't necessarily care if there are SMART errors and will let you do a quick format on a drive. Initial usage might not show any issues either, but that doesn't make it a good drive.

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

tivobw said:


> I strongly recommend against ANY Seagate hard drive for Tivo use. They have changed to a cheaper techonology which does not work well in Tivos or anything else with 24x7x365 usage requirements. My former Seagate 2.5" failed after about a year and I've seen many others fail as recounted here on the forums.. enough for me to never, ever use a Seagate in my Tivo. I'll stick with Western Digital.


Not sure about being cheaper technology. but SMR allows much more data to be on a single platter than PMR. And so the fewer platters you have the cheaper the cost.

The last time I checked Seagate was using SMR with all their 2.5" drives. While WD is still using old tech, PMR, which means more platters, lower capacity, and thicker hard drives. UNfortunately SMR isn't as reliable for a device that is constantly reading/writing like a DVR.

But my 2 TBSeagate SMR Hybrid drive in my PS4 pro seems to still be working well. But it isn't reading/writing like a DVR would.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Hi everyone. I'm the OP. I'll see if I get some time this weekend to edit the OP. But if you're reading this and have gotten the dreaded 4 flashing lights, just cut your losses, ditch the Bolt and go for the Bolt+. That's what I did and I haven't taken apart my Bolt+ and attempted upgrading the hard drive. Even though I lost a TB of storage by settling for 3TB vs a dysfunctional 4TB setup, I've never gone past 50% storage. Yes, the transfer of service may be costly, but please take into consideration how much tine, effort and money you're putting into something that just won't work. The 4TB hard drive I was attempting to use wouldn't go past 18% before seeing the 4 flashing lights.

Considering I have something that works, I haven't kept up with the other solution. That is, replacing the SATA cable and running it out of the box to an external WD Red drive. What I did try, was taking the drive I had been using, plugging it into an external case, but that didn't work either.

I really don't have the knowhow to understand of the fault is souly based on the PMR vs SMR issue or if it also has something to do with the software architecture TIVO uses. That is, 32- bit vs 64-bit. I assume TIVO went with 32-bit because they stuck with storage under 4TBs.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## aaronwt

Why would I buy a Bolt + when I can just replace the hard drive? I can easily get 2TB and 1TB WD PMR drives. And you can actually get a 3TB WD PMR drive, but it is extremely expensive.

Weaknees sells the 3TB WD PMR drives for $290. Which would be a cheaper proposition than getting a Bolt +.

WD30NPRZ 3TB 2.5" Western Digital Laptop Hard Drive - TiVo Part - WeaKnees - the DVR Superstore


----------



## buildersboy66

Six tuners are better than four.


----------



## aaronwt

buildersboy66 said:


> Six tuners are better than four.


And one point of failure. I have two, four tuner models because six tuners is not enough. I would run into conflicts regularly with six tuners. Plus I want a second Bolt in case there are issues with one of them. Plus I can always connect them to OTA if I need to.

When they had the $99 transfer deal recently, I seriously thought about getting the Bolt+ and selling my two, four tuner Bolts. But in the end I decided to keep my four tuner Bolts. And I just purchased a third four tuner Bolt for $300 and sold it for the profit.

Although it would have been nice to have a black Bolt.

Although if I could go back in time two years. I would probably keep my 5TB Roamio Pro I had and never messed the Bolt. At least if they would have had a 4K Mini back then. Which is what I'm using now in my UHD setup. Tonight I'm moving my Bolts out of sight and away from where I can hear them.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


----------



## V7Goose

buildersboy66 said:


> Six tuners are better than four.


NOT when your only choice to use those six tuners is to keep paying stupidly ridiculous subscription prices to blood-sucking cable companies!!!!


----------



## tivobw

aaronwt said:


> Not sure about being cheaper technology. but SMR allows much more data to be on a single platter than PMR. And so the fewer platters you have the cheaper the cost.
> 
> The last time I checked Seagate was using SMR with all their 2.5" drives. While WD is still using old tech, PMR, which means more platters, lower capacity, and thicker hard drives. UNfortunately SMR isn't as reliable for a device that is constantly reading/writing like a DVR.
> 
> But my 2 TBSeagate SMR Hybrid drive in my PS4 pro seems to still be working well. But it isn't reading/writing like a DVR would.


Yes, what I meant by "cheaper technology" is that it is less reliable so to the end user (me) it seems lower quality, as it fails earlier than it should. I wasn't speaking to the technical capabilities of the technology and all that. I'm sure Seagate has their reasons for moving to SMR, but it's not a good fit for Tivos, as several on this forum have discovered.


----------



## sfhub

tivobw said:


> Yes, what I meant by "cheaper technology" is that it is less reliable so to the end user (me) it seems lower quality, as it fails earlier than it should. I wasn't speaking to the technical capabilities of the technology and all that. I'm sure Seagate has their reasons for moving to SMR, but it's not a good fit for Tivos, as several on this forum have discovered.


It is unclear if those reliability issues are endemic to SMR technology, or if it is Seagate's implementation of it, whether firmware, or platter, read/write heads, etc.

Theoretically if SMR technology is sound, somebody else could come out with an SMR drive that works fine in TiVo and/or 24/7 write situations.

The reasoning for SMR technology is to squeeze more data into the same platter size. As you keep shrinking the tracks, the write head needs to shrink also. At some point, the write head doesn't have enough juice to reliably change the bits on the platter. SMR drives get around this issue by using write heads and platters where the write head will span multiple tracks/sectors while reducing the read head size (which doesn't have the magnetic field issue being too weak issue) so reads don't have to access multiple areas.

This is why SMR disks are reasonably fast at reading, but much slower at writing, because they potentially need to read multiple areas before they can write the sector you requested. Sometimes SMR can mitigate this by using large caches. Perhaps a hybrid SMR with SLC-SSD cache drive might work well.

The reason you see SMR on a lot of 2.5" drives is it becomes challenging to do the large drive capacities given the space constraints on the write head and track/sectors that a 2.5" form factor imposes.

I don't follow SMR technology that closely, but that is my limited understanding.


----------



## mb117

I, too, just got the 4 flashing lights with a dead Seagate 4TB afew days ago. I thought it died about a year ago, but the reboots did the trick, but I always knew i was on borrowed time with that drive that I installed in early 2016. I put the 500GB drive back in but it got stuck on a software upgrade loop so I just bit the bullet and upgraded to the Bolt + with 3 TB and will not likely mess with the larger drives again - lost a few years of recordings- kinda sucks.


----------



## tivobw

sfhub said:


> It is unclear if those reliability issues are endemic to SMR technology, or if it is Seagate's implementation of it, whether firmware, or platter, read/write heads, etc.
> 
> Theoretically if SMR technology is sound, somebody else could come out with an SMR drive that works fine in TiVo and/or 24/7 write situations.
> 
> The reasoning for SMR technology is to squeeze more data into the same platter size. As you keep shrinking the tracks, the write head needs to shrink also. At some point, the write head doesn't have enough juice to reliably change the bits on the platter. SMR drives get around this issue by using write heads and platters where the write head will span multiple tracks/sectors while reducing the read head size (which doesn't have the magnetic field issue being too weak issue) so reads don't have to access multiple areas.
> 
> This is why SMR disks are reasonably fast at reading, but much slower at writing, because they potentially need to read multiple areas before they can write the sector you requested. Sometimes SMR can mitigate this by using large caches. Perhaps a hybrid SMR with SLC-SSD cache drive might work well.
> 
> The reason you see SMR on a lot of 2.5" drives is it becomes challenging to do the large drive capacities given the space constraints on the write head and track/sectors that a 2.5" form factor imposes.
> 
> I don't follow SMR technology that closely, but that is my limited understanding.


I agree - unclear if reliability issues are endemic to SMR or if it's Seagate's implementation. Until the facts are known, I'll be avoiding Seagate and SMR drives.


----------



## tivobw

mb117 said:


> I, too, just got the 4 flashing lights with a dead Seagate 4TB afew days ago. I thought it died about a year ago, but the reboots did the trick, but I always knew i was on borrowed time with that drive that I installed in early 2016. I put the 500GB drive back in but it got stuck on a software upgrade loop so I just bit the bullet and upgraded to the Bolt + with 3 TB and will not likely mess with the larger drives again - lost a few years of recordings- kinda sucks.


Sorry to hear your drive failed! Tivo could avoid all this hassle if it would just offer subscription-based cloud storage for customers. Then our data would be backed up and we wouldn't have to worry about these silly physical drives crapping out...


----------



## atmuscarella

tivobw said:


> I agree - unclear if reliability issues are endemic to SMR or if it's Seagate's implementation. Until the facts are known, I'll be avoiding Seagate and SMR drives.


My brother is a engineer working for Western Digital doing server drive certification. At Thanksgiving I asked him what he new about SMR drive tech. He went on to tell me more about it than I want to know but the bottom line was he said it is not designed for continuous overwriting, and is best used for storage, through he noted that you could read the data all you wanted to, it was the continuous overwriting process that would be an issue. It was his opinion that you would be pretty much guaranteed premature failure if you used an SMR drive in a continuously overwriting environment like a TiVo.


----------



## tivobw

atmuscarella said:


> My brother is a engineer working for Western Digital doing server drive certification. At Thanksgiving I asked him what he new about SMR drive tech. He went on to tell me more about it than I want to know but the bottom line was he said it is not designed for continuous overwriting, and is best used for storage, through he noted that you could read the data all you wanted to, it was the continuous overwriting process that would be an issue. It was his opinion that you would be pretty much guaranteed premature failure if you used an SMR drive in a continuously overwriting environment like a TiVo.


Thanks for the additional info! Makes sense when we see how many folks have experienced these failures with the SMR Seagate 2.5" drives.


----------



## jfdiv

Well, I took a gamble and got a STDR4000100 at Microcenter for $85 this weekend. For that price, it felt like they were trying to clear out old stock. CrystalDiskInfo identifies it as a ST4000LM024 firmware 0001. All signs point to this drive being more reliable than other Seagates for the price.

But, it was just manufactured this past September. Maybe that's just the assembly, and not the drive itself? I'll be cracking it open tomorrow to see what the label inside says, and to hope it's a SATA adapter and not USB direct. That recent manufacture date has me wondering about that. If it's SATA, I'm going for it when my Bolt arrives on Thursday. I don't mind the risk.

I've been scanning the threads to see what software is recommended to stress test the drive, since I have time to do that over the next few days. Recommendations?

Also, I downloaded HDDScan, but it will not run. Windows 10. I tried every compatibility mode. Nothing. Did a system restore just in case. Tried again. Same thing. Yes, I got the most recent version from the source. Virus check was fine, and it didn't block he software. Thoughts on that?

I also snagged the Easystore 8TB for $160 (and then Best Buy had it on CM for $149, dangit - will they price match themselves, now that the sale is over?). But I'm just not ready to go the external via internal route just yet!


----------



## fis

jfdiv said:


> Well, I took a gamble and got a STDR4000100 at Microcenter for $85 this weekend. For that price, it felt like they were trying to clear out old stock. CrystalDiskInfo identifies it as a ST4000LM024 firmware 0001. All signs point to this drive being more reliable than other Seagates for the price.
> 
> But, it was just manufactured this past September. Maybe that's just the assembly, and not the drive itself? I'll be cracking it open tomorrow to see what the label inside says, and to hope it's a SATA adapter and not USB direct. That recent manufacture date has me wondering about that. If it's SATA, I'm going for it when my Bolt arrives on Thursday. I don't mind the risk.
> 
> I've been scanning the threads to see what software is recommended to stress test the drive, since I have time to do that over the next few days. Recommendations?
> 
> Also, I downloaded HDDScan, but it will not run. Windows 10. I tried every compatibility mode. Nothing. Did a system restore just in case. Tried again. Same thing. Yes, I got the most recent version from the source. Virus check was fine, and it didn't block he software. Thoughts on that?
> 
> I also snagged the Easystore 8TB for $160 (and then Best Buy had it on CM for $149, dangit - will they price match themselves, now that the sale is over?). But I'm just not ready to go the external via internal route just yet!


BestBuy will not price match the $149. Plenty of discussion about that over at Slickdeals. I wish you the best of luck with the Seagate. Having lost all of my recordings a couple of times and gotten pilloried by the family for that, I'm not considering anything other than the WD drives.


----------



## leswar

jfdiv said:


> Well, I took a gamble and got a STDR4000100 at Microcenter for $85 this weekend. For that price, it felt like they were trying to clear out old stock. CrystalDiskInfo identifies it as a ST4000LM024 firmware 0001. All signs point to this drive being more reliable than other Seagates for the price.
> /QUOTE]
> 
> Please let us know if the hard drive has the desirable 0001 firmware.


----------



## jfdiv

Yes it does. Manufactured August 1, 2017.

Seagate BarraCuda 4TB
Model ST4000LM024
FW: 0001

But of course, now I'm not sure I want to risk it.


----------



## jfdiv

If I can cleanly hack this easy store drive, I'm going that route. I'm attempting to bypass the USB port with a direct sata cable while still using the case's power supply. Awaiting a sata power extension cable to arrive to see if that'll do the trick. If successful, I'll have more space than I'll ever use in a TiVo...8TB.


----------



## rburriel

Seagate 3TB ST3000LM016 installed into my Tivo Bolt in early November 2017. As of this morning, I'm seeing the 4 flashing lights. It's been *A MONTH* and I'm sick to my stomach and pissed at the same time. I'll do a 30 second reboot when I get home but this thread isn't inspiring confidence. It's not even that I may have to open the Bolt again (which isn't pleasant). It's that I may not have access to my Tivo for days and that all my past recordings may be lost. I'll report back.


----------



## V7Goose

Considering all the MANY posts in these forums from people with bad experiences using Seagate drives in TiVOs, and the constant advice given to avoid this brand, I am amazed every time I see a new person post that they are going to try it anyway. This is just one more report of sadness earned by that decision.

I wish you the best of luck in getting to a better place with your TiVo.


----------



## aaronwt

Seagate uses SMR in all their 2.5" drives now. Which is why they are not recommended.

Although I'm at 26 months of use now for a 4TB Seagate in one of my Bolts. The other 4TB Seagate died at 24 months.


----------



## sfhub

This is the updated failure tally from an earlier post:

4 Lights Flashing on Bolt



Barrister said:


> However, now it appears that the Toshibas are failing also. I will say that I have read all 15 pages of this thread on the same day, and the most common denominator has been flashing lights after a Tivo system update.


I tabulated the reported failures on this thread back to around page 12 (May)

4 esata -> sata recovered

4 Toshiba 2.5" fail

9 Seagate 2.5" fail

Given the Toshiba has been the most recommended drive (meaning the number of installs is probably much higher) 4 fails is not that high. There were 9 Seagate fails with probably much fewer installs (because everyone got concerned with SMR drives)

As I posted in a different thread, industry average failure rates for 24/7 usage are likely in the 1-5% range. If you have 3% failure and 1000 units, that is 30 failures. If you have 100 units and 5 failures, that is 5% failures. If you just look at the raw 30 reports without knowing how many units, it may look like the 1000 unit brand is failing more often, but in reality the 5 failures represent a higher percentage.

The reality is you are going to see noticeable # of drive failures in 24/7 usage situations for any drive if you have enough units. Industry average is probably around 1-5%. You can guesstimate the # of installs and see if you feel the reported failures is extraordinary, or just ordinary.

IMO given the Toshibas have been the recommended drive for a while, with the Seagate drives being out of favor due to SMR concerns, the Seagate SMR failures are extra-ordinary given the number of units installed is probably significantly less than the Toshiba.

guykuo - esata -> sata = recovered
tivobw - esata -> sata = recovered
bilj65 - esata -> sata = recovered
Jimbo687 - esata -> sata = recovered

slicer - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
TydalForce - Toshiba 2.5" = fail, Western Digital 2.5" = failing
sastexan - Toshiba 2.5" = fail
fis - Toshiba 2.5" = fail

ClaytonK - Seagate 2.5" = fail
aaronwt - Seagate 2.5" = fail
FreydNot - Seagate 2.5 = fail
Lenarro - Seagate 2.5" = fail
tivobw #2 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
tivoboy - Seagate 2.5" = fail
krazyboy13 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
mb117 - Seagate 2.5" = fail
rburriel - Seagate 2.5" = fail


----------



## rburriel

Regarding my use of a Seagate, I'll put the blame on this entirely on myself (I made the commitment to crack open the Bolt and replace the drive, and I accept the consequences of this), but I explored no other options after I saw that Seagate was the recommended option at the Ross Walker site:

A Guide to Upgrading Your Tivo Bolt, Tivo Premiere, Tivo Roamio, Tivo Roamio OTA, Tivo HD, Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Series 2 (Easily upgrade your Tivo Bolt, Roamio or Premiere to 300 Hours+ HD Capacity) - Also includes instructions on how to fix a broken Tivo.

I also read the reviews at Amazon from users who said they had used the ST3000LM016 in their Tivo successfully.

I *did* at least try to do my homework.

So, assuming I cannot rescue my Tivo, are we saying that Toshiba is the preferred option these days?

I would argue that there are less reports of Toshiba failures out there than Seagate failures because there's simply fewer Toshiba drives in use than Seagate drives. But aaronwt's point about Seagate using SMR (not recommended) does seem to hammer in the message.


----------



## aaronwt

You can also get a WD drive. But only the 1TB and 2TB are affordable options. Their 3TB, 2.5" drive is extremely expensive. Although that 3TB WD Blue drive is the one that TiVo uses in the Bolt+ models.


----------



## rburriel

Thanks all. It looks like my hands are tied. Even if I can recover from this existing error, having an SMR Seagate drive means I'm on borrowed time. The following thread tells me that the Toshiba MQ03ABB300 is the current recommended model:

Compatible hard drive list for Bolt...

Short of paying through the nose for a unicorn 2.5" 3TB WD drive, I guess I'll be ordering a Toshiba and doing some more surgery on my Tivo Bolt.


----------



## rburriel

Last update on this matter... probably.

Yup, that Seagate is dead as a doornail. I even plugged it into a Windows PC and it didn't resolve. Plugging in the original 500 GB hard drive that I had removed from the Tivo into the Windows PC at least registered that a hard drive had been connected. But the Seagate did nothing but whir and beep. I'm back on the 500 GB hard drive now. I may just stay with that one for a while and see if I really need 3 TB or not. Opening a Tivo Bolt is not a pleasant experience. My fingers are in considerable pain. I don't want to do that again if I don't have to.


----------



## aaronwt

I can get the lid off of a Bolt it a few seconds. I used to baby removing the lid until I realized I could rip it off quickly without any issues.


----------



## tivobw

rburriel said:


> ...I'm back on the 500 GB hard drive now. I may just stay with that one for a while and see if I really need 3 TB or not. Opening a Tivo Bolt is not a pleasant experience. My fingers are in considerable pain. I don't want to do that again if I don't have to.


I must say, after upgrading to a 4TB WD RED, we're not looking back. As long as it stays reliable, we're enjoying it.  So far that seems to be the case, with the exception of when Tivo rolled out the firmware upgrade which temporarily disabled our hard drive (as the new firmware didn't recognize eSATA->SATA adapter; we fixed that issue by directly connecting from the SATA connection on the Tivo motherboard to the SATA connection on the external HD enclosure).

While I miss having the Seagate 2.5" internal drive in the Tivo for the lower noise (having everything nicely installed within the Tivo was also fantastic), having it fail about a year later was sheer misery. We lost all our recordings, and my wife was irate! So with the WD red we have an external enclosure and have a cable routed outside the Tivo to the enclosure, but since it's all hidden away in the bottom shelf of our media center (with a closed door), it's essentially out of sight, out of mind.

The funny thing is, no matter how much space you have, you will always run out. We are now at 90% capacity on ours! Time to do some cleaning. 

I understand your thoughts on not upgrading the Tivo... but if you ever reconsider, I suggest going with an external drive, external enclosure and all that. It's a bit more dorky looking, but in practice it sure seems a lot more reliable. Additionally, I don't think anyone has reported an external hard drive failure on the boards yet; if so, it's a very low number as I haven't seen it yet. By comparison, there have been a slew of reports about internal 2.5" upgrade drives (such as the Seagate) failing.

And if you want the upgrade but don't want to do it yourself, you could always buy the bigger Tivo Bolt+ model, or try a Weak Knees upgrade. Of course those are more expensive, but they take care of the hassle and you can just enjoy the SuperTivo!!! 

I really wish we could get away from physical hard drives, and Tivo would offer a cloud-based storage option for their customers. This would take the burden of storing content out of customers' hands! If they could also offer backup capability for that content, you would NEVER have to worry about losing content. Seems like a no brainer, and a great new revenue stream for Tivo, as I think they could surely benefit from some more income. I would certainly pay for this feature.

It's been fun upgrading my Tivos over the years (been doing it since our first, the AT&T Tivo back in 1999/2000, something like that), but I don't like the idea that I'm a hard drive crash way from losing everything. Sure, you could manually back up most of your content to your computer using pytivo etc., but there are some shows you can't back-up (due to copyright), and it's a hassle to manually manage this. We've all got busy lives and finding time to back up Tivo content is on the bottom of the priority list for me! C'mon Tivo, offer cloud storage!


----------



## V7Goose

Losing a storage drive is always a traumatic experience, not just on the TiVo. I have about 12,000 programs from various sources (many archived from various TiVo boxes over the years) spread over lots of different hard drives and recorded DVDs. For a long time I would only use DVD and Blu-ray for archives just because I was afraid of loosing too many programs at one time if something failed. I try to limit the size of those archive drives to just 2 TB due to the huge loss of files if one goes bad. Over the past 15 years, I have lost two of those archive drives, and it really hurts.

And this is one of the things I struggle with on deciding how big a drive I want to put in my TiVos. I think the 3 TB drive is a good trade-off between size and risk, and since I want more than a total of 3 TB, I have more than one TiVo.


----------



## fis

An update -- some closure and one more data point for those considering the Toshiba 3TB MQ03ABB300 drive:

I paid *$150* for my Toshiba 3TB drive with the full 3-year U.S. Warranty earlier this year.
6 months later it failed.
I then learned from Toshiba that the warranty period is counted from the date of manufacture -- not from the purchase date -- despite the fact that I purchased from an authorized retailer and had the receipt. So in my case the warranty was actually just over *1 1/2 years*. BUT I was still covered.
It was finally honored in the form of a VISA debit card in the mail with* $114.99* on it -- Toshiba's "market value assessment" of the drive's worth.
I have moved on to Western Digital.


----------



## sfhub

fis said:


> It was finally honored in the form of a VISA debit card in the mail with* $114.99* on it -- Toshiba's "market value assessment" of the drive's worth.
> I have moved on to Western Digital.


Is it full value for the first year, then pro-rated? or is it pro-rated from the beginning?

My "market value assessment" of Toshiba just went down.


----------



## fis

sfhub said:


> Is it full value for the first year, then pro-rated?


I asked when I first called to RMA the drive. They would not/could not say. Just told me to wait a few months for the card to come and you'll see what the "market value assessment" was. It's one of those shady high-breakage debit cards, too. Expires in six months.


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## sfhub

fis said:


> It's one of those shady high-breakage debit cards, too. Expires in six months.


Buy an Amazon gift card right away before you forget in 6mo+1day.


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## ohboy710

Well I have had my Bolt for 15 months now and today the hard drive failed. 4 flashing lights. They first told me they wanted $149 to replace the unit, until I argued and then they said they would send me another one for $49. It's ridiculous that a hard drive would fail after 15 months, what junk. I'm soooo close to ditching them all together after this and all the other issues.


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## aaronwt

ohboy710 said:


> Well I have had my Bolt for 15 months now and today the hard drive failed. 4 flashing lights. They first told me they wanted $149 to replace the unit, until I argued and then they said they would send me another one for $49. It's ridiculous that a hard drive would fail after 15 months, what junk. I'm soooo close to ditching them all together after this and all the other issues.


Hard drives can fail in one day, one week, one year, ten years etc. There will always be a certain percentage of hard drives that fail prematurely. No matter how you use them or what device you use them in. This has always been the case.

Of course it still sucks when it happens.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


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## Tony_T

ohboy710 said:


> Well I have had my Bolt for 15 months now and today the hard drive failed. 4 flashing lights. They first told me they wanted $149 to replace the unit, until I argued and then they said they would send me another one for $49. It's ridiculous that a hard drive would fail after 15 months, what junk. I'm soooo close to ditching them all together after this and all the other issues.


At least TiVo agreed to extend the warranty 3 months.


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## CIR-Engineering

I keep recomending the *Western Digital WD40NPZZ*. It is a *4TB PMR* and there is a very reputable seller on ebay who stocks them from new to used with varying numbers of hours. The drive is PMR and 4TB or you can get a 3TB version. These are OEM drives intended for manufacturers and not sold to the public.

I've posted it before that I am not at all related to the seller, just a satisfied customer. Several others on this forum have bought drives from him as well.

Seller's name is central_valley_computer_parts_inc. He has two listings right now with item numbers 272309193026 and 292055925426. First listing has the drive with under 100 hours use at $132. 30 day money back guaranty.

Here is where I started: Tivo BOLT with Toshiba HDKFB06 good option?

Best,
craigr


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## shwru980r

ohboy710 said:


> Well I have had my Bolt for 15 months now and today the hard drive failed. 4 flashing lights. They first told me they wanted $149 to replace the unit, until I argued and then they said they would send me another one for $49. It's ridiculous that a hard drive would fail after 15 months, what junk. I'm soooo close to ditching them all together after this and all the other issues.


What is your alternative solution to Tivo? Do you have all-in service?


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## ohboy710

shwru980r said:


> What is your alternative solution to Tivo? Do you have all-in service?


I have no alternative to Tivo so I'm just waiting for my replacement (5 day shipping ugh). I do not have all-in-service and I hope I just got a bum deal with the hard drive. My moms Roamio hard drive has lasted 3-4 years so far.


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## ohboy710

Tony_T said:


> At least TiVo agreed to extend the warranty 3 months.


Well not really - the warranty is kind if indefinite. They told me last year when I bought the bolt that as long as I was paying my monthly service fee, if it ever broke no matter how long I had it, they would replace it for $49. So when this happened, I called and that's what I asked for. At first she told me it was $149 until I argued and then magically it was $49. I figured for $49 it's easier for them to just replace it then for me to purchase and replace the drive myself. Unfortunately it takes 5 days to arrive and I asked for faster shipping but they said that was not an option... so no TV for 5 days sucks. Thank goodness I had an old Roku in the closet!


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## Tony_T

ohboy710 said:


> Well not really - the warranty is kind if indefinite. They told me last year when I bought the bolt that as long as I was paying my monthly service fee, if it ever broke no matter how long I had it, they would replace it for $49. So when this happened, I called and that's what I asked for. At first she told me it was $149 until I argued and then magically it was $49. I figured for $49 it's easier for them to just replace it then for me to purchase and replace the drive myself. Unfortunately it takes 5 days to arrive and I asked for faster shipping but they said that was not an option... so no TV for 5 days sucks. Thank goodness I had an old Roku in the closet!


When you said they wanted to charge you $149, I though you had all-in service which only has a 12 mo. warranty. If you have a mo or annual plan, then you have Tivo's "Continual Care Protection" after 90 days, the replacement cost to you is $49.

Whoever you spoke to gave you bad info..

_TiVo's Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo BOLT, TiVo BOLT VOX or TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your monthly or annual TiVo service subscription. WIth TiVo Continual Care Protection we'll send you a replacement box at no charge (except you are responsible for shipping costs) if your TiVo BOLT, TiVo BOLT VOX or TiVo Roamio needs repair within the first 90 days from your date of purchase.* *After 90 days, you'll receive a replacement box for just $49.00 (plus shipping and applicable taxes).** No one else in the industry offers protection quite like this.
* Exchange exclusions and restrictions apply. Replacement box may be repaired, renewed or comparable product at TiVo's discretion. See Limited Warranty  into for details_


----------



## shwru980r

ohboy710 said:


> Well not really - the warranty is kind if indefinite. They told me last year when I bought the bolt that as long as I was paying my monthly service fee, if it ever broke no matter how long I had it, they would replace it for $49. So when this happened, I called and that's what I asked for. At first she told me it was $149 until I argued and then magically it was $49. I figured for $49 it's easier for them to just replace it then for me to purchase and replace the drive myself. Unfortunately it takes 5 days to arrive and I asked for faster shipping but they said that was not an option... so no TV for 5 days sucks. Thank goodness I had an old Roku in the closet!


They should have accommodated your request for faster shipping since they tried to overcharge you.

Also, you can find preowned Bolts on ebay for around $50 and switch your subscription to that one. Then you don't have to send the old Bolt back to Tivo. Tivo is going to send you a refurbished Bolt anyway. Not a new one.


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## Tony_T

shwru980r said:


> ...Also, you can find preowned Bolts on ebay for around $50 and switch your subscription to that one. Then you don't have to send the old Bolt back to Tivo.


That's a good idea, but not for anyone with an all-in plan, correct?


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## shwru980r

Tony_T said:


> That's a good idea, but not for anyone with an all-in plan, correct?


Right, The OP stated they were paying a monthly service fee. Tivo is essentially selling the customer another Tivo without service for the going rate on eBay under the guise of a warranty and requiring the customer to return the defective Tivo.


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## gespears

Hey Everybody, my brother just came back from the hospital after a quadruple bypass and his bolt+ had the 4 light flashing error. It's stock and has the 3 TB from the factory and has never been modified. Is this likely the drive or the power supply? I've heard that the PS can go bad and cause this problem. It's got the extended warranty but I'd much rather get it working for him so he doesn't lose all his recordings he's been recording because he's been in the hospital for two weeks. Suggestions? Thanks for your help. I don't have any bolts, only Roamio pros.


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## HerronScott

gespears said:


> Hey Everybody, my brother just came back from the hospital after a quadruple bypass and his bolt+ had the 4 light flashing error. It's stock and has the 3 TB from the factory and has never been modified. Is this likely the drive or the power supply? I've heard that the PS can go bad and cause this problem. It's got the extended warranty but I'd much rather get it working for him so he doesn't lose all his recordings he's been recording because he's been in the hospital for two weeks. Suggestions? Thanks for your help. I don't have any bolts, only Roamio pros.


From prior posts I would say that it's more likely that it's the drive, but you could pull it and try testing it (or see if you have a compatible power supply on any other equipment to test).

Scott


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## shwru980r

gespears said:


> Hey Everybody, my brother just came back from the hospital after a quadruple bypass and his bolt+ had the 4 light flashing error. It's stock and has the 3 TB from the factory and has never been modified. Is this likely the drive or the power supply? I've heard that the PS can go bad and cause this problem. It's got the extended warranty but I'd much rather get it working for him so he doesn't lose all his recordings he's been recording because he's been in the hospital for two weeks. Suggestions? Thanks for your help. I don't have any bolts, only Roamio pros.


Don't install a new drive in the bolt until you are absolutely sure that the current drive is bad, because the bolt automatically formats any hard drive that is different from the last installed drive, even if the new drive is formatted with the Tivo file system.


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## tivoboy

gespears said:


> Hey Everybody, my brother just came back from the hospital after a quadruple bypass and his bolt+ had the 4 light flashing error. It's stock and has the 3 TB from the factory and has never been modified. Is this likely the drive or the power supply? I've heard that the PS can go bad and cause this problem. It's got the extended warranty but I'd much rather get it working for him so he doesn't lose all his recordings he's been recording because he's been in the hospital for two weeks. Suggestions? Thanks for your help. I don't have any bolts, only Roamio pros.


Somewhere in this thread there are some posts about how to try and kick start it (not really a kick start) but ways of trying to get it going. As it's a stock drive and setup, I think you have a chance with that and should try that first.

If all that doesn't work (and it should work after several attempts if it is going to work at all) it's going to be a drive replacement and getting the prior shows off of it is either not going to be possible or would be quite a PIA to get done. Getting it going again is all one could then hope for.

I've had drives like this fail and they don't come back. I've had the same drives give the flashing lights and managed to get them back up and running and running for over a year - so there really isn't much rhyme or reason.

Since it's all stock, you could try calling tivo support and see what their protocol is to try and get the drive back running. And, read back through this thread, there are some tips somewhere where people got them going again.


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## CIR-Engineering

I would definitely try a different power supply first. You almost certainly have a compatible power supply on an external hard drive, modem, router, A.V. equipment...

craigr


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## gespears

Thank you very much for all the suggestions guys. We'll see how it goes.


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## ratso

CIR-Engineering said:


> I keep recomending the *Western Digital WD40NPZZ*. It is a *4TB PMR* and there is a very reputable seller on ebay who stocks them from new to used with varying numbers of hours. The drive is PMR and 4TB or you can get a 3TB version. These are OEM drives intended for manufacturers and not sold to the public.
> 
> I've posted it before that I am not at all related to the seller, just a satisfied customer. Several others on this forum have bought drives from him as well.
> 
> Seller's name is central_valley_computer_parts_inc. He has two listings right now with item numbers 272309193026 and 292055925426. First listing has the drive with under 100 hours use at $132. 30 day money back guaranty.
> 
> Here is where I started: Tivo BOLT with Toshiba HDKFB06 good option?
> 
> Best,
> craigr


I know this is a bit old but I've taken your (CIR) recommendation to use the WD WD40NPZZ drive and it should ship soon. For $141 new I chose that one. I have endured the weekly "Flashing Lights" for about a month now and just found this thread. I'll let you know how it goes once its installed and has been running a bit. Thanks CIR!


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## JOSHSKORN

Please let us know whether or not the drive will work for you. I suggest once it's up and running, report back monthly for three months, with info on how well it works for you, along with the percentage full your hard drive is.

Thankfully in my case, even though my Bolt failed, the free service was still in effect, so I didn't gave to try and convince the Tivo agent to transfer my service. He did offer to transfer my three remaining months of the free service to my new, Bolt+. I told him I didn't really care, since I was purchasing lifetime subscription anyway. My Bolt+ has only failed once, and unfortunately I had to pay $79.99 for a replacement. Once received, it was just plug in and play, the service was already transferred. In the end, I didn't really need a 4tb drive anyways. 3tb is enough. Good luck. 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


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## theQmaster

Hello all!

I got one of these 4 ligths flashing in the same time too.. I swapt the drive (500gb to 1 tb) and same thing. Based on what I read I don't need to apply MFSR for it as is under 3tb.

Anyhow I have some questions on kick starting it...

_1. If your remote control is in RF mode, you will need to put it in IR mode before running the kickstart procedure. Press *TiVo* + *C* to enter IR mode. (To put the remote back in RF mode, press and hold the *TiVo+Green D* buttons until the amber light flashes.)_
- how do I know is in RF mode and by amber light would that mean a light that's on the remote ?

_2. As the TiVo DVR restarts, the green LED light on the front bezel of the box will be lit.

3. When you see the yellow/amber light begin to flash, wait a second and then press and hold the *Pause* button on the remote for two seconds, then release it._
Again hope this is on remote because all I gen when I boot the Bolt is the a green lights,stays green for a while 2mins or so, then, boom!, all 4 leds are flushing. The yellow/amber on the unit is not flashing alone ever... 

You would mind shedding some light for me ?

Thanks!
Q


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## fis

theQmaster said:


> Hello all!
> 
> I got one of these 4 ligths flashing in the same time too.. I swapt the drive (500gb to 1 tb) and same thing. Based on what I read I don't need to apply MFSR for it as is under 3tb.
> 
> Anyhow I have some questions on kick starting it...
> 
> _1. If your remote control is in RF mode, you will need to put it in IR mode before running the kickstart procedure. Press *TiVo* + *C* to enter IR mode. (To put the remote back in RF mode, press and hold the *TiVo+Green D* buttons until the amber light flashes.)_
> - how do I know is in RF mode and by amber light would that mean a light that's on the remote ?
> 
> _2. As the TiVo DVR restarts, the green LED light on the front bezel of the box will be lit.
> 
> 3. When you see the yellow/amber light begin to flash, wait a second and then press and hold the *Pause* button on the remote for two seconds, then release it._
> Again hope this is on remote because all I gen when I boot the Bolt is the a green lights,stays green for a while 2mins or so, then, boom!, all 4 leds are flushing. The yellow/amber on the unit is not flashing alone ever...
> 
> You would mind shedding some light for me ?
> 
> Thanks!
> Q


I would file a ticket with Tivo support, and get them to help troubleshoot for you. _You don't have to tell them that you swapped drives. _


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## JOSHSKORN

theQmaster said:


> Hello all!
> 
> I got one of these 4 ligths flashing in the same time too.. I swapt the drive (500gb to 1 tb) and same thing. Based on what I read I don't need to apply MFSR for it as is under 3tb.
> 
> Anyhow I have some questions on kick starting it...
> 
> _1. If your remote control is in RF mode, you will need to put it in IR mode before running the kickstart procedure. Press *TiVo* + *C* to enter IR mode. (To put the remote back in RF mode, press and hold the *TiVo+Green D* buttons until the amber light flashes.)_
> - how do I know is in RF mode and by amber light would that mean a light that's on the remote ?
> 
> _2. As the TiVo DVR restarts, the green LED light on the front bezel of the box will be lit.
> 
> 3. When you see the yellow/amber light begin to flash, wait a second and then press and hold the *Pause* button on the remote for two seconds, then release it._
> Again hope this is on remote because all I gen when I boot the Bolt is the a green lights,stays green for a while 2mins or so, then, boom!, all 4 leds are flushing. The yellow/amber on the unit is not flashing alone ever...
> 
> You would mind shedding some light for me ?
> 
> Thanks!
> Q


I highly doubt it has anything to do with your remote being in IR or ref mode. Check to see if the drive you installed is PMR vs SMR. I believe PMR is what you need, which is what the original drive is. Search this thread, I believe there's info all over it.

Be careful about contacting Tivo support. If they offer a warrant exchange, they'll know you tampered with your drive. Whether or not it voids the ability forcing exchange, that I don't know.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


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## theQmaster

I was asking about the amber light. How do I know when it flashes so I can get the uninit in kickstart mode.

The drive is a Seagate BarraCuda Internal Hard Drive 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch 7mm (ST1000LM048) I am prety sure is the right kind.

I am just trying to kickstart it and see why the 4 blinking leds are happening!


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## ggieseke

Yellow = RF, Red = IR.


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## theQmaster

On the remote or on the device ? I have all 4 flashing on the device...


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## ggieseke

On the remote.


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## V7Goose

Generally, the 4 lights flashing indicates a bad HDD, but if you put a different compatible drive in the box and nothing changed, then it is likely a bad power brick. I suggest you try a different power cord before you do anything else.


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## ratso

Well, I received the WD40NPZZ drive from Central Valley Computer Parts a few days ago suggested by CIR, installed it in my Bolt which already had a 4tb Seagate BarraCuda (Four flashing light syndrome). It never formatted the drive but hung on "Starting Up". Next I performed a clone copy of the new drive but that too stuck at starting up. I'm guessing hydra is the issue. I tested the new drive and it checked good, with DriveDX. Not sure where to go from here.


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## JOSHSKORN

ratso said:


> Well, I received the WD40NPZZ drive from Central Valley Computer Parts a few days ago suggested by CIR, installed it in my Bolt which already had a 4tb Seagate BarraCuda (Four flashing light syndrome). It never formatted the drive but hung on "Starting Up". Next I performed a clone copy of the new drive but that too stuck at starting up. I'm guessing hydra is the issue. I tested the new drive and it checked good, with DriveDX. Not sure where to go from here.


After you initially got the 4 flashing lights, did you reinstall the original drive? Try it. See if it loads, then if it does, maybe try your new drive?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


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## Kishore

If you have older drive- please install that. After everything goes through with latest UI, downgrade the SW (from reset guide) to TE3. I had to do it twice to get my Bolt back to older format. Then go thru steps to install 4TB drive (as you did initially).. it should work.


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## ratso

Kishore said:


> If you have older drive- please install that. After everything goes through with latest UI, downgrade the SW (from reset guide) to TE3. I had to do it twice to get my Bolt back to older format. Then go thru steps to install 4TB drive (as you did initially).. it should work.


Ok, I'll try! Thx!


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## ratso

JOSHSKORN said:


> After you initially got the 4 flashing lights, did you reinstall the original drive? Try it. See if it loads, then if it does, maybe try your new drive?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


Good idea, I will try! Thx!


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## Global_Wierding

My Bolt+ has the 4 flashing lights. I tried to reboot many times and failed. I removed the 3TB WD Blue HDD and replaced with a 2TB WD Blue drive and got to the "Starting Up" screen. I held the pause button for two seconds while the amber light was flashing. Any advice on what to do next?

WD30NPRZ-00YRMTP OLD HDD
WD20SPZX-11CRATO New HDD

I tried rebooting with only power cord connected and old HDD installed, still have 4 flashing lights.

For the record:

Whenever my Comcast Modem reboots (usually in the middle of the night) I have to disconnect this Tivo Bolt+ in order for the Modem to finish rebooting. I then reconnect the Tivo Bolt+ and all is well.

Also, I had this Tivo Bolt+ setup for a Mocha network and connected that network with my Tivo Mini and Tivo Roamio.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Global_Wierding said:


> My Bolt+ has the 4 flashing lights. I tried to reboot many times and failed. I removed the 3TB WD Blue HDD and replaced with a 2TB WD Blue drive and got to the "Starting Up" screen. I held the pause button for two seconds while the amber light was flashing. Any advice on what to do next?
> 
> WD30NPRZ-00YRMTP OLD HDD
> WD20SPZX-11CRATO New HDD
> 
> I tried rebooting with only power cord connected and old HDD installed, still have 4 flashing lights.
> 
> For the record:
> 
> Whenever my Comcast Modem reboots (usually in the middle of the night) I have to disconnect this Tivo Bolt+ in order for the Modem to finish rebooting. I then reconnect the Tivo Bolt+ and all is well.
> 
> Also, I had this Tivo Bolt+ setup for a Mocha network and connected that network with my Tivo Mini and Tivo Roamio.


Well first of all, thanks for answering one of my questions. I figured MoCa was just a thing with Verizon/Frontier FiOS but didn't have any answers for that. I'm considering switching due to costs.

Also, maybe you'd pointed this out, already. Before the four flashing lights occurred, had you tampered with your Bolt+, thus upgraded/changed out the hard drive? You mention "Bolt+", "3TB HDD" and then "old hard drive". I just want to know if the four flashing lights initially began with a different hard drive than the stock HDD installed.


----------



## Global_Wierding

JOSHSKORN said:


> Well first of all, thanks for answering one of my questions. I figured MoCa was just a thing with Verizon/Frontier FiOS but didn't have any answers for that. I'm considering switching due to costs.
> 
> Also, maybe you'd pointed this out, already. Before the four flashing lights occurred, had you tampered with your Bolt+, thus upgraded/changed out the hard drive? You mention "Bolt+", "3TB HDD" and then "old hard drive". I just want to know if the four flashing lights initially began with a different hard drive than the stock HDD installed.


The 3TB HDD is the old hard drive that is factory and has the initial flashing light problem. I upgraded to TE4 months ago with no-known problems. The flashing lights started yesterday morning.


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## JOSHSKORN

Global_Wierding said:


> The 3TB HDD is the old hard drive that is factory and has the initial flashing light problem. I upgraded to TE4 months ago with no-known problems. The flashing lights started yesterday morning.


So, you had the four flashing lights problem on the factory hard drive, decided to swap out the hard drive for a 2TB HD and it worked for a little while until the four flashing lights came back?


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## Global_Wierding

JOSHSKORN said:


> So, you had the four flashing lights problem on the factory hard drive, decided to swap out the hard drive for a 2TB HD and it worked for a little while until the four flashing lights came back?


The 2TB HD was stuck on "Starting UP" for an hour before I turned it off. The flashing light problem was only on the factory HD.


----------



## Chris McNeil

I have a 3TB Bolt+ and the four lights flashed, just after the one year warranty expired. Tivo technical support told me that it was definitively a failed hard drive. It was $150 to get a replacement. I was astounded that a hard drive would fail after one year. Brand name hard drives usually have five year warranties and last well beyond five years. The replacement Bolt+ also failed after about three months, with the same four blinking lights. It was a free replacement. But before I returned the Bolt+, I opened up the box to examine the brand and date of the hard drive. It was a 3 TB WD. The only issue was that it had been manufactured in 2016, three years before. There was a non-hard drive manufacturing flaw in the replacement Bolt+. So, Tivo readily replaced it again. An inconvenience, but zero cost. I opened up the second Bolt+ replacement and found that it also had a 3TB WD, that had been manufactured in 2016, three years ago. I suspect that TiVo got a big discount on aged-out inventory of hard drives. It has made me wonder whether or not these 3 TB hard drives are actually used? Unfortunately, I didn’t open up the original brand new Bolt+ to examine its drive. If that was three years old, I think TiVo would be seriously misleading customers by selling old components, as new. But here’s positive context. I have had 8 Tivo’s starting with the “3s” over 12 years. This is the only hard drive failure that I have had with a TiVo.


----------



## dpalmi

Add another to the list. Got the 4 flashing lights on my Bolt+ on Monday. Internal drive was a WD WD30NPRZ Manuf Date 17 AUG 2016. Bolt+ was purchased 24 months ago. Called Tivo support and they are sending me a refurbed Bolt+ Vox for $79 + tax. They offered that price instantly. I can confirm the drive is indeed the problem. Bolt+ recognizes any other drive and starts to boot without issue. Bad drive also sometimes makes a "clunking" noise often heard with bad drives.

dpalmi


----------



## fis

With all of these stories of original drives going bad, I'd be tempted to take the drive out of any new Bolt before setting it up for the first time and run it through hardware diagnostics to see if there are any bad sectors or other indicators of future failure. However, of course, doing _*that *_would void the TiVO warranty


----------



## XIBM

I think they are getting hot and failing. See cooling mods thread...


----------



## XIBM

My Bolt+ woke up with 4 flashing lights today after 18 months of use so I don't guess the extra cooling fans saved the disk. Lucky I had the 3 year warantee and the TiVo rep indicated my lifetime would be on the new machine, we will see...


----------



## bobrt6676

XIBM said:


> My Bolt+ woke up with 4 flashing lights today after 18 months of use so I don't guess the extra cooling fans saved the disk. Lucky I had the 3 year warantee and the TiVo rep indicated my lifetime would be on the new machine, we will see...


After 25 months my Bolt+ is flashing 4 lights. Called Tivo support and much to my surprise they are replacing my Bolt+ FREE of charge:blush:. Refurb unit of course. (Since I have been a Tivo customer since 2001 is why they are not charging me.) At least that's what was said. Very Happy Tivo customer!!:smiley:


----------



## Dr_Zoidberg

Mine failed last Friday, and I got the replacement Bolt+ for $79. It lasted just about two years. For $79, I figured it was as cheap as a replacement drive, so I went that route. The device was well ventilated, but I will consider some sort of aux fan, after what I've read here.

I just set up the replacement and I'm annoyed that I can't recover the old One Passes, but that's the nature of how they do things. My only real beef is that it came with Hydra, but I guess since I'm starting over, I'll just try it out, for now. It isn't terrible, but it seems like all the sections are integrated properly instead of being re-used from older code.


----------



## aaronwt

Dr_Zoidberg said:


> Mine failed last Friday, and I got the replacement Bolt+ for $79. It lasted just about two years. For $79, I figured it was as cheap as a replacement drive, so I went that route. The device was well ventilated, but I will consider some sort of aux fan, after what I've read here.
> 
> I just set up the replacement and I'm annoyed that I can't recover the old One Passes, but that's the nature of how they do things. My only real beef is that it came with Hydra, but I guess since I'm starting over, I'll just try it out, for now. It isn't terrible, but it seems like all the sections are integrated properly instead of being re-used from older code.


With the new one, use kmttg to backup your one passes. It makes things so much easier. Especially when you have over one hundred fifty one passes, like me.

Sent from my Galaxy S10


----------



## Dr_Zoidberg

aaronwt said:


> With the new one, use kmttg to backup your one passes. It makes things so much easier. Especially when you have over one hundred fifty one passes, like me.


Yeah, I'll have to get back into that, because I stopped using tools like it to offload movies and such ages ago


----------



## Rawson819

bobrt6676 said:


> After 25 months my Bolt+ is flashing 4 lights. Called Tivo support and much to my surprise they are replacing my Bolt+ FREE of charge:blush:. Refurb unit of course. (Since I have been a Tivo customer since 2001 is why they are not charging me.) At least that's what was said. Very Happy Tivo customer!!:smiley:


My Bolt+ started flashing on Monday. Due to the fact it has All In service and has been active since February 2017, I didn't expect that TiVo would do anything for me and I therefore ordered a 3TB Toshiba drive from MacSales. However, after I read your post I thought I should give it a try and much to my surprise, they are replacing the unit without charge! The CSR didn't reference my longevity as a customer, but I started wondering if they did the replacement because the drive was still under warranty. ?
Regardless, I wanted to say thanks for sharing your experience, as it inspired me to follow suit and in turn, saved me some money! :blush:


----------



## Dr_Zoidberg

Harumpf, what'd I do wrong that I had to pay???


----------



## shwru980r

Rawson819 said:


> My Bolt+ started flashing on Monday. Due to the fact it has All In service and has been active since February 2017, I didn't expect that TiVo would do anything for me and I therefore ordered a 3TB Toshiba drive from MacSales. However, after I read your post I thought I should give it a try and much to my surprise, they are replacing the unit without charge! The CSR didn't reference my longevity as a customer, but I started wondering if they did the replacement because the drive was still under warranty. ?
> Regardless, I wanted to say thanks for sharing your experience, as it inspired me to follow suit and in turn, saved me some money! :blush:


Are they going to replace your Bolt+ with another Bolt+ with a 3TB drive? I think Tivo is selling the Bolt+ with a 1TB drive now.


----------



## Rawson819

shwru980r said:


> Are they going to replace your Bolt+ with another Bolt+ with a 3TB drive? I think Tivo is selling the Bolt+ with a 1TB drive now.


In my excitement to hear they were replacing it without charge, I didn't ask - just assumed it would be with a comparable unit. That would REALLY suck if it's 1TB. I wonder what experience others have had on similar replacements.


----------



## XIBM

My replacement for a Bolt+ was a Bolt+. The paperwork says refurb. but the label on the back indicates a manufacturing date in 2/2019 in Mexico... Works great so far...


----------



## Dr_Zoidberg

shwru980r said:


> Are they going to replace your Bolt+ with another Bolt+ with a 3TB drive? I think Tivo is selling the Bolt+ with a 1TB drive now.


I asked, and they confirmed I would receive a Bolt+ with the 3TB drive. It arrived as described, in a non-descript box, and I have to send the original back for refurbishment.


----------



## Wayne Skelton

Well my tech guy tried to charge a $59 “exchange fee.” He also told me I would need to send my unit back first. I knew better, since I have returned a few already, I told him I would go the credit card charge/credit route. I hope some of the many users returning units are not getting similar attention.


----------



## 7heather

My TiVo Bolt Vox 3TB was stricken with the flashing lights of death. After looking around online, I was convinced I would have to pay a fair amount to replace the drive. But when I called TiVo, they offered to replace it for free, I think because I had purchased lifetime service on both of my TiVos. I’ve also been a customer for around 12 years now. I also suspect they may be offering free and low cost replacements simply because they know the hard drive is defective. Maybe they’re concerned about lawsuits or bad press on the Bolt. Anyway, I’m happy they are sending me a new one for free. Thanks TiVo!


----------



## figsys

Another Bolt+ 3TB death to report this Friday - after only 18 months. Replacement was free since I purchased a 3 year extended warranty (or perhaps due to lifetime as others have reported). They did charge me a $399 (plus tax) for replacement which will be reimbursed upon receiving the dead unit.


----------



## Donbadabon

My Bolt + 3TB died yesterday too. 4 flashing lights. Sure seems like a lot are biting it lately.

Mine is 2 years and 2 months old. Out of warranty. They are replacing it for $49 ($53.53 after taxes).

Hopefully this one will last.

Edit to add - I don't think mine was a heat issue. I've always had it sitting on a laptop cooler, with two fans blowing underneath. My average temp was 40 degrees.


----------



## Rawson819

Just wanted to circle back and report that my 3TB Bolt+ was replaced with a 3TB Bolt VOX. (now I *need* to order a VOX remote)


----------



## HerronScott

Rawson819 said:


> Just wanted to circle back and report that my 3TB Bolt+ was replaced with a 3TB Bolt VOX. (now I *need* to order a VOX remote)


I wonder what drive they are using now given the number of failures reported here recently.

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

HerronScott said:


> I wonder what drive they are using now given the number of failures reported here recently.
> 
> Scott


It's a WD drive. Unless something has changed.

Sent from my Galaxy S10


----------



## JoeKustra

Rawson819 said:


> Just wanted to circle back and report that my 3TB Bolt+ was replaced with a 3TB Bolt VOX. (now I *need* to order a VOX remote)


Does that mean you want voice control or that your older remote won't pair in RF mode?


----------



## HerronScott

aaronwt said:


> It's a WD drive. Unless something has changed.


Have you received a replacement Bolt+? I'm curious if they've sourced a different drive for the replacements given the failure rate which seems high based on recent posts here and the willingness of TiVo Support to replace the lifetime ones for relatively low cost.

Tivo_Ted also said the 3TB drive in the Bolt+ was discontinued but they had not qualified an SMR replacement (part of the reason the 3TB Bolt+ was no longer being offered).

TiVo BOLT VOX 3TB out of stock?

Scott


----------



## genesat

My Bolt+ failed last night, it was 1.5 years old. I tried a replacement power supply adapter - no luck. Then I tried a 2TB hard drive I had on hand - it also changed nothing (it shows TiVo on the screen briefly with just green light on, then TiVo goes away and all 4 lights start flashing, never has just amber on). I think I saw something on here that the Bolt+ doesn't like anything under 3TB - is that really a thing or does it continuing to flash even with the 2TB spare drive hooked up mean it's the motherboard? I just got the automatic commercial skip upgrade a few days ago too. : (


----------



## HerronScott

genesat said:


> My Bolt+ failed last night, it was 1.5 years old. I tried a replacement power supply adapter - no luck. Then I tried a 2TB hard drive I had on hand - it also changed nothing (it shows TiVo on the screen briefly with just green light on, then TiVo goes away and all 4 lights start flashing, never has just amber on). I think I saw something on here that the Bolt+ doesn't like anything under 3TB - is that really a thing or does it continuing to flash even with the 2TB spare drive hooked up mean it's the motherboard? I just got the automatic commercial skip upgrade a few days ago too. : (


Since you received Autoskip that means that you are running TE4 and with one of the recent software updates to TE4, some drives no longer work which originally worked with TE4 and which still work with TE3. Perhaps your 2TB model is one of those that no longer works with TE4.

Scott


----------



## genesat

HerronScott said:


> Since you received Autoskip that means that you are running TE4 and with one of the recent software updates to TE4, some drives no longer work which originally worked with TE4 and which still work with TE3. Perhaps your 2TB model is one of those that no longer works with TE4.
> 
> Scott


I actually don't know if the 2TB would have worked with TE3. My TiVo was completely stock/unmodified with original 3TB drive until it failed. That's when I tried with a 2TB I had on hand - it had never been in a TiVo before - it was a spare out of a computer where it had been replaced with a SSD. It behaved the same way with the 2TB as it was doing with the stock 3TB drive - TiVo logo appears on TV, disappears, then all 4 lights start flashing.

It actually surprises me quite a bit - back with my original Humax Series 2 back in the day you would know the HD was failing, it would sound awful, you'd hear it spin up/spin down, clunk, clunk, you'd have glitches navigating around. Clear warning signs something was failing. With this Bolt+ failure it had no signs of anything wrong before hand. No glitching, no odd sounds coming from the drive, just went from working fine when I went to bed, to completely dead when I woke up.


----------



## golfmikepapa

My Bolt Vox 3TB died with flashing lights on Tuesday. It was purchased Dec 2017 so just over a year and half old. I made a support request and they gave me an RMA and charged me $573 to replace it and have me send the old one back to refund me the cost of the unit once they received it back.

On Thursday, I get an email notification out of the blue from Tivo tech support saying that their diagnostics detected a problem with my hard drive and were offering to replace the unit at no cost to me. This would allow me to transfer my recordings before the unit failed so I wouldn't lose any recordings. They gave me a different case number from the one I made myself. 

Unfortunately, they were 2 days late because the old one is toast and I lost 3Tb of recordings.


----------



## mikeg_ms

Hmmmm. My bolt+ died last night. 4 flashing lights. I will be calling them

I noticed with te4 it’s running quite a bit hotter. It overheated for the first time since the update


----------



## acitrano

Hi folks,

Just to add some data to your thread, my 3TB TiVo Bolt+ just died. Four flashing lights, etc. Quick troubleshooting with TiVo via email, then they told me to call. Manufacture date is Aug 2016. I purchased it second-hand from an individual; not from TiVo. It has an active annual TiVo plan in place. Phone call lasted about five minutes; rep agreed it was a hardware failure. They said it was out of warranty but they will replace it with a refurb TiVo Vox 3TB for $49. I said fine (hopefully I wont regret the "upgrade"). Weaknees is just up the street from me, so I almost brought it to them. But the swap with TiVo seemed like the simplest and most cost-effective option.


----------



## Mikeguy

acitrano said:


> Hi folks,
> 
> Just to add some data to your thread, my 3TB TiVo Bolt+ just died. Four flashing lights, etc. Quick troubleshooting with TiVo via email, then they told me to call. Manufacture date is Aug 2016. I purchased it second-hand from an individual; not from TiVo. It has an active annual TiVo plan in place. Phone call lasted about five minutes; rep agreed it was a hardware failure. They said it was out of warranty but they will replace it with a refurb TiVo Vox 3TB for $49. I said fine (hopefully I wont regret the "upgrade"). Weaknees is just up the street from me, so I almost brought it to them. But the swap with TiVo seemed like the simplest and most cost-effective option.


Just for transparency, it's not as if TiVo is being particularly generous, here (although I don't know if matters are different for someone who has purchased a used TiVo box).  And to be fair to TiVo, it looks like it's picking up at least one of the shipping costs (?), which can be considerable, and so that's nice (and generous).


> Continual Care Warranty
> 
> TiVo's Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo BOLT or TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your monthly or annual TiVo service subscription. With Continual Care protection, we'll send you a replacement box at no charge if your TiVo BOLT or TiVo Roamio needs repair within the first 90 days from your date of purchase.*
> After 90 days, you'll receive a replacement box for just $49.00.**
> 
> * Exchange exclusions and restrictions apply. Replacement box may be a repaired, renewed or comparable product, at TiVo's discretion. Customer responsible for payment of shipping costs. See Limited Warranty Info for details.
> 
> ** Exchange exclusions and restrictions apply. Replacement box may be a repaired, renewed or comparable product, at TiVo's discretion. Customer responsible for payment of shipping costs and any applicable taxes. See Limited Warranty Info for details


https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/TiVo-Limited-Warranty


----------



## acitrano

Mikeguy said:


> Just for transparency, it's not as if TiVo is being particularly generous, here (although I don't know if matters are different for someone who has purchased a used TiVo box).  And to be fair to TiVo, it looks like it's picking up at least one of the shipping costs (?), which can be considerable, and so that's nice (and generous).
> 
> https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/TiVo-Limited-Warranty


Absolutely; I wasn't meaning to imply they were being generous - merely that they provided me with the most attractive option. Least cost and least hassle (knock on wood).


----------



## UCLABB

I got the four flashing lights this morning and figured it was dead. Hard reboot brought it back to life. For how long??


----------



## minimeh

No one can say for sure, of course. But while it's still functioning, it might be a good idea to use kmttg to back up your wishlists, one passes, channels, and even thumbs. Then download any shows that aren't copy protected and that you really don't want to lose.

After that effort, maybe the gods will smile upon you and let the drive live.


----------



## shwru980r

I've been using this drive in a white bolt for 2 years.

*Seagate 3TB Laptop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch 15 mm Height Internal Hard Drive (ST3000LM016)*


----------



## hansenc

UCLABB said:


> I got the four flashing lights this morning and figured it was dead. Hard reboot brought it back to life. For how long??


When you say hard reboot, just pulling the power out the back or did you do something else?


----------



## PedjaR

My Bolt+, bought September 2017, also died with the flashing lights. After a bit of chat with online support and trying in vain to reboot it with nothing connected but the power cord, the chat person suggested calling the support. They offered to replace it for free, even including shipping, without me even asking. I paid the deposit to get the replacement shipped right away, before the broken one reaches them. Perhaps they took it easy on me because I have two lifetime Bolts and a lifetime Roamio, plus 2 minis and a disconnected Premiere (was lifetime, transferred service to one of Bolts when they were offering a good deal to do so). The drive was half full, so I guess I have to look at where to find some of those shows. I have some one passes saved with kttmg , but have not kept it up to date.
Edit: not temperature related, I think, since it was sitting on top of a cooler with a couple of fans blowing at it, and temps were around 50. Perhaps the cooler blew dust into it?


----------



## MarianL

Ack! I rarely use my LR Bolt - typically I just transfer stuff to it that I want to archive. So this morning I was going to transfer something and I couldn't pull it up on the app. Four flashing lights....jeez. I turned the power off on the strip, let it sit a bit, and repowered it up. Everything seems to be okay, but is this a sign of impending doom? Course of action??


----------



## Donbadabon

Yes. Impending doom.
Either transfer everything you can off the unit now, or watch everything you've been meaning to watch! lol
It also wouldn't hurt to make note of all your season passes. They are a pain to remember when you get your replacement unit.
Then you'll be ready to call TiVo for a replacement. They've been great about replacing these out of warranty for a minimal fee.


----------



## MarianL

Donbadabon said:


> Yes. Impending doom.
> Either transfer everything you can off the unit now, or watch everything you've been meaning to watch! lol
> It also wouldn't hurt to make note of all your season passes. They are a pain to remember when you get your replacement unit.
> Then you'll be ready to call TiVo for a replacement. They've been great about replacing these out of warranty for a minimal fee.


I have an unused Roamio that isn't activated right now. Is it possible to hook it up to my network and transfer things over there for holding purposes without activating it?


----------



## JoeKustra

MarianL said:


> I have an unused Roamio that isn't activated right now. Is it possible to hook it up to my network and transfer things over there for holding purposes without activating it?


No. But you may be able to activate it on a monthly plan, copy the files, then call up and cancel the plan. That costs nothing, but not all stuff can get a monthly plan with no annual commitment.


----------



## MarianL

Thanks, I’ll Check into that. I was going to reactivate it soon for my studio which is under construction. Maybe I’ll just do that a bit early.


----------



## xberk

Same thing here. Bolt +. Got it Dec 2018 so about 9 months. 4 flashing lights. Will not reboot. Tivo is sending a replacement. I had two USB fans on the Bolt to keep temp down. I'll never know if the failure was the drive (I can hear it spinning) or the power supply. I've been using TIVOs for something like 15 years. Very disappointed.

Just to follow up 5 days later. Got my replacement (renewed Tivo Bolt +)..ran setup and called Spectrum to pair up the cable card .. not totally smooth but after a reset on the Tuning Adapter and a reboot of the Tivo all was well.


----------



## innocentfreak

My mothers' Bolt+ with lifetime died with the four flashing lights Monday morning. I bought it for her sometime in 2017 during one of the sales or upgrade deals. TiVo is replacing for free.

Hope to have the replacement by Friday. It has been problem free up until now and on a battery backup, but no idea if it was the drive or power supply. It was also on top of an open shelf so no heat issues.


----------



## Robert Simandl

So is the four flashing lights thing a hard drive problem or a Bolt problem in general? I woke up to it this morning. Debating whether to open it up and replace the drive (like I did years ago with a 3TB drive when I first bought the Bolt on the "upgrade from series 3" deal) or call Tivo. This is aggravating since my two-year-older Roamio and my three-year-older Premiere still work great. Thanks.


----------



## V7Goose

Robert Simandl said:


> So is the four flashing lights thing a hard drive problem or a Bolt problem in general?


I do not think we know for sure - anything that keeps it from booting might generate the same results. But I personally think that the VAST majority of these cases are HDD problems.

If you are really worried about hoping to save all your recordings, then I would suggest trying an alternate power brick FIRST, just on the slight chance that might fix it without getting the HDD wiped.

If the power supply doesn't help, then I'd just open it up and plug in almost any drive to the SATA port just to see if it boots. If it does, I'd then buy a new WD Red or Purple 3TB 3.5" drive and connect it via an external enclosure to fix the box. I have decided to never put another 2.5" drive in a TiVo; those toy drives just cannot be trusted to last.


----------



## Wigohwt

Robert Simandl said:


> So is the four flashing lights thing a hard drive problem or a Bolt problem in general? I woke up to it this morning. Debating whether to open it up and replace the drive (like I did years ago with a 3TB drive when I first bought the Bolt on the "upgrade from series 3" deal) or call Tivo. This is aggravating since my two-year-older Roamio and my three-year-older Premiere still work great. Thanks.


If you connect just any other drive to your Bolt to test it, you will loose all your recordings.
My idea would be to first clone your drive to the new 3.5" drive 3TB or larger to see if you can get your TiVo working with the clone.
Like mentioned, use an external enclosure (that has its own power supply) and connect it directly to the SATA port in the Bolt, NOT the eSata port.


----------



## Robert Simandl

New power adapter from TiVo didn't work, and replacement 3TB drives are few, far between, and hellaciously expensive. So I said the hell with it and put the original 1TB drive back in. Lights have stopped flashing and everything appears hunky dory. Now I'll likely retire it until or unless my Roamio or my fiancee's Premiere bite the dust. Thanks to everyone who replied to my issue.


----------



## V7Goose

Just in case you didn't catch it earlier, let me briefly repeat:

Very simple to replace a Bolt HDD with external 3.5" drive. Cheaper drives and much more reliable; the only additional cost is about $20 for an enclosure.


----------



## jtso

Just to add another data point, my Bolt+ had the 4 flashing lights problem last week. After attempting to reboot (pulled the power cord) several times without success, I called TiVo and they are replacing it for free with a renewed Bolt Vox 3TB. The Bolt was bought in spring 2017 with a Product Lifetime - All In package. My Premiere (2010) and Roamio (2014) are still going strong. This was my first hardware failure, ironically on my newest unit. The Bolt sat on top of a small table out in the open by itself with no obstructions around it or on top of it, so air could easily circulate around it. The replacement Tivo should arrive tomorrow and I will likely roll back to TE3.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

jtso said:


> Just to add another data point, my Bolt+ had the 4 flashing lights problem last week. After attempting to reboot (pulled the power cord) several times without success, I called TiVo and they are replacing it for free with a renewed Bolt Vox 3TB. The Bolt was bought in spring 2017 with a Product Lifetime - All In package. My Premiere (2010) and Roamio (2014) are still going strong. This was my first hardware failure, ironically on my newest unit. The Bolt sat on top of a small table out in the open by itself with no obstructions around it or on top of it, so air could easily circulate around it. The replacement Tivo should arrive tomorrow and I will likely roll back to TE3.


Yep, that's the consensus I'm getting. The Bolt line in general is terrible quality. Hopefully Edge won't suffer the same fate.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


----------



## David K

Woke up this morning to 4 flashing lights on the bolt+. Called TiVo, they are sending a free replacement even though I bought it spring of 2017. They are charging me $500 for preshipping the replacement TiVo and will refund it once they receive the defective unit. 

still trying to figure out if I can get the recording off the old drive and get it into the new TiVo before I ship it back though...


----------



## V7Goose

David K said:


> still trying to figure out if I can get the recording off the old drive and get it into the new TiVo before I ship it back though...


Very unlikely - see this post for more information on two possibilities (both with low probability of success):Tivo Bolt+ died (4 flashing lights)

Your existing Bolt MUST be working to access the recordings on it in any way. In short, if you can still access your recordings by either using a new power supply or a clone of the drive, then there was absolutely no reason you needed a replacement from TiVo.


----------



## David K

yeah, I pulled the drive, hooked it up to my laptop and ran the WD lifeguard diagnostics on the drive.

The drive failed the S.M.A.R.T. Test. The reallocated sector count was 133 with a threshold of 140. Seems like the drive is indeed failing. Running an extended diag on it now but it'll take over 30 hours to run.

I'm not sure I'm accomplishing anything though. I think this is a losing battle.



V7Goose said:


> Very unlikely - see this post for more information on two possibilities (both with low probability of success):Tivo Bolt+ died (4 flashing lights)
> 
> Your existing Bolt MUST be working to access the recordings on it in any way. In short, if you can still access your recordings by either using a new power supply or a clone of the drive, then there was absolutely no reason you needed a replacement from TiVo.


----------



## David K

Oooooo. Even worse, I put a 320gb drive in the TiVo just to get it up and running so I could watch TV yesterday. Seems that this kills any opportunity to try to recover the recordings.

I forgot all about the marriage to the drive that TiVo does when it initialized the new drive.

Oh well. Live and learn



David K said:


> yeah, I pulled the drive, hooked it up to my laptop and ran the WD lifeguard diagnostics on the drive.
> 
> The drive failed the S.M.A.R.T. Test. The reallocated sector count was 133 with a threshold of 140. Seems like the drive is indeed failing. Running an extended diag on it now but it'll take over 30 hours to run.
> 
> I'm not sure I'm accomplishing anything though. I think this is a losing battle.


----------



## Wigohwt

David K said:


> I forgot all about the marriage to the drive that TiVo does when it initialized the new drive.
> Oh well. Live and learn


Once the drive fails the "Quick" test, there's no point on doing the "Extended" test.

Yes, the recovery clone must be done prior to the final HDD replacement.

A shame TiVo has done this with the Bolt. I strongly suspect the Edge will be the same.


----------



## Glenn Williams

David K said:


> Woke up this morning to 4 flashing lights on the bolt+. Called TiVo, they are sending a free replacement even though I bought it spring of 2017. They are charging me $500 for preshipping the replacement TiVo and will refund it once they receive the defective unit.
> 
> still trying to figure out if I can get the recording off the old drive and get it into the new TiVo before I ship it back though...


I also have a Bolt + bought in spring of 2017. I called (unfortunately before reading this) about the flashing lights and was charged a replacement fee of $149. My Bolt + was 3TB with Lifetime Service.


----------



## Wigohwt

Glenn Williams said:


> I also have a Bolt + bought in spring of 2017. I called (unfortunately before reading this) about the flashing lights and was charged a replacement fee of $149. My Bolt + was 3TB with Lifetime Service.


Do you still have your Bolt, or did you already ship it?


----------



## Glenn Williams

Wigohwt said:


> Do you still have your Bolt, or did you already ship it?


I still have it, but I'll be shipping it back soon.


----------



## Wigohwt

Glenn Williams said:


> I still have it, but I'll be shipping it back soon.


I was going to say you could have tried to cancel your order and try to clone/replace the HDD instead, but I see in another thread you have received your replacement. Sorry it was defective.

Since your final replacement will be blank anyway, and if you had or want to go back to TE3, this will be the time to do it before any new recordings.


----------



## Glenn Williams

David K said:


> Woke up this morning to 4 flashing lights on the bolt+. Called TiVo, they are sending a free replacement even though I bought it spring of 2017. They are charging me $500 for preshipping the replacement TiVo and will refund it once they receive the defective unit.
> 
> still trying to figure out if I can get the recording off the old drive and get it into the new TiVo before I ship it back though...


David and I have the same problem on the same model, and both of ours were bought approximately the same time (Spring 2017). He called in 5 days before I did, and was charged nothing. I got charged $149. I opened a case to ask why I had been charged $149 when others had been charged much less (or like David, nothing at all). The sidestepped the question, answering that:

"We apologize for the inconvenience this might have caused you. Since your DVR already exceeds the 90 day warranty, a replacement fee of 149$ is charged. For more information please check this link. TiVo Warranty Information"

(Tivo Customer Support Community)

If you check the link, it says that the replacement fee is actually $49, and the article was last updated on Oct. 30, 2019.

I'm also dealing with another issue reactivating another TiVO box I have. My credit card changed and the warning emails went to my Spam folder. I can take the blame for that, but there was an issue reactivating it when I called in, and that has persisted for 6 days (they say it will be reactivated by next Tuesday or so now.

I'm following up on this, hopefully I'll get all of this straightened out.


----------



## Wigohwt

Glenn Williams said:


> If you check the link, it says that the replacement fee is actually $49, and the article was last updated on Oct. 30, 2019.


It's odd, it's also has "TiVo's Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo BOLT or TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your *monthly* or *annual* TiVo service subscription." Why the distinction from *lifetime*?


----------



## Slumpert

Wigohwt said:


> Why the distinction from *lifetime*?


I thought that was the exact definition of the lifetime option. You paid for subscription until the unit dies. Whether one year or a dozen, once it breaks your done.

This whole pay for a exchange seems totally above and beyond what we would be entitled too.


----------



## V7Goose

Wigohwt said:


> It's odd, it's also has "TiVo's Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo BOLT or TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your *monthly* or *annual* TiVo service subscription." Why the distinction from *lifetime*?


Because the whole thing with Lifetime (now called All-In) is that you only pay a one-time huge cost up front, and then all the risk is yours about how long the hardware will last. In fact, TiVo actually WANTS your lifetime box to die, because that is the only way the Lifetime service can terminate (and they are not making any more money off of you), so they are not about to continue to provide any type of warranty or replacement coverage on it. If you are continuing to pay monthly or annual service fees, then their incentive is to do whatever they can to keep that income stream coming, and a cheap replacement is going to cost them a lot less than someone cancelling their service.

The Bolt has been the only exception to this (an UNOFFICIAL exception), apparently because the huge number of failures with that toy 2.5" drive they use has given them a black eye on how crappy their current hardware is, so they have started replacing even lifetime Bolts for free, at least for most people. Unfortunately, TiVo No-Help Support has a long history of charging whatever they can sucker people into paying for a replacement, so the ones that get it cheap or free are the people who keep pushing back at them.


----------



## V7Goose

As far as I am concerned, it is MUCH smarter to replace the failed drive in a Bolt yourself instead of letting TiVo send you a "refurbished" box. 

I do not believe that TiVo "refurbishes" anything - those are nothing more than boxes that someone else has already returned at least once (usually because something is BROKEN), so getting a "refurbished" box in exchange for a failed HDD often means you also get new problems and need to fight for multiple exchanges until you get one that actually works.

If you have a Bolt that was working fine until the hard drive died, take the opportunity to connect a new 3TB WD Red 3.5" drive to that box with an external enclosure and have a much more reliable Bolt for the future!


----------



## Mikeguy

V7Goose said:


> I do not believe that TiVo "refurbishes" anything - those are nothing more than boxes that someone else has already returned at least once (usually because something is BROKEN), so getting a "refurbished" box in exchange for a failed HDD often means you also get new problems and need to fight for multiple exchanges until you get one that actually works.


That might be part of t, but I also think that TiVo has supplied new boxes in the guise of the term "refurbished." I think that manufacturers do this to open up a new retail avenue without cannibalizing their regular chains.


----------



## Wigohwt

V7Goose said:


> The Bolt has been the only exception to this (an UNOFFICIAL exception), apparently because the huge number of failures with that toy 2.5" drive they use has given them a black eye on how crappy their current hardware is, so they have started replacing even lifetime Bolts for free, at least for most people.


This is what threw me off. The inconsistency. This also makes me wonder why they continued the 2.5" drive with the Edge. Does the box really need to be smaller than a Premiere or Roamio Plus/Pro? No.


----------



## Wigohwt

Slumpert said:


> I thought that was the exact definition of the lifetime option. You paid for subscription until the unit dies. Whether one year or a dozen, once it breaks your done.
> 
> This whole pay for a exchange seems totally above and beyond what we would be entitled too.


I know, but they have been doing it, hence my question. See @V7Goose's post with the answer.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Wigohwt said:


> This is what threw me off. The inconsistency. This also makes me wonder why they continued the 2.5" drive with the Edge. Does the box really need to be smaller than a Premiere or Roamio Plus/Pro? No.


This makes me wonder. Will Edge users suffer a similar fate?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


----------



## Wigohwt

JOSHSKORN said:


> This makes me wonder. Will Edge users suffer a similar fate?


At least TiVo addressed the poor cooling issue.

If the current 2.5" HDDs last for at least 1 to 2 years, maybe in that time, the price for a replacement SSD (this should work?) will come down low enough for those who don't want to go the external enclosure route.


----------



## V7Goose

Mikeguy said:


> That might be part of t, but I also think that TiVo has supplied new boxes in the guise of the term "refurbished." I think that manufacturers do this to open up a new retail avenue without cannibalizing their regular chains.


Yes, they occasionally send out new boxes when they must replace one under warranty and have run out of their pile of returned garbage. After all, nobody is going to complain about getting a new box when they were expecting a used one. But you cannot count on that; in fact, I believe it is relatively rare compared to the broken ones they repeatedly send out. That is why I strongly believe it is always better to keep your GOOD box and improve it by replacing the drive with a more reliable one.

After all, even if you get lucky and get a new box, you are still getting another junk 2.5" drive that will most likely fail early again. And if you are waiting on a replacement Bolt+ with a 3TB drive, you KNOW it will never be a new box since they do not even make those any more!


----------



## BobCamp1

Wigohwt said:


> This is what threw me off. The inconsistency. This also makes me wonder why they continued the 2.5" drive with the Edge. Does the box really need to be smaller than a Premiere or Roamio Plus/Pro? No.


Size is everything. They're trying to shrink down to a Roku sized box because in a way they are their true competitors. That's also why the GUI now looks a lot like Roku's. Plus some of their other DVR competitors can use a USB drive (Tablo) and are very small.

The only problem is that non-shingled 2.5" PMR drives have a practical limit of 2 TB. They didn't know when they built them, but most of the 3 TB drives out there have had higher failure rates. Manufacturers have discovered this and have stopped making them. Tivo has realized this and made the Edge 2 TB. They also had to stop selling the Bolt+ so they could cannibalize them for their hard drives.

The other alternative is to simply downgrade the repaired Bolt+ units to a 2 TB capacity. But judging by the response Tivo got when they added pre-roll ads, Bolt+ owners would go absolutely ape$#!t+.


----------



## MisterMidnight

V7Goose said:


> ...And if you are waiting on a replacement Bolt+ with a 3TB drive, you KNOW it will never be a new box since they do not even make those any more!


I received a replacement refurb Bolt+ 3TB a couple weeks ago. It had the plastic film protection sheet on the top, I wonder if all the refurbs get new cases? The date of MFG on the bottom shows August 20, 2019...


----------



## Mikeguy

MisterMidnight said:


> I received a replacement refurb Bolt+ 3TB a couple weeks ago. It had the plastic film protection sheet on the top, I wonder if all the refurbs get new cases? The date of MFG on the bottom shows August 20, 2019...


Or, it just could be a new item.


----------



## bobfrank

V7Goose said:


> As far as I am concerned, it is MUCH smarter to replace the failed drive in a Bolt yourself instead of letting TiVo send you a "refurbished" box.
> 
> I do not believe that TiVo "refurbishes" anything - those are nothing more than boxes that someone else has already returned at least once (usually because something is BROKEN), so getting a "refurbished" box in exchange for a failed HDD often means you also get new problems and need to fight for multiple exchanges until you get one that actually works.
> 
> If you have a Bolt that was working fine until the hard drive died, take the opportunity to connect a new 3TB WD Red 3.5" drive to that box with an external enclosure and have a much more reliable Bolt for the future!


I just had the joy of getting the flashing lights on my Bolt. I received a new power supply today and it did no good. I haven't called Tivo support yet to see what, if anything, they'll do as far as replacement. I'm thinking about trying moving to the 3.5" hard drive as you and others have suggested.

All the external enclosures I have use USB or ESata connectors for connection. I understand that using the ESata connector can also cause problems.

What external enclosure would you recommend? Or, what method do you recommend to add a 3.5" drive. The Tivo is sitting a cabinet so it doesn't make much difference what it looks like.


----------



## V7Goose

You can use any enclosure that allows you to connect a separate power cord to the drive. You will need to open the case and either cut a hole somewhere or leave a cover loose to run a SATA cable directly to the drive instead of using any interface connection built into the case.

The only purpose of the case is to provide power and cooling to the drive. In fact, with any commonly available power cord for the drive, no external case is needed at all; you can just lay the drive on the shelf behind the TiVo.

Any old IDE case is great for this, especially if it has a built-in fan.


----------



## bobfrank

V7Goose said:


> You can use any enclosure that allows you to connect a separate power cord to the drive. You will need to open the case and either cut a hole somewhere or leave a cover loose to run a SATA cable directly to the drive instead of using any interface connection built into the case.
> 
> The only purpose of the case is to provide power and cooling to the drive. In fact, with any commonly available power cord for the drive, no external case is needed at all; you can just lay the drive on the shelf behind the TiVo.
> 
> Any old IDE case is great for this, especially if it has a built-in fan.


Thanks. All the enclosures I have have the single combined power/data cable to the drive. So, I'd have to do some major surgery on the enclosure.

I decided to give Tivo a call to see what they'd offer on the replacement. I was offered a swap for $149.00. I declined saying I could put my own new drive in for a whole lot less than that and asked if they couldn't do better. I was put on hold for a few minutes and then offered a $79.00 swap. I took that for now. I can always add a hard drive next time.

Thanks for the information anyway. I may need it again in a couple of years.


----------



## UCLABB

bobfrank said:


> Thanks. All the enclosures I have have the single combined power/data cable to the drive. So, I'd have to do some major surgery on the enclosure.
> 
> I decided to give Tivo a call to see what they'd offer on the replacement. I was offered a swap for $149.00. I declined saying I could put my own new drive in for a whole lot less than that and asked if they couldn't do better. I was put on hold for a few minutes and then offered a $79.00 swap. I took that for now. I can always add a hard drive next time.
> 
> Thanks for the information anyway. I may need it again in a couple of years.


I got a TiVo replacement the first time. The second time I said nope, I'm not going to lose all my content again. So I went with the external. As mentioned above, you don't even need an external case, just a power supply and a molex to sata adapter and a bare drive. I think they even sell a kit with a power supply and adapter.


----------



## bobfrank

UCLABB said:


> I got a TiVo replacement the first time. The second time I said nope, I'm not going to lose all my content again. So I went with the external. As mentioned above, you don't even need an external case, just a power supply and a molex to sata adapter and a bare drive. I think they even sell a kit with a power supply and adapter.


I wasn't expecting Tivo would make the same deal if/when the new Bolt hard drive died again. I'll probably go with an external drive when that happens. By then they probably won't be offering any Tivo that still runs TE3. I really don't want to have to move to TE4, although I'll probably be forced to do that or just use the cable company DVR. Either choice would be painful.


----------



## wej

For what it's worth, I got the flashing lights for the second time yesterday! About 18 months after I bought the Bolt+ I got the flashing lights with the OEM hard drive, I called and they charged me the $79 restocking fee and transferred my All-In Service to a refurbished Bolt Vox. Was cruising along for another 18 months and then that box (with the OEM hard drive) did it last night. Got off of the phone with customer service just now and this time they are sending me a Bolt Vox for free with a new power adapter. I was using the same one from the original Bolt+ because they didn't send me a new one with the last one. The TiVo service rep said that the problem is in the power adapter causing fluctuating power to the hard drive that causes the failure and not some fundamental principle of the hard drive (I am not inclined to believe him) but maybe that helps some people. Get a new power adapter before it dies!


----------



## Angie D

Around Christmas time 2019, I got an email from TiVo saying that my Tivo Bolt had been identified has possibly susceptible to a hard drive crash and if I called by Jan 28th, they would send a replacement at no charge. I called Saturday and when I woke up Wednesday morning, the lights were flashing on the current bolt and rebooting didn't change anything. The new bolt is scheduled to arrive sometime Thursday.

Note: this is the 2nd bolt I've owned to have a hard drive crash. The 1st one crashed about 14 months after I owned it - initially they wanted me to pay again for product lifetime service, but I told them that it's ridiculous for a hard drive to crash after 1 year when my other Tivo's have lasted at least 4 years. Product Lifetime service isn't worthwhile unless the unit's good for at least 4 years. So, they had better not try to make me pay for PLS again. If another drive crashes, I might try fixing myself or switch to my service providers' DVR .


----------



## Mikeguy

Angie D said:


> Around Christmas time 2019, I got an email from TiVo saying that my Tivo Bolt had been identified has possibly susceptible to a hard drive crash and if I called by Jan 28th, they would send a replacement at no charge. I called Saturday and when I woke up Wednesday morning, the lights were flashing on the current bolt and rebooting didn't change anything. The new bolt is scheduled to arrive sometime Thursday.
> 
> Note: this is the 2nd bolt I've owned to have a hard drive crash. The 1st one crashed about 14 months after I owned it - initially they wanted me to pay again for product lifetime service, but I told them that it's ridiculous for a hard drive to crash after 1 year when my other Tivo's have lasted at least 4 years. Product Lifetime service isn't worthwhile unless the unit's good for at least 4 years. So, they had better not try to make me pay for PLS again. If another drive crashes, I might try fixing myself or switch to my service providers' DVR .


Your Bolt box has a 3TB drive, right? It's been determined that the Western Digital 3TB drives used in the Bolt boxes can be problematic, and so (surprisingly!) TiVo proactively has offered replacements.


----------



## Davelnlr_

Wigohwt said:


> At least TiVo addressed the poor cooling issue.
> 
> If the current 2.5" HDDs last for at least 1 to 2 years, maybe in that time, the price for a replacement SSD (this should work?) will come down low enough for those who don't want to go the external enclosure route.


I think SSDs are low enough in price now. Should my bolt+ fail again, Im going to do something different than go through 4 refurbs before Tivo sent one that finished setup. I saved an old TivoHD. I will probably move the board from the bolt to the TivoHD case, and use an 2 TB SSD or a larger 3.5 inch drive. It has a robust fan. The only issue would be extending the LED lights from the board to the front panel with replacements or fiber optic cables. I also have a 6 tuner premier with lifetime. Only reason I am not using that (Using TE3 on the bolt) is the PQ in my 4K TV is better with the Tivo doing the upconvert than the TV. Since Ive put it on a laptop cooler with the cablecard cover off, I havent noticed it getting warm at all, so hopefully will last a while.
Then, there is the fact that Comcast is only allowing its live sports broadcasts in 4K on their X1 box, and not on the Tivo with cablecard, so might end up having to go to that if they add any full time 4K channels.


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## mvpgoblue

It just happened to me last week. 4 flashing lights. No recovery seemingly possible. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the problem, so I have no backup of my OnePass list or a record of what content I’ve lost. Going to be doing a lot of attempted remembering in the near future. 

Fortunately, without even going very far into the process, TiVo just replaced my old unit and my old power supply. New 3TB Bolt+ should arrive tomorrow. In the good news department... I guess I’m now all caught up on my shows!


----------



## mvpgoblue

mvpgoblue said:


> It just happened to me last week. 4 flashing lights. No recovery seemingly possible.
> 
> Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the problem, so I have no backup of my OnePass list or a record of what content I've lost. Going to be doing a lot of attempted remembering in the near future.
> 
> Fortunately, without even going very far into the process, TiVo just replaced my old unit and my old power supply. New 3TB Bolt+ should arrive tomorrow. In the good news department... I guess I'm now all caught up on my shows!


Also, it turns out I got the email from TiVo, but it got shunted to a folder instead of my main inbox. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. Argh. Irritating that TiVo detected the impending failure but didn't send a message THROUGH THE TIVO BOX.

Oh well.


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## osu1991

Bolts are nice when they work, but now 5 failed Bolts in the past year and a half. This one lasted 2 months and 4 flashing lights when I came home yesterday. Replacement came today and it won't power up.


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## HerronScott

The Bolt that I got my son as a replacement for his old HD is still going after 2 years. We replaced the original 500GB drive with a WD 2TB drive and I also replaced the fan at the same time.

Scott


----------



## afairbairn

I'm currently running a Bolt that I bought in Nov 2016. Right when I bought it I did the external enclosure / 3TB hard drive upgrade with the SATA cable poking out through the top of the bolt and the thing has been working trouble free since then. However, the last few days its had the four flashing lights of death on 2 or 3 different occasions. But after unplugging both the external drive and the bolt and then restarting it seems to work for a bit. I'm going to try to transfer everything I can with kmttg as I'm suspicious its a hard drive problem. But what has me a little stumped is that I've been able to restart it at all. And the last team there was an odd noise that seemed to be coming from the bolt itself as it restarted. Anybody know if this is for sure a hard drive problem or could there be something else going on?


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## V7Goose

No way we could know for sure, but the only other likely cause is a bad power supply. I'd suggest you try changing that ASAP to see if it solves the problem. If the power supply is going bad, it could cause the Bolt to corrupt the recordings on the drive even if the drive itself is not bad.

As you probably already know, you cannot try changing the hard drive without losing ALL of the recordings on the drive you take out, so that needs to be your last test if you care about the recordings. (If a Bolt boots successfully with a new drive, it will not allow you to put the original one back in without deleting everything on it.)


----------



## innocentfreak

My stock Bolt just went bad which I bought during the upgrade offer back in 10/2017.


----------



## Mikeguy

innocentfreak said:


> My stock Bolt just went bad which I bought during the upgrade offer back in 10/2017.


What size hard drive? The stock 3TB Western Digital drives in the Bolt 3TB boxes are known to have a heightened defect rate, and TiVo has offered individual owners to replace boxes with those drives for free (it also has contacted owners proactively about this, when it has detected that the drives may be going bad).

For other Bolt boxes, TiVo telephone customer support has been known to replace the boxes, including the transfer of a Lifetime subscription, at different price-point offers--often $99 (or lower/even free)-$199--depending on the specific customer support rep.* It can be helpful to know and mention the $ offers from here, and to emphasize, in a call, one's loyalty to the company, e.g. timewise and $-wise, and via amount of TiVo equipment that one has.

A telephone call to TiVo customer support here, if needed, can be a good thing.

* A recent replacement call, with TiVo volunteering, unasked, a free replacement: TiVo Bolt All lights flashing, no cable.


----------



## bobfrank

Mikeguy said:


> What size hard drive? The stock 3TB Western Digital drives in the Bolt 3TB boxes are known to have a heightened defect rate, and TiVo has offered individual owners to replace boxes with those drives for free (it also has contacted owners proactively about this, when it has detected that the drives may be going bad).
> 
> For other Bolt boxes, TiVo telephone customer support has been known to replace the boxes, including the transfer of a Lifetime subscription, at different price-point offers--often $99 (or lower/even free)-$199--depending on the specific customer support rep.* It can be helpful to know and mention the $ offers from here, and to emphasize, in a call, one's loyalty to the company, e.g. timewise and $-wise, and via amount of TiVo equipment that one has.
> 
> A telephone call to TiVo customer support here, if needed, can be a good thing.
> 
> * A recent replacement call, with TiVo volunteering, unasked, a free replacement: TiVo Bolt All lights flashing, no cable.


My replacement cost was something like $79. When that replacement had to be replaced after about 2 months the second replacement was free. Hopefully I'll get a few years before I have to replace the current Bolt. When I do I'll just replace the hard drive myself. Probably using a 2 TB instead of 3TB or attach an external drive.


----------



## HappieMartyr

So my Bolt just had the 4 blinking lights and i pulled the hdd 3tb internal WD that i had installed by weaknees when originally bought it. Since we are in a stay at home order because of the Covid-19 issue i needed a quick fix i pulled a 1TB 3.5 from a premier Tivo I had laying around... and hooked it up just laying there for now... it booted fine and works perfectly. Now as far as my 3 TB HDD, I have read that the 4 blinking lights is a HDD issue or Bad HDD. So i have run an extended test with WD Data Life guard (24 hours later) and it came back as passed with no errors. i was wondering what the consensus is with this question... if i format the HDD since I presume that all my recordings are gone anyways do you think there is a chance of it just being corrupt data or something?


----------



## kpeters59

Since you've already inserted another drive in a Bolt, your previous drive is Null and Void...

-KP


----------



## Mikeguy

HappieMartyr said:


> So my Bolt just had the 4 blinking lights and i pulled the hdd 3tb internal WD that i had installed by weaknees when originally bought it. Since we are in a stay at home order because of the Covid-19 issue i needed a quick fix i pulled a 1TB 3.5 from a premier Tivo I had laying around... and hooked it up just laying there for now... it booted fine and works perfectly. Now as far as my 3 TB HDD, I have read that the 4 blinking lights is a HDD issue or Bad HDD. So i have run an extended test with WD Data Life guard (24 hours later) and it came back as passed with no errors. i was wondering what the consensus is with this question... if i format the HDD since I presume that all my recordings are gone anyways do you think there is a chance of it just being corrupt data or something?


The 3TB WD drives in the Bolt 3TB boxes have been known to have a higher defect rate, to the degree that TiVo has contacted some owners out of the blue, without the owners having done anything, and offered a free replacement, even though the boxes were out of warranty--really. (TiVo diagnostic data on the boxes apparently had indicated bad drives in those boxes.) If your Bolt box had the original TiVo equipment (that is, the original WD 3TB drive), I would put the 3TB drive back in the box and telephone TiVo customer support, explaining the blinking lights and noting that you understand that TiVo is replacing the boxes due to the defective drive.


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## HappieMartyr

kpeters59 said:


> Since you've already inserted another drive in a Bolt, your previous drive is Null and Void...
> 
> -KP


kewl story bro didnt add or take away anything... and was not related to my question but thanks


----------



## HappieMartyr

Mikeguy said:


> The 3TB WD drives in the Bolt 3TB boxes have been known to have a higher defect rate, to the degree that TiVo has contacted some owners out of the blue, without the owners having done anything, and offered a free replacement, even though the boxes were out of warranty--really. (TiVo diagnostic data on the boxes apparently had indicated bad drives in those boxes.) If your Bolt box had the original TiVo equipment (that is, the original WD 3TB drive), I would put the 3TB drive back in the box and telephone TiVo customer support, explaining the blinking lights and noting that you understand that TiVo is replacing the boxes due to the defective drive.


Thanks Mikguy... It was a drive I had weaknees put in when i originally bought the Tivo so not sure Tivo would help me out... I personally think it would get hot and reboot itself sometimes.


----------



## kpeters59

Actually, it was accurate information that you'll never again be able to access those shows.

Prior to inserting a new drive, you may have been able to clone the drive and boot it back up with the clone.

-KP


----------



## HappieMartyr

kpeters59 said:


> Actually, it was accurate information that you'll never again be able to access those shows.
> 
> Prior to inserting a new drive, you may have been able to clone the drive and boot it back up with the clone.
> 
> -KP


my bad i read this wrong i thought that you were telling me my warranty was null and void. SO with that being said I am not sure what you are saying, and not convinced it is accurate. Why would I not be able to clone the drive now?


----------



## Mikeguy

HappieMartyr said:


> Thanks Mikguy... It was a drive I had weaknees put in when i originally bought the Tivo so not sure Tivo would help me out... I personally think it would get hot and reboot itself sometimes.


And so you're sure it just wasn't an original 3TB Bolt, which both TiVo and WeaKnees were selling?


----------



## HappieMartyr

I bought it 02/10/2017 receipt says... SKU: boltV2-3TB Product: TiVo Bolt 4K DVR - 3TB Internal Hard Drive. When I got it, Tivo i thought was only selling the 500gb you could only get white Bolt at the time. I guess I am not sure though. It was just my assumption that this was an after market upgrade offered by weaknees.


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## Mikeguy

It could be either an original TiVo box or one upgraded by WeaKnees, depending on when you purchased it and its attributes. Were you saying that yours has a white case? If so, I believe that it would be a WeaKnees-upgraded model, as I seem to recall (I could be wrong--it was a while ago) that the TiVo Bolt+, the TiVo 3TB model, only came with a black case. Also, if yours can be set up to use either OTA or cable (not at the same time), that would indicate that it is a WeaKnees-upgraded model, as the TiVo Bolt+, I believe, has only been cable-only.

The easiest tell, though: check the model number on the bottom of the unit:

Bolt+: TCD849300
Bolt 500GB / 1TB: TCD849500 / TCD849000.


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## HappieMartyr

yea it is white older model which is OTAor Cable.


----------



## kpeters59

HappieMartyr said:


> Why would I not be able to clone the drive now?


You can clone it, but it won't work in the Bolt anymore.

TiVo moved the Database to the on-board memory on the Bolt. So, once you've altered it with a new drive, it overwrites the original one.

-KP


----------



## bobfrank

HappieMartyr said:


> my bad i read this wrong i thought that you were telling me my warranty was null and void. SO with that being said *I am not sure what you are saying*, and not convinced it is accurate. Why would I not be able to clone the drive now?


He's saying that even if you put the original HD back in the Bolt none of your previously recorded shows will be available.


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## HappieMartyr

yes ty... i figured they were gone anyways...but good to know... now i am having hard time trashing a 3 tb HDD


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## Mikeguy

HappieMartyr said:


> yea it is white older model which is OTAor Cable.




If you decide that you want to replace the drive and want to go internal, note a killer price for a well-regarded Toshiba 2TB 2.5" drive ($49.99), via Amazon.com. The 3TB version can be found from the electronics, etc. company Grooves in the UK (free int'l shipping), at about double that. Info.: Bolt Hard Drive Upgrade Choice.


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## teeitup

MisterMidnight said:


> I received a replacement refurb Bolt+ 3TB a couple weeks ago. It had the plastic film protection sheet on the top, I wonder if all the refurbs get new cases? The date of MFG on the bottom shows August 20, 2019...


I just got a replacement Bolt Vox 3TB for my failed Bolt+ (four flashing lights). Manufacture date said March 2020 on the bottom. At first I was thinking it was a new box but closer examination I could see dust on the fan blades and some old pry marks the bottom base panel of the case cover. The top of the case looked brand new. I pulled the cover and there was obvious evidence the hard drive had been replaced. Pretty sure when Tivo refurbishes these boxes they just replace the hard drive and put a new top case cover and slap a new sticker on the bottom with a new "renewed" TSN and date.


----------



## Rawson819

Another one bites the dust! :disrelieved:
My replacement Bolt almost lasted 16 months, which is even worse than the one it replaced. TiVo didn't charge me last time but I have low expectations of that happening again. Accordingly, if their replacement offer exceeds $100, I'm thinking I'll replace the drive and was curious to confirm if I can replace the current 3TB with a 2TB without a problem.


----------



## rcoates777

Are you using any aux cooling fans? What temps do you see in diagnostics? Let us know what they offer you for replacement cost. Good luck!


----------



## Rawson819

rcoates777 said:


> Are you using any aux cooling fans? What temps do you see in diagnostics? Let us know what they offer you for replacement cost. Good luck!


I'm not using any external cooling fans; however, I did elevate the unit from the sides to allow increased airflow. I'm not certain how to access diagnostic info, but I unplugged it, as I couldn't handle the flashing four anymore.


----------



## fis

Rawson819 said:


> Another one bites the dust! :disrelieved:
> My replacement Bolt almost lasted 16 months, which is even worse than the one it replaced. TiVo didn't charge me last time but I have low expectations of that happening again. Accordingly, if their replacement offer exceeds $100, I'm thinking I'll replace the drive and was curious to confirm if I can replace the current 3TB with a 2TB without a problem.


Should not be a problem at all.
Everybody's experience is different, but I am glad to have gone with an external 3.5" drive that is connected only to a power source and not trapped in an enclosure of any kind. I also left the cover off the Bolt. I recognize that this is ungainly ugly (my stuff is all hidden out of site), but it stands to reason that tiny components in tiny enclosures carry higher risk. 
Anyway, you can replace with any size HD. Just know that if it's over 2TB there's some extra formatting you have to do (well documented here). WD Red highly recommended.


----------



## Rawson819

fis said:


> Should not be a problem at all...


Thanks fis! Maybe I'll do some more reading on the external option before purchasing that internal.


----------



## A J Ricaud

fis said:


> Anyway, you can replace with any size HD. Just know that if it's over 2TB there's some extra formatting you have to do (well documented here). WD Red highly recommended.


Actually, no formatting is required for up to 3TB drives.


----------



## shwru980r

A J Ricaud said:


> Actually, no formatting is required for up to 3TB drives.


I read on this forum that TE4 can format a drive up to 14TB.


----------



## fis

Thank you I'd forgotten. I am running a 3.5" WD Red 4TB so I had to do the formatting but it was easy.

(My previous drive was a 2.5" Toshiba and it failed after 6 months, but this 3.5" WD Red is going on 3 years old and running smooth)


----------



## Rawson819

rcoates777 said:


> Let us know what they offer you for replacement cost. Good luck!


I finally got to calling and was offered a $99 replacement for a refurbished 2TB Bolt. I didn't take it, as I feel like this is going to be an annual thing unless I try something different. So, I think I'm going to proceed on the external drive suggestion.


----------



## shwru980r

Rawson819 said:


> I finally got to calling and was offered a $99 replacement for a refurbished 2TB Bolt. I didn't take it, as I feel like this is going to be an annual thing unless I try something different. So, I think I'm going to proceed on the external drive suggestion.


Are you sure it wasn't a 2TB Edge? Tivo never made a 2TB Bolt. The Edge is the latest model and the 2TB drives don't have the issues that the 3TB bolt drives had.


----------



## Rawson819

shwru980r said:


> Are you sure it wasn't a 2TB Edge? Tivo never made a 2TB Bolt. The Edge is the latest model and the 2TB drives don't have the issues that the 3TB bolt drives had.


When I asked if I'd be receiving the same unit as a replacement, I'm fairly certain she said it was 2TB, but I struggled to understand much of what was said. I'll call back and confirm the model. Thanks for pointing this out.


----------



## aaronwt

You could always get a 2TB drive instead. FOr less than the $99. 
I plan on picking one up to put in my Bolt on FiOS. I need the 1TB back that I put in there. Because it came from my PS4 pro that I removed in 2016. And I plan on trading in my PS4 pro soon. The 2TB hybrid drive I put in the Pro has SMR so I'm not sure what I will use it for. Although I guess I could try it in the Bolt.


----------



## Rawson819

aaronwt said:


> You could always get a 2TB drive instead. FOr less than the $99....


Totally agree and that was my first inclination; however, the writing seems to be on the wall that this will be an annual exercise. So I'm leaning more towards other options that have greater longevity, whether that be the external drive setup or an Edge; although the more I think about it, the less I believe TiVo will replace my Bolt with a $99 Edge. I'll find out later today.


----------



## shwru980r

Rawson819 said:


> Totally agree and that was my first inclination; however, the writing seems to be on the wall that this will be an annual exercise. So I'm leaning more towards other options that have greater longevity, whether that be the external drive setup or an Edge; although the more I think about it, the less I believe TiVo will replace my Bolt with a $99 Edge. I'll find out later today.


Other posts indicated that Tivo did not have any more Bolts in stock and were replacing Bolts with an Edge.


----------



## tommage1

fis said:


> WD Red highly recommended.


Not anymore. New naming policy at WD. WD Red is now SMR. Which is not only not recommended for Tivo it should be avoided. You need a Red Plus, or a Red Pro. This is a fairly new, old stock, used etc will be different. But DO NOT buy a Red whose model number ends in EFAX. Stick with Purple (has AV firmware, not NAS), for now at least all Purple are CMR.

Oh, Red Pro is 7200 RPM, for some purposes good but not really recommended for Tivo as it will run hotter. Expensive too, if you insist on WD NAS model go with the Red Plus. If Seagate the Ironwolf, all Ironwolf are CMR, they do not make any SMR NAS drives. Or again go with the AV drive, Seagate is called Skyhawk I think.


----------



## Rawson819

shwru980r said:


> Other posts indicated that Tivo did not have any more Bolts in stock and were replacing Bolts with an Edge.


You were right! The replacement offer was for a 2TB Edge and therefore I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it. I did think the external setup on the Bolt sounded like a fun project; however, after pricing drives and enclosures I thought the $99 sounded reasonable. Thanks for your response which encouraged me to clarify this wasn't another Bolt!

Having owned a variety models over the years, I've never messed with drives until I had a problem or if zI wanted to later increase recording hours. With this Edge I think I'll go ahead and get another drive right away and set the factory one aside for a backup.


----------



## tommage1

Rawson819 said:


> Having owned a variety models over the years, I've never messed with drives until I had a problem or if zI wanted to later increase recording hours. With this Edge I think I'll go ahead and get another drive right away and set the factory one aside for a backup.


Maybe consider the external with 3.5" for your backup. Or to use as your current drive. One thing to think about though, there is really no such thing as a "backup" drive possible with Bolt or Edge. If by backup you mean something with recordings/settings. If by backup you just mean a drive you can drop in if your current drive fails that would work. But every time you swap drives around in a Bolt or Edge you lose all recordings/settings on BOTH drives, even if you don't touch the drive you are pulling and setting aside. Has to do with some settings and OS on flash drive on the motherboard. Two "drives" being used really, the hard drive and the flash drive, only the hard drive is replaceable. And when you power up an Edge or Bolt the flash drive always expects to see the last drive that was in there. If not, it will try to format it. A BIT more complicated than that, there are threads that explain what happens when you swap drives better than this.


----------



## tommage1

Rawson819 said:


> Totally agree and that was my first inclination; however, the writing seems to be on the wall that this will be an annual exercise. So I'm leaning more towards other options that have greater longevity, whether that be the external drive setup or an Edge; although the more I think about it, the less I believe TiVo will replace my Bolt with a $99 Edge. I'll find out later today.


If going with external 3.5 CMR drive hopefully 3-5 years or more. Internal 2.5, especially if SMR, could be annual or a bit more. Edge and Bolt probably the same, if using 2.5 drive.


----------



## tstack709

Woke up to 4 Flashing Lights this morning with my Bolt I purchased back in March 2017. I unplugged for an hour but came right back. What should I do?


----------



## Jimbo687

tommage1 said:


> Not anymore. New naming policy at WD. WD Red is now SMR. Which is not only not recommended for Tivo it should be avoided. You need a Red Plus, or a Red Pro. This is a fairly new, old stock, used etc will be different. But DO NOT buy a Red whose model number ends in EFAX. Stick with Purple (has AV firmware, not NAS), for now at least all Purple are CMR.
> 
> Oh, Red Pro is 7200 RPM, for some purposes good but not really recommended for Tivo as it will run hotter. Expensive too, if you insist on WD NAS model go with the Red Plus. If Seagate the Ironwolf, all Ironwolf are CMR, they do not make any SMR NAS drives. Or again go with the AV drive, Seagate is called Skyhawk I think.


Western Digital Comes Clean, Shares Which Hard Drives Use SMR - ExtremeTech
Good article on which WD drives are CMR or SMR. I purchased a new WD 8TB (WD80EFAX) and it should be a CMR drive hopefully. Thanks for post above as was not aware about the whole CMR vs SMR and impact for Tivo hard drive upgrade options.


----------



## UCLABB

tstack709 said:


> Woke up to 4 Flashing Lights this morning with my Bolt I purchased back in March 2017. I unplugged for an hour but came right back. What should I do?


Replace the drive.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Call TiVo and get a replacement if they'll honor it. Might charge you $40--$80.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


----------



## tommage1

JOSHSKORN said:


> Call TiVo and get a replacement if they'll honor it. Might charge you $40--$80.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


Well since a bit over 3 years with the new continual care program it would probably be $199 plus shipping both ways, plus tax. Assuming it was bought new and has never been exchanged. Should get Edge as replacement as they don't have anything else to send out anymore, at least last I heard. Model of failing Bolt not mentioned, what they send will depend on model of failed device (probably cable Edge for cable or cable/OTA Bolt, maybe OTA Edge if OTA only Bolt.)

Or replace drive. Even before that try AC adapter as they can go PARTIALLY bad, power enough for lights but not enough to boot drive. Most likely drive though.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

If you bought the lifetime service just see about getting a replacement from TiVo. Then if that's not an option then try the hard drive route. If I were you, I'd get a backup power supply UPS. For me, with the exception of the first time trying to replace the hard drive which went bad, my 4 flashing lights always occurred after power outages. 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


----------



## kpeters59

Capture a backup of your Onepasses and Channels List with KMTTG.

You'd probably also do OK getting a Clone of your existing hard drive on to a new hard drive.

-KP


----------



## tstack709

I have the Lifetime with Tivo Bolt+ 3TB ModelTCD849300 Made in Mexico 20 Sep 16. Would have thought it would last longer.


----------



## tommage1

Jimbo687 said:


> Western Digital Comes Clean, Shares Which Hard Drives Use SMR - ExtremeTech
> Good article on which WD drives are CMR or SMR. I purchased a new WD 8TB (WD80EFAX) and it should be a CMR drive hopefully. Thanks for post above as was not aware about the whole CMR vs SMR and impact for Tivo hard drive upgrade options.


Good article but now out of date. Because of the new naming convention, Red and Red Plus. For now the only SMR drives are the 2-6TB EFAX. So for now with the new naming the only "Reds" are those 4 models. The rest will be sold as "Red Plus", including the larger capacity EFAX. Red Pro has not changed.


----------



## tommage1

tstack709 said:


> I have the Lifetime with Tivo Bolt+ 3TB ModelTCD849300 Made in Mexico 20 Sep 16. Would have thought it would last longer.


You've done better than a large number of customers with that model, a lot better than many. Over 3.5 years (from your actual purchase date?) Now need to decide if try an exchange or replacing drive. I myself strictly use 3.5" CMR drives, Sata to Sata (ie no Esata). With a Bolt would have to be external. That's just me though, other options available, some better than others.


----------



## Rawson819

tommage1 said:


> Maybe consider the external with 3.5" for your backup. Or to use as your current drive. One thing to think about though, there is really no such thing as a "backup" drive possible with Bolt or Edge. If by backup you mean something with recordings/settings. If by backup you just mean a drive you can drop in if your current drive fails that would work....


Backup wasn't maybe the best term, as I was thinking more of a standby drive that I have on hand if (when?) the active one fails. So at the moment, I figured I would research which drive (or drive and enclosure) to get, then purchase and deploy, knowing I had the original factory drive to quickly put back into service when needed.

Based on what I've read thus far, I was leaning towards a WD Purple drive, wanting to avoid getting the wrong Red and a Rosewill enclosure; however, I'm totally open to other suggestions if you or others have some. Thanks!


----------



## tommage1

Rawson819 said:


> Backup wasn't maybe the best term, as I was thinking more of a standby drive that I have on hand if (when?) the active one fails. So at the moment, I figured I would research which drive (or drive and enclosure) to get, then purchase and deploy, knowing I had the original factory drive to quickly put back into service when needed.
> 
> Based on what I've read thus far, I was leaning towards a WD Purple drive, wanting to avoid getting the wrong Red and a Rosewill enclosure; however, I'm totally open to other suggestions if you or others have some. Thanks!


Purple is what I recommend if you want WD. Even Weaknees uses purples in at least some of their upgrades. Enclosures, well depends on how you are planning to hookup. I like Sata to Sata, direct from motherboard to Sata data connection on the drive. Some go Sata off motherboard to an Esata connection on the enclosure. However with that you are going through some electronics in the Esata port and not all work. So not all enclosures will work. This is what I did. It works with TE3 and TE4. As far as the Bolt or Edge are concerned it's the same as an internal 2.5, going Sata off motherboard to Sata on drive itself. for the Edge slightly different since they have a one piece Sata connection on the motherboard, there are threads here that show how to go Sata to Sata on an Edge.

TE4 Bolt upgrade with external drive


----------



## tstack709

I plugged my Tivo Bolt+ back in and still getting the 4 flashing lights but the Fan still works and spins so does this mean definitely Hard Drive Failure and not Power cord???


----------



## Player1138

Same exact thing happened to me today. Called support and they told me to call another 888 number for technical assistance. They are currently closed. 

Is hard drive replacement still possible on these things. If so any threads on what drives to get and how to get the software on it?

my concern is these use old hard drives that will be hard to find. I am comfortable replacing the hard drive but no clue on how to get the software on it to make it work. 

thanks.


----------



## Player1138

So after some research I think I know how to replace the drive. Could someone maybe confirm. I would appreciate it.

I am looking at this drive as I can just go pick it up
WD Mainstream 1TB Internal Hard Drive For Laptops 8GB Cache SATA300 - Office Depo
Or
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-blu...-ramp-load-technology/6220725.p?skuId=6220725

1tb is plenty.

seems like the steps are replace hard drive. Put back together. Plug TiVo box in and in theory it should do everything it needs to do to the hard drive to get the UI working


----------



## kpeters59

List of drives that don't boot under TE4 21.x on Bolt

Hard Drive Recommendations for a Bolt

-KP


----------



## tommage1

Player1138 said:


> So after some research I think I know how to replace the drive. Could someone maybe confirm. I would appreciate it.
> 
> I am looking at this drive as I can just go pick it up
> WD Mainstream 1TB Internal Hard Drive For Laptops 8GB Cache SATA300 - Office Depo
> Or
> https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-blu...-ramp-load-technology/6220725.p?skuId=6220725
> 
> 1tb is plenty.
> 
> seems like the steps are replace hard drive. Put back together. Plug TiVo box in and in theory it should do everything it needs to do to the hard drive to get the UI working


Pretty sure those are SMR drives. Some SMR work, some do not. CMR recommended. If 1TB is plenty for you and you want to go with Best Buy this 2.5 drive is CMR.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-red...-drive-oem-bare-drive/1765078.p?skuId=1765078

There are very few CURRENT model 2.5" CMR drives available of any capacity over 500GB. Could end up being called "Red" or "Red Plus" due to WD changing it's naming policy for the Red line but this model number (WD10JFCX) IS CMR either way.


----------



## aaronwt

My 2TB refurb Toshiba MQ03ABB200 supposedly has a three year warranty from Toshiba. It was sealed and looked like new and had a 2019 manufacture date on it. I'm guessing it came directly from Toshiba? The SMART values were like every new drive I've purchased.

I got it from Amazon and GoHardDrive for $58.50. I guess time will tell how well it does in my Bolt. I used MFSTools to copy my old drive to the new one on Saturday. That Bolt gets a lot of use and is recording around twenty hours a day, 365 days a year.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J27MBWD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


----------



## tommage1

aaronwt said:


> My 2TB refurb Toshiba MQ03ABB200 supposedly has a three year warranty from Toshiba. It was sealed and looked like new and had a 2019 manufacture date on it. I'm guessing it came directly from Toshiba? The SMART values were like every new drive I've purchased.
> 
> I got it from Amazon and GoHardDrive for $58.50. I guess time will tell how well it does in my Bolt. I used MFSTools to copy my old drive to the new one on Saturday. That Bolt gets a lot of use and is recording around twenty hours a day, 365 days a year.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J27MBWD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


So they are back in stock again. Hit and miss with that. At this price if this was my drive of choice I'd grab 2-3 at this price. Before gone completely/forever, it is a discontinued drive.

As for original poster, they wanted to buy local (Best Buy) to keep it simple. And mentioned 1TB was plenty. Which is why I recommended the WD10JFCX.


----------



## aaronwt

Yes, the WD10JFCX was going to be my choice if I went with a 1TB. But the 1TB I had in my Bolt, from a launch PS4 Pro, was not large enough. Once football started I was getting shows deleted too quickly. So 2TB should be a sweet spot for me. My other option would have been an external drive. But I figured that would be a last resort for me. If I couldn't find any CMR 2.5" drives.

So far my temperatures with the 2TB Toshiba have been between 48C and 55C. And it only hit 55C when I was testing streaming to a web browser.


----------



## tommage1

aaronwt said:


> Yes, the WD10JFCX was going to be my choice if I went with a 1TB. But the 1TB I had in my Bolt, from a launch PS4 Pro, was not large enough. Once football started I was getting shows deleted too quickly. So 2TB should be a sweet spot for me. My other option would have been an external drive. But I figured that would be a last resort for me. If I couldn't find any CMR 2.5" drives.
> 
> So far my temperatures with the 2TB Toshiba have been between 48C and 55C. And it only hit 55C when I was testing streaming to a web browser.


The Toshiba is a good choice, proven to work TE3 and TE4 and it's a CMR drive. I'd grab a spare while you can at that price. Of course could always do the external if no longer available.

Interesting they say a 3 year warranty on a refurbished drive. I'd double check that if important to you. Also someone here posted Toshiba warranties are kinda funky. They said Toshiba goes by how long the drive has been used. So if used 2 years you'd get like 1 year of "credit" or something like that, based on current prices. I did not check further, just sounded not so great, if a drive fails within warranty I would hope for a replacement drive myself.


----------



## rkshack

I had the same thing happend again. Offered refurb edge for 199. I have tivo bolt + so 3tb. What are the options at least that big? It looks hard to find options in stock. 
Thanks

rkshack


----------



## tommage1

rkshack said:


> I had the same thing happend again. Offered refurb edge for 199. I have tivo bolt + so 3tb. What are the options at least that big? It looks hard to find options in stock.
> Thanks
> 
> rkshack


Well if you need 3TB or more I'd suggest going external with 3.5 CMR drive. There are no CURRENT model 2.5 CMR drives even close to that size. Maybe a couple older model drives (one is a Toshiba, you should be able to find the model number in TC, similar number to the 2TB listed in this thread.) There are some SMR drives that seem to work, for now, unsure how long they would last.

If your device has lifetime and they offered you an Edge for $199 and that includes the transfer of lifetime not a bad deal. If you want an Edge  How old is your Bolt, if they offered $199 I'd guess 3-4 years since that is the continual care price for 3-4 year old devices.


----------



## rkshack

tommage1 said:


> Well if you need 3TB or more I'd suggest going external with 3.5 CMR drive. There are no CURRENT model 2.5 CMR drives even close to that size. Maybe a couple older model drives (one is a Toshiba, you should be able to find the model number in TC, similar number to the 2TB listed in this thread.) There are some SMR drives that seem to work, for now, unsure how long they would last.
> 
> If your device has lifetime and they offered you an Edge for $199 and that includes the transfer of lifetime not a bad deal. If you want an Edge  How old is your Bolt, if they offered $199 I'd guess 3-4 years since that is the continual care price for 3-4 year old devices.


Thanks. It is 3+ years old. That is what they offered. I was about to take the offer but I wanted to make sure since I had not done any research yet. Are there smr that are proven to work at least for now. If you use an external drive is that to replace the internal or addition to internal?

rkshack


----------



## tommage1

rkshack said:


> Thanks. It is 3+ years old. That is what they offered. I was about to take the offer but I wanted to make sure since I had not done any research yet. Are there smr that are proven to work at least for now. If you use an external drive is that to replace the internal or addition to internal?
> 
> rkshack


Well depends on what you mean "proven to work". There are some that will boot up and function. How long they will last is yet to be determined. There is a 2.5 SMR 5TB Seagate some have been using. Don't know the specific model number (and specific model is important) but should be able to find in the community. It's not a "retail" drive, think it is a pull from some other device so would have to get from a 3rd party seller, maybe ebay?

The external will replace the internal drive. And lots of choices, up to at least 14TB. I did a thread on how I did it. If you follow what I did, specifically (like buying the exact enclosure I used) and go Sata to Sata (not Sata to Esata) and use a CMR drive (WD purples are good) it works. Variations may or may not work. Does work with TE3 also.

TE4 Bolt upgrade with external drive


----------



## Rawson819

Received my Bolt-replacing Edge on Friday; however, I’m still waiting on the power adapter. The CSR advised the two would ship separately; however the tracking number indicates USPS hasn’t even received the item from TiVo yet, they’ve only received the pre-shipment info, which was back on the 19th. I’m (obviously) anxious to Fire the Edge up, so this waiting is painful!


----------



## bobfrank

rkshack said:


> Thanks. It is 3+ years old. That is what they offered. I was about to take the offer but I wanted to make sure since I had not done any research yet. Are there smr that are proven to work at least for now. If you use an external drive is that to replace the internal or addition to internal?
> 
> rkshack


That would replace the internal drive. There are instructions on the forum on how to do it. Before you accept the Edge offer be sure you will be happy being locked in to TE4. You won't be able to use TE3, if that's important to you.


----------



## Player1138

tommage1 said:


> Pretty sure those are SMR drives. Some SMR work, some do not. CMR recommended. If 1TB is plenty for you and you want to go with Best Buy this 2.5 drive is CMR.
> 
> https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-red...-drive-oem-bare-drive/1765078.p?skuId=1765078
> 
> There are very few CURRENT model 2.5" CMR drives available of any capacity over 500GB. Could end up being called "Red" or "Red Plus" due to WD changing it's naming policy for the Red line but this model number (WD10JFCX) IS CMR either way.


Just picked this one up and plugged it into the Tivo.

In plugged it in moments ago so hopefully it will start working after a little bit of a wait to allow time to get the software on it.


----------



## tommage1

Player1138 said:


> Just picked this one up and plugged it into the Tivo.
> 
> In plugged it in moments ago so hopefully it will start working after a little bit of a wait to allow time to get the software on it.


There you go  Current model, CMR, 3 year warranty, quality drive. When up and running please post, just to make SURE. Am curious, did it say "Red" or "Red Plus" on it? In THIS case does not matter, they are both the same drive, just relabeled due to WDs new naming policy for Reds.


----------



## Player1138

tommage1 said:


> There you go  Current model, CMR, 3 year warranty, quality drive. When up and running please post, just to make SURE. Am curious, did it say "Red" or "Red Plus" on it? In THIS case does not matter, they are both the same drive, just relabeled due to WDs new naming policy for Reds.


Pretty sure it just said red plus. Sorry did not look closely before closing it all up.

It all seems to be working, just need to get the cable card figured out.

However, I am actually going to ditch cable for a few months and try a streaming option...mainly because the cable company is way too expensive for existing customers. So if I leave them for a few months and come back I can get better services for ~$40/month cheaper.


----------



## tommage1

Player1138 said:


> However, I am actually going to ditch cable for a few months and try a streaming option...mainly because the cable company is way too expensive for existing customers. So if I leave them for a few months and come back I can get better services for ~$40/month cheaper.


Good idea. As long as they will still provide cable card, many companies are phasing out and will not offer to new accounts, which yours would be if cancelling then coming back.


----------



## Player1138

tommage1 said:


> Good idea. As long as they will still provide cable card, many companies are phasing out and will not offer to new accounts, which yours would be if cancelling then coming back.


I have considered that. While I enjoy the TiVo experience with the guide and apps and auto commercial skip end of the day I was not DVRing much anymore. Most of the shows I watch are on Netflix or HBO.


----------



## worachj

Got the dreaded four flashing lights on my 44-month-old Bolt today. Put in a new hard drive and was surprise that T3 got installed, same as the old one and the one I wanted. Thought I was going to have to downgrade from T4, a pleasant surprise.

Used Kmttg and my old saved files to restore season passes and channel settings. Note to self &#8230; remember to do a better job of keeping those files updated &#8230; the old files were a little bit old but not too bad.

Cable card wasn't parred so I had to call Comcast and got the automated system to send a system reset for everything. Everything is back and working again. Glad I had a backup drive available.

All in all it wasn't too bad &#8230; and I only broke one tab getting the cover off!

*Edit:*
Always like having a backup so I just purchased a 1TB WD10JUCT drive from Western Digital on Amazon for $41.99.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087Z7WSC7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## innocentfreak

innocentfreak said:


> My stock Bolt just went bad which I bought during the upgrade offer back in 10/2017.


Quoting myself here. The replacement TiVo just died.


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## tivoboy

innocentfreak said:


> Quoting myself here. The replacement TiVo just died.


These posts always scare the c.p out of me.. my irrational fear is that all these TiVo's are like college schoolgirls who all live together and start have their menstrual cycles at the same time.. It elevates my attention for my TiVo death watch to defcon 5 (or is it 1) and I start to purge shows that I think are creating a burden on the Bolt and I start shifting recordings from HD to SD until I forget about it and start switching back to HD again - probably sometime in March 2021 now. ;-). The only worse epsisode is the frequent deaths that occur after a SW update.. which thankfully don't happen with the Bolts too often anymore.. - well, now I've done it and we'll get something in the next 10 days. ;-(


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## innocentfreak

tivoboy said:


> These posts always scare the c.p out of me.. my irrational fear is that all these TiVo's are like college schoolgirls who all live together and start have their menstrual cycles at the same time.. It elevates my attention for my TiVo death watch to defcon 5 (or is it 1) and I start to purge shows that I think are creating a burden on the Bolt and I start shifting recordings from HD to SD until I forget about it and start switching back to HD again - probably sometime in March 2021 now. ;-). The only worse epsisode is the frequent deaths that occur after a SW update.. which thankfully don't happen with the Bolts too often anymore.. - well, now I've done it and we'll get something in the next 10 days. ;-(


Yeah and worse TiVo won't do anything. They told me sorry not sorry so now I am looking at what drives work with the Bolt+, but so far it looks like most are discontinued.


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## tivoboy

Will the 3TB seagate 5400 rpm drive no longer work in the Bolt+? that is the one I have in a couple bolts for several years now.. they can be had from ebay, unused but open box for about 100$. I'm not sure if the current 3TB 7200 is a better choice.


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## aaronwt

What about this 2TB Toshiba? It's only $60
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CQCD6N...olid=1LE2I4X988YWN&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

This is what I put in my BOlt on FiOS. Back in October. Although mine was factory renewed. So far it has been working great.


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