# Help! Fan spins, and that's all.



## jakespencer (Mar 4, 2006)

Hello everyone,

I attempted to upgrade my TiVo tonight.

I have a TCD540040 and attempted to add a 320 GB drive to it. I bought a bracket, ide cable, and power splitter kit from an ebay seller named auctionnook and I believe I followed the instructions. I have worked as a computer technician and have installed many hard drives in PCs in the past. I did not have a problem with the software portion of preparing the second drive. I went through the process of mounting the drives and placing them in the TiVo. Before I put the top cover back on the TiVo, I hooked the unit up to a tv to see if it worked. At this point, nothing happened on the tv.

When I plug the TiVo in, the fan spins up, and it appears as if the red led on the front glows very, very dimly (I have to place my face right next to it to see it at all). I was careful to try not to disloge any ribbon cables, and although I may have, I do not believe that I did. I have checked to make sure all cables are now tightly seated.

Now, when I remove the new drive and try to connect only the original drive with the original power cable and ide cable, I get the same thing: the fan spins, the red led (maybe) lights up, but nothing else.

The kit that I bought does not use a powertrip, because I got the impression that it was not necessary on a TCD540.

As I began to type up this post, I had left the unit plugged in for several minutes, and both drives suddenly spun up. None of the leds turned on and no video was sent to the tv. After unplugging and replugging the unit, the drives are not spinning, and things are as they have been.

There is no clicking sound from the power supply.

Help! How do I get my two-month old TiVo with lifetime service back?

Thank you all in advance,

Jake Spencer


----------



## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

Did you backup the original drive before you started fooling with this? If so, reimage the original drive from the backup and test your unit with the one original drive. Also with all this fooling around it is also easy to screw up the drive jumpers no matter how experienced we are. If you can get the original configuration going again, then you can start over. If it still does not work please tell us how the drives are hooked up to the computer and the step by step commands you used in Linux.


----------



## jakespencer (Mar 4, 2006)

I did not back up the original drive. I did not have a FAT32 drive handy, and decided not to wait to format the 320GB HD as FAT32 and then back it up and move the backup over to an NTFS drive.

I regret this now.

On the PC side, I had the original 40GB TiVo drive as primary master, the new 320GB drive as primary slave, and the CD-ROM as secondary master.

I booted up, checked that the drives showed up OK, and then issued this command:

"mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb"

After a matter of secodns, it correctly reported the original capacity as 40 hrs, the added capacity as 375 hrs, and a total new capacity of 415 hrs. I powered down, moved the drives to the TiVo, and found myself in the current situation.

Additional info: The drives will still boot and show up on the PC. mfstools info shows the /dev/hda /dev/hdb combo as 415 hrs. I tried many different jumper settings on the TiVo without success.

If the drives are not connected to the ide cable (only the power splitter), they will both power on and spin without a problem. If the ide cable is connected, with both or only one of the drives connected, the drives never spin up at all.

I am stymmied.

Thank you,
Jake Spencer


----------



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

What 320gb drive are you using? 

Not all drives are 100% TiVo compatible, and it could be that you've stumbled across one that isn't.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Have you tried a different IDE cable in the tivo? (Like the one from the PC?) Maybe you got a bum cable from the ebay seller.


----------



## jakespencer (Mar 4, 2006)

I got a "Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JB 320GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM" from newegg.

I have tried to boot the TiVo with the only the original drive with the original ide cable and the original power cable, and the drive still never even spins up.

I also noticed that if I plug in my NetGear MA101 wireless usb adapter, that it receives power and turns on.

Thank you all for the suggestions and help, I really appreciate it.

Jake Spencer


----------



## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

It's not a drive problem, since that would, at least, happen AFTER the drive spins up. The fact that it still happens with the original drive, and cables, indicates a system problem.

Sounds me like you have one of two problems:

1) The power supply went bad - this could have been caused by a bad power splitter, or some other short - hard to say.

2) Although you say you didn't dislodge any ribbon cables, your symptoms are similar to a unit powered up with the front panel ribbon cable partially dislodged (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=105719 ).


----------



## jakespencer (Mar 4, 2006)

I emailed weakness to see about ordering a replacement power supply, and after talking with them, the say it sounds like the power supply is OK and I most likely have a motherboard issue. It sounds like the only thing I have left to do is call up TiVo. Before I do that, does anyone have any final advice or suggestions?

Thanks for your help,

Jake Spencer


----------

