trouble with tivo series 2 (1 Viewer)

[mylan]

I have a three year old tivo that has never failed me, until today. We had a power outage and now I get a message " welcome, powering up" but goes no further. I re-booted it by powering it down and back up but nothing has happened. Any ideas?

 

[mylan]

Ok, well, here is information i gathered from TIVO support. The hard drive is dead and I need to buy another one. My unit is only three years old, arggg!!!!

 

[GordonL]

Too bad you didn't make an image of the hard drive before this happened. You could've restored the image on a new hard drive. You still might want to try it - you never know, it might work.

 

[David Norman]

A couple things -- if it has a lifetime sub, replacing the hard drive isn't terribly difficult thing to do. There are a couple services where you can either buy a drop and load Hard Drive or with a little computer ability you can do it for yourself.


If you don't really have anything you want to attempt to save, then I might suggest a full erase and reset. I'm trying to remember if there is a button command to start over without having the disc boot up.

If it's a nonlifetime sub., then it's probably just as easy to get a new receiver with all the deals out there.

 

[mylan]

Thanks for your suggestions. No, I did not buy a lifetime thinking Charter would eventually come out with a DVR. They did but I still like the TIVO software much better. I have the HD DVR downstairs on my HDTV but don'y need it upstairs where the TIVO is.
There really isn't anything I have to have on the TIVO, I just like the dark grey look of the older units. A new 80 hr with dual tuners would run $249 with a $150 rebate. I really wish that I could get this one running though, i'm not afraid to open the hood so that would not an issue but you are correct that it would be just as well to get a new one plus I would have the dual tuner capabilty that I do not have now. I just wish this thing would have lasted more than three years!

 

[Robert_J]

There's a hard drive in there spinning almost 24x7. It will fail. Both of my DirecTivos died in under a year. The first went 30 days after purchase. It's replacement has been going strong for over 5 years now. My HD DirecTivo died after 10 months. I didn't want to deal with D* so I replaced the drive myself. I bought a 320GB drive (the original was 250GB) and downloaded the appropriate InstantCake image from PTV Upgrade and was back up and running in a couple of hours.

-Robert

 

[mylan]

I just checked on the upgrade kits, why would I want to pay $100 for a new hard drive when I can get a new tivo for the same price, after rebate of course?

 

[Robert_J]

Then you have no reason to repair yours. Mine had a working HDMI port and I wasn't going to take a chance and get a refurb replacement with a broken port.

-Robert

 

[mylan]

All the same, thanks for the info. It has just been an expensive week, got reemed in Vegas and now the tivo goes...

 

[David Norman]

If you are handy inside a computer (hooking up drives, etc) and can follow the Hinsdale instructions, you can buy a 160GB Seagate drive at CompUsa for $40 or a 250GB WD at NewEgg for 65-70 and have basically a new machine with double/triple the storage capacity that you like the looks and function. Some weekends you can get them even cheaper -- I think there was a 160GB drive for 25-30 this weekend. Almost every week there are drives on sale for 18-20cents/GB and occasionally even less.

I've put several new drives in about 4 different TIVO's over the years and it really is pretty simple though tedious. The Weaknees drives are already preconfigured and literally should be plug and play.

The one my teenagers use was $40 for the TIVO, $70 for the 400GB drive I popped in as soon as I activated and has simplified the "which show do I tape, has everybody watched this show so I can erase and tape House this week, which tape is this show on routine that had gotten out of control."

Bought the lifetime sub on it so as long as it lasts 3 years I come out ahead, pop a new hard drive in if/when that one fails and it's free for life after 26 months (or until I need a High Def TIVO).

The optimistic hope would be a full reset/start over command would allow the drive to reset a corrupted file. If the harddrive itself is still working you could restore the image via a computer, pop the old drive back in, and that would be free (except for the time involved). There are ways to get a backup image if you need a image file. What specific unit do you have?

 

[mylan]

I would love to get this thing going again, I am at work now so all I know is that it is a single tuner series 2 with the 80 hr. capacity. I can let you know this evening @ 8:00 when I can get to the box, or might call my wife to get the numbers.
How might I reset the box? You mentioned there was a way, I can tell you we had a power blip that day and when we turned on the tv it came up, "powering up, please wait" and never went any further. I can hear the hard drive spinning although it might sound louder now. I am open to suggestions and I am not afraid to pop the hood on this thing.

 

[GordonL]

Hinsdale's Instructions on backing up/upgrading your Tivo

120 GB drives are dirt cheap these days.

 

[David Norman]

I was trying to find the instructions on just a hard reset via the remote, but I can't find anything definitive on a Series 2 with no front buttons.

Unplug it for 15-20 minutes and replug. Sometimes it will restart.



I don't know if this helps if you can't get past the Powering Up Screen to the second screen ("Almost there") though it sounds like if you hold down the Pause button at the Reboot you might be able to reset the receiver. This sounds like it might just reset the boot software and leave the recorded programs intact instead of doing a full Clean Out procedure. Even if it works you could still be on the verge of a HDD failure and may have to replace it soon enough, but it's probably worth a try.

"While booting the power light will change from green to yellow. This happens a few seconds before the screen changes from the startup image to "almost there" and it's your cue to hold down a button (use pause) on the remote to trigger a panic. (You can also press and hold the pause key immediately after reboot.) When the record light changes yellow (or both lights turn yellow).

52 - emergency reinstall
-- this will act like you've received new software but will reinstall the existing software on the alternate root partition and boot it, particularly useful so you don't have to go trolling for backup images when your hacks fail.

56 - software install

57 - mfs check
58 - perform mfs cleanup
-- both of these will cause the green screen and various mfs checks (sometimes you won't see a green screen, but just get the "loading new software" screen even though it is mfs-checking)"




I've used the Hinsdale Instructions a number of times and a couple of things. It's a Linux program, but usually needs a FAT32 formatted HDD to store the TIVO Reinstall Image so the typical NFTS partitioned WinXP doesn't usually work. I use an older computer I have stored in the closet that still has WInMe on it when I do the TIVO upgrades.

The InstantCake costs $20, but is supposed to make things incredibly easy and works even if you don't have a stored TIVO backup image file though you can almost always find a kind soul over at TIVOCommunity.com to guide you to an "Image" If I haven't done it in over a year it almost always takes me a couple attempts to get the sequence correct which can be frustrating at times, but so far it's always been self inflicted from not reading the instructions correctly.

 

[mylan]

I was about to say that you guys were way over my head but I will give the remote codes a try. Funny you should need an older computer, mine is an old Dell PIII 500 with 98 SE but, at this point, would not want to remove anything in there for fear it too would stop working. Yes, I have cruised over to the tivo forums on a link Gordon provided and I did see the term image come up but when I said I was not afraid to open it up, I was referring to maybe install a new HD. That brings me back to the PTV upgrade path and $99. I will try some things this weekend, in the meantime, I have my Charter DVR downstairs filling the gap. Many thanks to both of you for your assistance with this, but you guys make me seem like a rank amateur, looks like i'll be shelling out for a new one if these codes don't fix it.

 

[David Norman]

If you get a new one, the old one still has value for those who like to fix things or hack TIVO's. This is particularly true for some older models that allow manual recordings without TIVO service like most Series 1 and some of the early Series 2.

There are always folks who can install a new image for the cost of the HDD and shipping.

New TIVO's are cheap and always on sale. I haven't seen a deal for a Free TIVO with 2 year sub commitment in a while, but they used to be pretty common. CC has a Dual Tuner 80Hr for $60 this week after rebates(single tuner for 40) just to tempt you further.

 

[mylan]

When I get more time, I may attempt to fix this one, I believe it is one that would operate without the service, In the meantime though I do need to replace it and Best Buy is opening a new store in my town tomorrow (how convenient!) It doesn't get more tempting than that!

 

[Jeff Bamberger]

My $.02..........And I am surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet, but ......whichever option you end up choosing, I would make sure you put your TiVo, and any computer/HD based component, on a UPS/backup system. I don't do it for having access to material during an outage. Rather, these devices will handle brown outs and odd transient fluctuations much better than a standard surge protector can.

Usually, one can be found for $40 or less. It is worth the investment.


http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=21

$39.99 at Office Depot
http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?...g=true&An=text

Ditto at CompUSA
http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...let_350VA_120V

And watch your weekend circulars.....there are often deals for sales on these. The 350 should be sufficient for TiVo/Computer usage......

 

[mylan]

Thanks, yes I do need one, my Charter DVR downstairs requires a re-boot every time the power flickers where as my tivo never has, but I think the power issues may have contributed to its demise. Thanks for the links!

 

[David Norman]

If you want the type listed above watch for sales. That model was recently $20 with no rebates and I'm pretty sure they routinely run sales for that one. It's a little small for a computer, but should be fine for a TIVO/VCR. I got 3 of those during the last sale and a lot of the multi TIVO households picked up spares. Hard to go wrong with APC UPS's