trouble with tivo series 2

mylan · 09-14-2006, 09:22 PM

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 · 09-24-2006, 12:10 PM

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 · 09-24-2006, 01:20 PM

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 · 09-24-2006, 02:22 PM

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 · 09-24-2006, 02:58 PM

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!

**HTF Ads**

Robert_J · 09-25-2006, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mylan

I just wish this thing would have lasted more than three years!

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 · 09-26-2006, 01:37 PM

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 · 09-26-2006, 05:21 PM

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 · 09-26-2006, 05:28 PM

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 · 09-26-2006, 06:09 PM

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?