TiVo Community Forums Archives - Tivo Rebooting Issue

TiVoCommunity.com
(c)opyright 1995-2005 All rights reserved
indexcheckTC
This area is a static history of posts in the TiVo Community Forum Archive.
This archive history was made for the simple indexing of search sites like Google.

Pages:1

Tivo Rebooting Issue
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: cf3232

Okay I have a weird problem. I did an upgrade on my TiVo on Friday 03/28/03. I moved source and recordings from my 60 and 40 gig HD to two new 120 gig HD's. I did the upgrade without a hitch. I put the two 120 GB HD's into my computer the TiVo fired right up and I was back in TiVo bliss. Today I came home 03/31/03 and the TiVo would not boot up. At first when I got home I turned on the TiVo to watch some TV. I received a message stating that the "satellite is acquiring information" and it would get to 70% then loop over again. I let this go on for like 30 minutes. At that point I figured nothing a shutdown of power and reboot will not fix. I unplugged the power cord waited for about 10 seconds and plugged it back up. WELL, the TiVo never got back to the menuing system. I keep receiving the "Welcome, Powering up.." Screen followed by the "Almost there. A few more minutes please.." screen, then it loops the two screens over again. I do not know what could be the problem I used the thing all weekend and did not run into any problems with it. Just today this happens to me.
The first thing I figured maybe it is the heat so I took the cover off let it sit for a while and plugged it back up. No luck. Then I removed and reseated the IDE and power cables from the two 120GB HD's. No luck. At that point I used a new IDE cable to the 120GB HD. No luck. Then I went and got my 60 GB HD that I used on the other configuration by itself and a new IDE cable. No luck. (I made a backup of the image on the 60 and 40 GB HD, at that point the Hinsdale guide said that it unblesses the two drives. This is why I only used the original "A" [60GB] drive from the two drive set.) The only thing that I could think may have caused the problem is that I had the TiVo make a daily call to upgrade any software, that was on 03/29/03 and the TiVo worked the rest of the weekend after that. I did not think that could make this problem occur, but I could be wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

I just have no clue on this one.

Posted by: cf3232

UPDATE!!!

I grabbed my original HD (40gb) that came with my TiVo and it fired right up. The two 120gb drives still do not work though. So there is nothing wrong with my TiVo unit whatsoever (whew!!!!). I do not understand this because the TiVo worked fine all weekend. Like I said any suggestions would be greatly appreiated.

Thanks!

Posted by: cclaunch

The reason your 60GB drive did not work by itself is that it was still married to the B drive which you had not installed. When Hinsdale's guide speaks of divorcing the drives, that is only on the backed up image. Nothing is changed on the source disks -- they remain a married pair. A divorced backup matters because it allows the restore to happen to a single drive for those who replace two small disks with one large drive.

The rate of DOA or rapidly failing drives is nontrivial -- not unusual to have one out of 30 go bad soon after install. If one drive in a pair is unreadable you will get the power up loop you described.

I can't firmly diagnose from the descriptions but it is a most likely cause.

Posted by: cf3232

After all that I did get the 60 and 40 gig Hd's to work properly. I received the GSOD and it said that it was going to fix it and it was successful. the 60 and 40 drives came back up no problem. I did another restore on the two 120gig HD's from my original 60 and 40 gig HD's, Image and recordings. This time without the -s 127 option on the restore. The drives came on-line with no problem at all. I watched it for a day and after the first day with no problem I did a daily call. This is when the troubles began (again). After about 6 hours of watching TV the TiVo rebooted itself and went into a reboot loop. In the first post I may have been mistaken when I reported the day of the daily call. After thinking about it, it was done closer to the rebooting problem occurrence.
At this point I think I may have a bad HD. I am figuring when I did my daily call it did the upgrade moved the new boot files to the inactive boot partition with a bad sector(s) on it copied the new boot files there and set the partition active. I think this may be the root of my problems. (Just a guess, I gathered this from all the reading I have done in the forum. I really do not know, but I am hopeful.) I am going to see which partition is set active on the 120gig HD's and the 60gig-40gig configuration now. I really hope the active boot partition is not the same cause that would prove my premise.

Short recap:

1. Transfered recording from 60gig-40gig to two 120gig's
2. Performed a daily call two days later, next day received reboot loop coming out of standby.
3. Put 60 gig in TiVo by itself would not boot.
4. Read the following thread after first post.
5. Put 60gig-40gig in TiVo together received GSOD, but came back on-line by itself. (self fix)
6. Used the 60gig-40gig to transfer image and recordings to the 120gig HD's a second time, this time without the -s 127 option on the restore.
7. The 120gig Hd came back on-line the second time
8. Performed the daily call, after 6 or so hours TiVo rebooted self and started looping.

I think the next step is to perform Power max on both 120gig Hd's, if I receive errors I will replace or try to fix the errors on the HD's. If no errors I am going to write zero's and perform the backup restore from the MFS 2.0 boot disk and see what happens. Well cross your fingers for me. :-).

If this does not work I have no clue. I will post my finding. In the meantime if you see there is something i am doing wrong please post your input.

Thanks!!

Posted by: jamester

It seems I just got the same problem you have - System working for about a month after upgrade - then one day started rebooting itself now I get "Powering Up". I was able to get it backup by doing an mfsrestore - worked for one day then I accidentally unplugged it and I now get only get "Powering Up". Was wondering if I got some sort of firmware upgrade or ?? Let me know if you solved your problem and I will let you know if I solved mine. Thanks

Posted by: cf3232

Well I checked both drives to see if the boot partitions were different. No luck, they were the same. There goes my theory on the different boot partitions. Well I ran Powermax Utility and I got an error code on the second drive. I am zeroing out the drive (low level format) and I am going to run the diags again. The error was on the second drive the "B" drive. Weird that I was having that problem with the drive and it was not an error on the "A" drive. On the other hand I have read the forum and I have seen situations that suggest both drives must be in an error free state to operate properly. If the low level format and test still comes up negative, back to Maxtor it goes. I will keep you updated with the latest.

Thanks for all the help.

TiVo Rulez!!!!

Posted by: cf3232

I ran the powermax diagnostic and there was an error on my "B" drive 120 gig. I ran the diagnostic test and it did not pass. I wrote zeros to the drive, scanned it again with the diagnostic test and it passed the second time.

That was all that was wrong. It has been running flawlessly for a week now and I do not anticipate any problems from now on. It is true, any errors on either of the drives and you may be setting yourself up for failure. A word of advice; run thorough diagnostics on your drives before putting them into your TiVo. Take that to the bank.

Thanks to all!!

Carson

Posted by: ADent

So you think the B drive is good? I personally would have taken the error code and exchanged it.

Posted by: litzdog911

Yep. Let's see how long before cf3232 again has problems with that hard drive. I, too, would have replaced it once PowerMax yielded an error code.

Posted by: cf3232

I may have problems with it, but I got the drive brand new with the error code. After I wrote zeros I ran the thorough test twice and it passed both times. If it dies I will post it here.

Any bets? :D

Carson