TiVo Community Forums Archives - upgraded drive + 4.0 + HMO = green screen

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upgraded drive + 4.0 + HMO = green screen
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Posted by: HDTiVoNow

I have two Series 2 that were upgraded (in March each a week apart) each with dual Samsungs 120Gb hard drives. They had 3.0 images and worked flawlessly till last week. Both TiVos got the Green Screen of Death about a week apart.

Both units have had 4.0 and HMO since it became available, nothing else has changed from when I had 3.0

I reverted one TiVo to the old 60 Gb drive and it's working again. I used the old 3.0 image and it upgraded itself beautifully to 4.0.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?
Anyone experiencing something similar?

Posted by: meyerwj

might be a heat issue or power supply? But Its kind of weird that both did it. whats the temp you were getting?

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

Few degrees over single hd temps. Still in the normal range.

Posted by: weaknees

Very strange. Did this happen right at the 4.0 upgrade, or after? What model units are they?

Michael

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

The 4.0 upgrade happened early in April. The First TiVo green screened early last week the second one yesterday.

The model units are 140 they were both 60hrs originally.

Posted by: utivol

Just wandering, did you use the -s 127 option when you upgraded them to begin with?

I noticed your signature says you have 300 hours of record time. I was thinking with 2 120GB drive with the swap file option you would have something like 275.

Also how long did it take for your units to get the 4.0 upgrade after you fixed them?

I am having to do the same thing. Things went sour on me when I tried to add a second 120GB drive to my existing 120GB series 2 running 4.0.

Also, do you know if anyone has successfully upgraded from 1 120GB drive to 2 120GB drives running 4.0 software?

Posted by: weaknees

A 140 unit would have about 300 hours with 4.0 - a 240 unit would have about 275, so that sounds right. The amount of space taken by adding swap is in the minutes, not in the hours.

And I personally have two AT&T 130040s that have 4.0 and 300 hours - and we have plenty of customers who have similar units, and also the 2x units. We've tested it - it works.

Michael

Posted by: rsnaider

Both my upgraded units are running HMO and have had no issues. The Sony was upgraded a few weeks ago after getting 4.0, but the TiVo branded unit was upgraded in October and successfully upgraded to 4.0 back in April and is still working fine.

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

weaknees and all,

what kind of hard drives do you sell to your customers? I use Samsungs 120Gb 5400 rpm, could it be that they are not suitable for 4.0? You see, I am wondering if there is an increase in power demand with 4.0? Maybe the disks have to spin or seek more often with 4.0 thus demanding more than the power supply can offer. In this case do you think I could power the fan with an external power supply and get some more juice for the hds? Or is there an upgrade to the power supply?

Posted by: rsnaider

I dobut it is power related since my TiVo 60 is now running WD JB series drives (7,200 8meg) which take more power then the original Home Media 4,500 I took out.

The other unit is running dual Seagate 7,200 2/meg Fluid Bearning Drives and once again, I am certain they are using more power then the Samsung 5,400's you were using.

In addition, most people do not take into consideration how their drive was shipped to them. Discount drives are usually not packed that well and will lead to premature failure. I order all my Drives from Dell using coupons and have paid less than $100 each, and each drive is shipped in the OE cartoon surround by foam.

If your drives came packed loose in peanuts you have no idea what might have happened during shipping.

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

Got my drives from Amazon, they were packed in a static free plastic box and about 2" of foam all around. Pretty standard but I think good enough when shipped by UPS.

I have run the long diagnostic on all drives, even low formatted two of them but to no avail.

I checked the Radio Shack Y power cables and even made my own with larger gage wire just in case. The ribbon cable is high quality and plenty long.

rsnaider - how come you went with better hard drives in October for your TiVo2 than what you got for the Sony a few weeks ago. Was it just cost or did it not show an improvement on the speed or something else? Also, if it isn't too much trouble, what model unit and build date is your TiVo2?

thanks
Alex

Posted by: rsnaider

I went with the Seagate's because the Sony is in the bedroom and I wanted a quiter drive. The Seagate's are barley audible and the only indication the box is upgraded is a bit more heat when you touch the box and a little more vibration with 2 HD's inside.

That is not to say the WD's are noisly, just that unit is inside a glass enclosure and I would not hear them anyway, but they are loader. Price was also a factor and I got the original price down to $100 when Dell messed up on a rebate that should have only been available to Retail Drives and not the OEM version. Dell was stuck in the corner since people here had PDF"s of the website which was not clear :) I would have preferred a drive with a 3 year warrantly but at this point if one fails I will just buy another and redo the process from either the original drive or my .bak file I made from each unit prior to upgrading.

My Series 2 IIRC has a build date of around 2/02. I only remember since I had to exchange it and the 'newer' unit was actually older then the first.

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

Thanks Ron,

BTW does the 8 MB buffer size help speed wise ?

Posted by: rsnaider

The 8meg is overkill for a TiVo. Most of what a TiVo does is stream from the HD and the buffer is more geared towards random write/seek activity as a PC would do.

Hopefully you will find a solution and if you have any other questions continue this thread or PM me.

Posted by: dmedeiros

HDTiVoNow - I have 2 Samsung 120GB 5400 drives running in my 60hr refurb w/4.0 without any problems. Upgraded roughly the same time you did.

Where did you get the drives?
Have you run the Samsung diags on the drives since they acted up?

Posted by: HDTiVoNow

got the drives at amazon.com and ran the diagnostics on the drives from the first failing TiVo and there was no problem. I restored a 3.0 image on them but had no luck. So I went back to the factory 60 hr hd. I have a nice clean 4.0 image now that I can back up.

I am going run diagnostics and restore this newest 4.0 image on the second failing TiVo's pair and see if I have any luck.