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My Tivo is dead, help
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Posted by: aikiman440

Long time reader, rare poster. I have read everything I can find on what might be going on with my SA Sony series 1, but I need some perspective and suggestions for what to do next. :confused:

My Tivo:
Upgraded A drive 120GB WD.
B Drive is the original Quantum A drive (30GB)
Upgrade was done with increased swap space

For weeks now, my Tivo has been having a pausing problem (screen would freeze for a few seconds to a minute at a time) on both live or recorded shows. There was no real consistency to the problem. Some shows it wouldn't happen on at all, others 8-10 times. This is what got me thinking about drive problems.

We have two Tivos. I installed a turbonet on one Tivo this weekend, then onto the second (the one that had been giving me problems with pauses). After the turbonet install, the serious problem started. Now my Tivo won't boot. The drives spin up but don't do more than that.

I took the drive out this weekend to run tests on it and it showed no errors (I'm running the exhaustive check on it right now). After the quick drive check with software from the WD web site, I put the drive back into my Tivo and it got stuck on the "Please wait" message forever. Out of 25 or so boots since then, it has only successfully booted once. I even took that drive back out of my Tivo and used dd to copy it to another WD 120 drive I had at home. No luck either.

Both drives do spin up, but you can only hear drive activity for perhaps 5-10 seconds before everything just sits there powered up but not booting.

So, it doesn't seem like a drive error but I haven't completely eliminated it yet. I am planning on restoring my previously saved backup (hope I can find the cd I burned it on!) and running my Tivo as a single drive to see if that solves the problem.

I have tried configurations with and without power to the second drive, with and without the turbonet card etc with no luck.

I am beginning to wonder if my power supply is having issues. I have had this Tivo for 2.5 years or so and a dual drive setup for about 8-9 months. It has also lived in my entertainment center which can get a bit hot although the temp it showed the other day was 41c, which it said was normal.

Any thoughts, suggestions or voodoo chants that might help would be greatly appreciated.

Andrew

Posted by: aikiman440

More testing...
The 120GB drive showed ZERO errors after the extended test with the Western Digital software.

I put the drive back in the Tivo (after chmoding rc.net to 755 like all the others) and it booted! Wahoo! So, I reconnected the turbo net and it booted! Yeah! I closed the case up and tried to boot it again before putting it away in the entertainment center. It got stuck on the initial "please wait". I tried 4 or 5 more boots after that and still no luck in getting it to boot. Depressing.

I still need to check the B drive (the original Quantum A drive) for errors, but I'm leaning more towards a problem with the power supply.

Any suggestions?

Posted by: aikiman440

I feel like I am talking to myself here ... :p . In case this helps anyone else, I figure I'll keep it going ...

I tested my B drive (original A drive) and found errors. After allowing powermax to "fix" my drive, I used dd to copy it to an almost new drive. The dd went without error. So, I put the new drive into my Tivo. It started to boot, got to "Almost there" and then rebooted. And that continued for 4 or 5 times before I pulled the plug.

I then put my old "fixed" B drive into the Tivo. It started to boot (very promising), but not too long after got a "Severe Error" green screen (GSOD?). It said to leave it alone with the phone line plugged in for up to four hours. Since I would be heading to work shortly I decided to let it sit :rolleyes: figuring there was little chance it would actually "repair" itself. Well, I checked on it right before I left for work, and it was running!

I was shocked but happy. I am planning on pulling the B drive tonight and redoing the dd since it is likely that my B drive is beginning to fail. Hopefully I will get out of this with only a huge amount of time invested but not losing much in the way of shows (remains to be seen).

I want to express my appreciation for all the people who have posted on similar issues, the search feature really has been my friend.

Posted by: aikiman440

Well, I'm saddened that no one felt interested enough to try and help. Oh well.

Here is the way things went down finally:

Pulled "repaired" B drive out and put in pc to copy. Trashed. Even the vendors software wouldn't recognize the partitions on it, saying they don't exist.

That meant it was time to give up on saving shows (50 hours or so). I pulled the drives from my wifes Sony SA and made a backup image since I couldn't find my original backups! Restored that to my A drive (120GB). Reinstalled in the Tivo and added Season Passes etc as a 30GB drive. Expanded 30GB to 120GB using mfsadd. Test again. Add hacks (TurboNet, TivoWeb etc) then return to pc to add second 120GB B drive using mfsadd.

So, I'm back up and running and my Tivo is all put away once again (real pain because of the entertainment center). And, I've made three CD backups of my Sony image with my Season Passes/Wishlists etc so it should be easier if there is a next time.

The deceased drive is going to be ceremoniously taken apart and likely smashed into small pieces just to make me feel better later today. ;)

I hope this helps someone else who runs into a similar problem.