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Tivo STUCK on "Almost there. A Few more Seconds Please.... " while Powering on
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Posted by: Apeman88

Hey guys...

New at Tivo... I'm Stuck... Please Help!

I just upgraded my DSR7000 Series 2 from stock 40G to 80G (using an old Maxtor which was previously formated for WIN98). I followed the instructions for upgrade from Hinsdales and every went through without a hitch. (checked HDD size and no error messages at all)

HOWEVER, after putting in the new HDD into Tivo, screen first says "Powering On... Please stand by" and after a minute or so.... goes to "Almost there. A few more Seconds please..." It's been sitting there for more than 30 minutes!!! I pulled the cord and waiting 30 seconds and pluged it back in and the same exact thing.

Can I use old WIN98 HDDs?? Did I have to fdisk /mbr or prepare the HDD for Tivo use?? MFS 2.0 came back with NO ERRORS on the backup and restore.

Any idea??? Please HELP!!! THANKS!!

Apeman

Posted by: weaknees

On a Series 1 DirecTiVo, that would generally mean a bad modem. I doubt that's the case here, but maybe it's a cable connection or the white ribbon cable that goes to the front panel?

You can use old Windows HDs as long as you put the OS on them, and as long as they are 40 GB or larger.

Have you tried putting the original 40 back in?

Michael

Posted by: Apeman88

Michael,

I read about the cable to the front panel and double checked it was firmly seated... did it again during one of the reboots and it seems fine.

This is a Series 2 DirecTivo unit. I followed the Hinsdale upgrade how to and used MFS 2.0 Tools (the boot CD) and during the backup and restore... no error was given and everything seems to be in order. On the restore, I remember the last message was something like 1414 of 1414 M restored succeffully.... then it took another 20min or so to "check the disk" and it came back DONE!

Yes, I went ahead and put back the Original 40G Tivo and it works! So... somehow, the upgraded HDD is not working... I'm wondering if it was the backup, restore or other misc things I messed up??

Any help would be great! THANKS!

Apeman

Posted by: dbett

quote:
Originally posted by Apeman88
Michael,

I read about the cable to the front panel and double checked it was firmly seated... did it again during one of the reboots and it seems fine.

This is a Series 2 DirecTivo unit. I followed the Hinsdale upgrade how to and used MFS 2.0 Tools (the boot CD) and during the backup and restore... no error was given and everything seems to be in order. On the restore, I remember the last message was something like 1414 of 1414 M restored succeffully.... then it took another 20min or so to "check the disk" and it came back DONE!

Yes, I went ahead and put back the Original 40G Tivo and it works! So... somehow, the upgraded HDD is not working... I'm wondering if it was the backup, restore or other misc things I messed up??

Any help would be great! THANKS!

Apeman

Did you by chance boot into Win XP with the Tivo drive still hooked up to your computer?

If so, you need to start from scratch since Win XP will have written to that disk and made it useless for Tivo use.

Posted by: Joyster

I had this problem when upgrading my SA2. It turned out that I had left the jumper on the drive in the slave position rather than cable select. Once I moved it back, it worked fine!

Posted by: Apeman88

Humm... yes and no.... here is what I did. The new 80G HDD was in a system with XP before that was prior to the restore command.

I'm gonna rerun the whole thing again tonight... hopefully it's something stupid that I did.

1. Format new 80G with FAT32 and hook up to PRI IDE Master.
2. Hookup Original Tivo HDD to SEC IDE Master.
3. Hookup CDROM to SEC IDE Slave.
4. boot into Linux with MFS tools 2.0
5. Checked all drives are at correct capacity, mount drive... executed mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc
6. After complete, umount -f -a -r, REMOVED Original Tivo HDD from SEC IDE Master.
7. Hookup my original XP OS HDD to PRI IDE Master.
8. Hookup new 80G (with tivo.bak) to SEC IDE Master.
9. POwer up PC and burned tivo.bak to a CDR.
THEN
10. Hookup CDROM1 to PRI IDE Master (With tivo.bak)
11. Hookup new 80G HDD to PRI IDE Slave.
12. Hookup CDROM2 to SEC IDE Slave (with MFS 2.0 boot CD)
13. Checked all drives are at correct capacity, mount drive... execute mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
14. After complete (and no errors seen on screen), umount -f -a -r, remove all HDD & CD and hookup new 80G HDD in Tivo.

:-( Any ideas???

Posted by: Apeman88

Joyster,

humm... I just read a few posting on HDD jumper as well... I left it on CS and during backup and restore, there were no problems... I'll have to double check that first before redoing.... THANKS!!!

Posted by: Robert S

If it gets past the first splash screen, then Linux has started to boot, so your boot block is fine.

Posted by: Apeman88

Robert,

The thing is it get's pass the "POwering on... Stand By"Screen after a min (should be shorter) and it gets stuck at "Almost There... A few more seconds please...." I pulled the plug 3 times already and each time it got stuck at "Almost there" for more than 30min.

So... my guess is it's trying to boot into Linux (which means the HDD jumpers are ok) but get's stuck while booting linux. So... it must be backup or restore problems??? Am I right???

Thanks guys!

Apeman

Posted by: Robert S

Linux has booted (it prints 'almost there' right at the start of rc.sysinit), but the TiVo interface hasn't started. This could be due to a problem with the modem (a program, /tvbin/modemtest runs fairly late in rc.sysinit and can get stuck if the modem is damaged) or corruption of the MFS partition set.

Posted by: Apeman88

Hey guys...

I just redid the HDD TWICE!!!! (backup and restore... see post #6). And same exact thing. It gets stuck at "Almost There... Few more second please" and it's been at this screen at least 30min per boot and booted 3 times per redo!!

I'm stuck!!! Can it be a bad HDD??? It was just purchased a month ago for for another project (on WIN98) and used (powered on) less than 2 weeks.

Any ideas???? Please help!

BTW, Robert mentioned it may be a bad modem.... This DTivo was blessed so modem has been disabled.... so... would this have anything to do with it??

Apeman