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Dead T60
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Posted by: rnordvik

Hello All -

My unmodified SAT-T60 died today... looks like it's the drive. Keeps power cycling at 'Almost there' screen. DirecTV support says "It's the drive, and we'll sell you a new unit for $199!" Uh, thanks, but no thanks!!

Anyhow, I tried restoring from two different images, one taken from my other T60 as well as another from a T60 that I upgraded for someone else (both images are pre drive B install), but now it just keeps power cycling at the 'Powering up' screen.

Can anyone please PM me a working T60 image, and possibly instruct me as to what I may be doing wrong?

In the PC, the drive is connected as Secondary master, and I am using MFSTools 2.0, with the command:

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

Thanks in advance!!!

-Rob

BTW, the drive I am trying to restore to (temporarily, until I can get a newer, better drive) is an IBM DTLA-307075, 75GB... could this drive be part of the problem???

Posted by: weaknees

IBM drives are pretty notorious for causing problems in TiVos. Do you have another drive you can use? That might explain the rebooting, since using an image from a known-working unit is a pretty sure bet. Have you tried the IBM drive in that unit?

Also, have you tried removing and reconnecting the Parlex cable that runs from the power supply to the motherboard?

Michael

Posted by: rnordvik

Thanks, weaknees.

Unfortunately, I do not have another drive to try. I'm hesitant to go buy another drive until I confirm that the unit itself is working correctly.

However, if I do buy a drive (120GB) what manufacturers do you recommend?

Also, do you think there is any possibility of retreiving the recordings off the bad drive (maybe just the boot partition is bad?)

Thanks again,
-Rob

Posted by: mrkokopeli

Rob,

My T60 died about a month ago as well. Drive failure. I hadn't taken an image of my drives, hadn't done any upgrades yet.

I was a little nervous to pop the box open at that point since I didn't have an image. I submitted a service request to the sony website, they replied with a flat rate offering to fix my unit (out of warranty). For $89 they fixed the drive and put a fresh image on it.

Now I've got the unit back, bought myself 2 new drives and I'm going to start my upgrade.

A little conservative, but it worked.

Posted by: rnordvik

Okay, so I restored to a Western Digital 1200JB, and after a bunch of hoops I had to jump through, my T60 is finally working again (I think).

Now what I would like to do is try to retrieve the programs off my old A drive.

I tried connecting new A to PriMaster and old A to SecMaster, then:

mfsbackup -aqo - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -xpi - /dev/hda

but it failed about 12% into the copy.

Is there anything else I can try? I've seen alot written here about DD, but do not know the correct usage of the command -- maybe someone can post the correct command for my above configuration?

Thanks again, in advance.

-Rob

Posted by: weaknees

You can just try:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hda bs=1024 progress=1

then you'll need an mfsadd afterward to get the extra space.

Michael

Posted by: weaknees

kokopelli -

If they "fixed" the disk with a new image without swapping the drive out, get that backup ASAP. If the drive failed once, it'll likely do so again, soon.

Michael

Posted by: rnordvik

All,

Well, here's an update... I was able to get my T60 working by burning an image from my other T60 (created before adding a B drive) onto a WD1200JB drive, booting up and doing a clear & delete everything, redoing guided setup, and then contacting DTV to get locals working again. First mission accomplished -- the T60 was not dead, just the original drive.

My next quest was to try to recover the 25+ hours of programming from the old, dead drive (Original Maxtor 40G). Using MFSTools 2.0, I followed Hinsdale's instructions to save the recordings:

mfsbackup -aqo - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -xpi - /dev/hda

It failed during the copy twice, but the third time it appeared to copy correctly (not entirely sure if there were any errors, because the third time, I set it to copy and went to bed (it was 4:45 am by then) -- the PC spontaneously rebooted everytime it reached it's designated sleep time -- so I did not get to see the results).

However, I figured I'd throw it back in the box and see what would happen. When I reapplied power, it went back into it's 'Powering up / Almost There... / then spontaneously reboot' cycle, but after the second or third time, I got a GSOD. I left it to do it's thing for 4 or 5 hours, and when I returned, my TiVo was back to the way it began yesterday morning. All recordings appear to be intact, season passes were restored, etc. Only thing is, now I have 105 hours instead of 35 :-)

This was definitely the LONG, STRESSFUL way to upgrade my T60, but apparently, in the end, it seems all is well.

I learned a very valuable lesson from this, and that is that even unmodified TiVos can fail, and therefore a working backup is extremely important.

I was lucky that I had previously upgraded my other T60 (and had a backup image from that), and also that the original 40G drive (which had serious errors, and was not fixable) had enough of the info left, that the new drive was able to rebuild it, without any noticible loss of programming or preferences.

Thanks to all who offered their assistance... it's amazing how stressed one can become when they face losing a bunch of tv shows... maybe I need to get a life ;-)

-Rob

Posted by: rnordvik

Barely one week after my unmodified T60's drive died (see above)... the same thing happened to my other T60! WTF is going on??? These units were purchased at the same time, in July of 2002... maybe there was a bad batch of drives???

This particular T60 had been modified by adding a 120GB Maxtor (B) to the original 40G (A) (also a Maxtor drive, if memory serves me correctly).

Upon turning on the tube this morning, I found it to be in the same 'Powering up... Almost There... Reboot' loop as my other T60.

This time though, by unplugging the T60, and replugging, I got the GSOD. After about an hour, it was GTG.

Should I be planning on replacing the A drive, with another? Or is it likely that it repaired itself, and I need not worry? If I should replace it, is it possible to remove the current A drive, making the current B drive, the new A drive, without losing recordings? (I realize that an intermediate copy to a third drive may be necessary).

Thanks to all who helped with the last one!! Hopefully you guys will be able to get me through this problem, too...

-Rob