TiVo Community Forums Archives - Help! Is my TiVo completely DEAD?

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Help! Is my TiVo completely DEAD?
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Posted by: mglover

Greetings!
I'm been a long-time reader of the forums, but this is my first post....

I think I already know the answer to my question, but, hey, it never hurts to ask....

Yesterday, during a thunderstorm, there was a brief power outage at my house for about 10 seconds. When the power came back on, everything in the house seemed to be okay, so I didn't think too much about it. However, I noticed later from the corner of my eye that the LED's on the TiVo front panel had flashed, so I switched over to the proper inputs on the TV and saw that it was still on the initial boot screen (the black one).

After watching a bit more, it turns out that it stays on the initial black screen for about 10 seconds or so, then BOTH LED's on the front panel turn YELLOW for about 5 seconds, and then the machine reboots and begins the process all over again.

Obviously, I'm suspecting lightning damage... but has anyone ever been successful at reviving their unit after it had these symptoms?

My unit specs:
14-hour stand-alone
NO HACKS
Out of warranty (naturally)
Running 2.0

Man, just when I was about to add a hard drive... just my luck...

Mike

Posted by: 9thTee

Homeowners insurance....

Make sure and double check all of your electronic stuff in your house. I had a similar thing happen but then found that several other things were not working.

Mark

Posted by: ElectricLegs

If it's still under a year old it costs $99 to repair it if you DON'T tell them about the lightning otherwise it's $139 for any repair. Can you hear the drive or fan spinning up when it's powered on?

Posted by: mglover

quote:
Originally posted by ElectricLegs:
If it's still under a year old it costs $99 to repair it if you DON'T tell them about the lightning otherwise it's $139 for any repair. Can you hear the drive or fan spinning up when it's powered on?

Good question. I did put my ear up to the unit last night and I could hear what sounds like the fan, but it didn't sound all that "healthy". I didn't hear the hard drive per se, but I wasn't really listening for it, either. (Hmmm, maybe it's a case of: Bad fan => overheated drive => dead drive => dead TiVo )

I do seem to remember that I could hear the drive spinning fairly clearly when I first bought the unit... I'll give it a good listen tonight...

If I understand correctly, 2.0.1 doesn't have a problem if you clone from one system to another, so long as they are identical, correct? So, if a dead drive is my only problem, I should be able to clone another 2.0.1 drive from a friend's identical unit and fix the problem, right?

Posted by: Davenlr

Check to see if there is a fuse around where the AC line comes into the power supply, it might just be a blown fuse, if the drive isnt spinning up.

As a test, remove the drive and plug it into your computer and see if it spins up there?

I have a 14hr phillips and 30hr sony 2.0 backup here in Little Rock, if you cant find someone closer, and it coems to that.

------------------
SVR-2000 2.0 130 hrs
HDR-112 2.0 62 hrs
REplay 3020 20 hrs

Posted by: mglover

Thanks for the offer, Davenlr.

After my experience this morning, it's time for a follow-up...

I made arrangements with a friend here in town to switch hard drives with his unit today to see if that was my problem.

Before opening up my system, I decided to try just ONE more time... because, after all, you just never know. I plugged the system in, and....

NOW IT WORKS!

Strange.

The fan still sounds a bit "sick", so maybe I should open up the unit and see if I need to replace the fan (I'm well past the warranty period, so it can't hurt).

But, well, we were without TiVo for 2 days, and now that it works I'm not sure I wanna take the chance and unplug it. At least not for a while. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif
I was thinking of upgrading sometime soon, anyway; maybe I should do that before the drive dies permanently.

My personal diagnosis would still be that it WAS the hard drive; considering that everything else seems to work (I forced a dial-in update, and it worked okay). Although, I suppose that there could be another component somewhere in the system that is acting up because of excess heat, perhaps? My unit has been on now for over an hour, and the temp is about 42C. Seems like it used to run a bit cooler... about 40C or so. Again, I'm suspecting the fan...

When the system failed to boot earlier, both LED's flashed yellow a number of times; does anyone know if this represents a failure code (similar to the "BEEP" codes found on a PC BIOS) that might give a clue as to what the problem might be?

Anyway, thanks to all that replied and offered advice; I also had a number of people send me private email with hints. The TiVo community rocks. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/cool.gif