TiVo Community Forums Archives - return or upgrade this hdr31204?

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return or upgrade this hdr31204?
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Posted by: zdude

I have a REMANUFACTURED Philips HDR31204 that was sent to a friend about 10 months ago in exchange for an under-warranty defective hdr312. The replacement never worked, and he just held onto it. He just gave it to me, and when plugged in, it is locked on the Startup Screen. Numerous unplugging, pluggings have no effect. I left it on for a couple hours to see if it would work itself out; no dice. I called TIVO Philips Tech Support, and after a few diagnostic attempts, they provided a claim number an said it was still covered under their $99 exchange program.

I already have a Maxtor 80GB 5400rpm drive that I was all set to add or swap into it, so now my dillema is this:

Is it recommended that I send it back for exchange (along with $99), or just forge ahead and swap drives for an 80hour unit?

I don't know enough about this locked up condition to know if the problem is likely a bad hard drive that would be resolved with a new drive. I do know that if I open it up to swap and then it still doesn't work, I can no longer do the exchange.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Posted by: hpb

That's kind of a toss up.

Here's my suggestion:

If you are planning on hacking it anyway to add more storage or a network card I would just get an image and try to fix it yourself.

If you just want it to work I would probably send it in for repair.

I can pm a link for a backup image if necessary.

Posted by: Robert S

Try the 'two lights test' (hardware self-test). Hold down Pause and plug the TiVo in. Two amber lights = pass. If it fails that, send it for repair, if it passes it would be worth trying a new hard drive.

Posted by: zdude

Update:
I took the gamble and opened it, since it looked like the "warranty void" sticker was half-off anyways. Once open, I spotted the problem; the IDE cable was not fully inserted into the back of the drive, so I pushed it in, checked all other connections, plugged it in and it works.

Now to install the 80GB drive.
Thanks for the help and offers of help.