TiVo Community Forums Archives - Power up Loop, Stuck!

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Power up Loop, Stuck!
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Posted by: Madcat

I've been reading for 2 hours on this site for help on this problem. I have found like 50 similar problems, however, very little answers.

Seems like everyone says check the cable and jumpers. This is NOT my problem, the drives power up and are connected correctly, I even tried different IDE cables.

I used Hindsale guide using MFS 2.0 boot cd. I did step 10, I'm replacing my single 40 GB with 2 new IBM 73 GB drives

I skiped the backup step, since I'm not touching my original drive.

I issued the following command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda /dev/hdd

This is what I had in my machine
hda - New A drive
hdb - CD
hdc - Original Tivo Drive
hdd - new B Drive

When I put everything back together I just get the grey powering up screen and it just reboots.

Is this a common problem? Is there a simple fix? What should I do??? Please help! :) Thanks.

Posted by: Madcat

Well something is really wrong... after trying again with the MFS tools 1.1 CD (with TivoMad 4.0 for DirecTivo), I still got the same thing.

So I gave up and put the original disk back in as Master (not cable select as it USED to be). Now I get the Grey start up screen then followed by a green screen with a severe error on it.. it goes away very quickly and the thing reboots and keeps doing this.

What happened here? I thought this was pretty simple... I mean I have hacked things from Playstations to Audreys and never had this kind of bad luck. I'm sure these hacks work, since there are plenty out there. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Posted by: Madcat

Well I put EVERYTHING back the way it was (yes, even the screws!) and I still get the loop and quick green screen flash. what the heck happened? Anyone? Help! :(

Posted by: bsnelson

Reseat your IDE cable on the motherboard. Triple, quadruple check your jumpers.

Brad

Posted by: Madcat

Not sure how many more times I can check the cable and jumpers before I go crazy here.. Is there any other help I can get on this? Why is it rebooting when I put everything exactlly as it was. I thought through this entire process nothing ever happened to the original drive, that it was protected? Right?

Why is it then whe I put everything back the way it was I still get the "welcome.." screen then it goes green for a second then reboots. I need help!!!! :)

Posted by: Robert S

MFS Tools will not have changed anything on your original A drive, so we don't understand why your original configuration doesn't work either (hence the stony silence).

For a lone Quantum Fireball the jumper should be on the left hand pins (next to the data connector).

You should also be checking that the power cable to the mainboard hasn't come loose during the upgrade.

Do you want to try downloading an image and putting that on one of your new drives?

Posted by: Madcat

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the reply... I do need help! Now everyone in the house is upset I killed out TiVo! :(

Yes I would like to try an image on one of my new drives, can you tell me where to get one, and any instructions Please? thanks!!!!

Posted by: Madcat

Hi Guys,

I grabbed the 25Xtreme and the Original 2.0 1 DR DSR6000 images from the site. However, the following the instructions on step 8 for the restore, still gives me the same results! :(

Also when I try to run the 25xtreme program, it gives an error towards the end about bad decompression, and says the retore failed. I'm so out of luck and options here.

There really can't be anything wrong with the drives, cabling, jumpers. Could I have killed something in the hardware on this thing? Is there any trouble shooting steps I can take? All I get is the "Welcome. Powering up" screen and a then a reboot. I'm I going to have to buy another DirecTivo? This has really been a nightmare. Any ideas????

Posted by: Robert S

You might want to contact weaknees, they've seen far more dead TiVoes than I have.

Posted by: Madcat

Hi Guys,

Well I did not give up, and tried MFS 1.1 instead of 1.0 and 2.0 like I have. With 1.1 and the default Tivo single drive v2.0 image it came up perfectly! I restored to another (still have the original Tivo drive) 40 GB Maxtor, ran the mad 4.0 tool to fix the boot_prams issue and it worked!

Now I have to figure out how to acctually do the upgrade still. At this point I'm back to where I started. A working Tivo with a 40 GB drive! :)

Given this, what is the recommended method to do the upgrade? I don't have any prefs to loss, so I don't care.

I tried the MFS 1.1 restore to my new 73 GB IBM drives then ran the boot_prams on both of them, but that did not work.

What's the best method for adding my two new 73 GB drives? Thanks!

Posted by: Robert S

I've no idea why MFS Tools 2.0 wouldn't work when 1.1 does, but it may not be a problem. Restore to your new drive with MFS Tools 1.1. Use -s 127, but -xpi will have to be just -i. Then use MFS Tools 2.0's mfsadd function to expand in to the extra space on the A drive and the B drive.

Hopefully this will not trigger whatever was causing your boot problems.

Posted by: Madcat

Hi Robert,

Just so I get this straight. This is what I'm going to do.

Take my 2 new IBM 73 GB drives and restore the original DSR6000 v2.0 single drive image to BOTH of them using MFS tools 1.1

Then using MFS tools 2.0 use the mfsadd function to BOTH of the drives?

If this is it, I'll try it and let you guys know. Thanks again for all the help. I've learned alot already! :)

Posted by: Madcat

Another note....

Even though the Tivo boots fine, it seems to "freeze" totally after a short while. It got far enough to update to the latest software, but still continues to freeze in random areas. Any ideas?

P.S. I have not upgraded to the new drives yet, this is with the new 40 GB Maxtor to replace the non-booting original quantum.

Posted by: Madcat

Did some more diging around. I found this post:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...eferrerid=32895

Which explains my problem exactly with the IBM drives I've been trying to use. I think we should probably we aware, that these drives are probably not a good choice for a Tivo upgrade.

What I did now was take my original quantum drive, re-image it with the base v2.0 image using mfstools 2.0. Now it's working perfectly, no lock ups! Boot just fine. Even took the 2.5 upgrade.

I think I'm going to get WD drives and try this thing over again. Wish me luck!