Guys, I need some help

[moda253]

I bought a cache card for my S1 SA Sony SVR-2000. I was going to install it and when I went to do a backup of my drive my machine accidentally booted into windows. So my machine was booting up getting past the "almost there" screen and then going straight to a green screen. So the machine is (or was) booting up with the original drive. But I wanted to use a bigger hard drive anyway.


So I went out and bought a new drive 250GB Western Digital. I bought the InstantCake download for my system. Hooked up my CD-rom to primary salve, my new hard drive to secondary master and ran through instantcake and it reported no errors. I then installed the new drive into my Tivo but I got nothing. No power up or anything. It didn't really sound like the drive was spinning but I'm not sure about that.

So I thought what the hell I'll try installing instantcake on my B drive as the original A+B combination appeared to be hosed anyway and at this point I didn't care about getting my old programs back I just need to get it back up and running. I ran instant cake against the old B drive and installed it and nothing.


So I reinstalled the original A drive knowing that it would be messed because the B drive wasn't present and I get to the almost there screen and it just keeps rebooting and getting to the almost there screen.


What am I doing wrong? I have followed the instructions to a T. Is it possible that my drive is locked or something? I have tried this on several drives now and I get the same thing.


Does Hinsdale fix Tivos? If so is there a number that I can call to talk to someone there?

Please help me out I need to get this thing up and running at the very least.

[litzdog911]

Try re-creating your Tivo drive with InstantCake using just ONE drive, not both "A" and "B". See if that helps. Post back your results in the Tivo Upgrade Center Forum here.

[funtoupgrade]

The Sony is notorious for locking the drives but you would get an error message when restoring that the drive was too small to hold the image if it were locked. After reading through your post I am pretty confused about what you have and what you don't have. Also I have never used InstantCake, only the free software with my own or downloaded images.

I gather you are saying that none of the drives you have work anymore in TiVo correct? It sounds like you have tried using the InstantCake to reimage the original drive as a single drive without success correct? If not, then start there.

You mentioned one of the drives booted into Windows XP. Which drive and when in the process of imaging did this happen?

Just remember that these restore processes can be done over and over since the software erases the disk each time you begin the restore, so you are not going to hurt anything by trying over and over.

The other thing that can happen when you get into a frustrated mood like this is you start doing dumb things like forgetting to check drive jumpers (I know this from experience). Is it possible they were set wrong when the drives would not spin up at all?

[moda253]

Thanks for the reply guys. This site is great.

funtoupgrade:

For the sake of clarity, let's just assume that the original drive combinations are gone and I can't get them back and I want to start over with a new 250GB hard drive.

I installed the 250GB hard drive as the secondary master with no jumpers set (making it master for my drive) , unhooked any and all windows drives from my PC and hooked my CD-rom drive as primary slave.

I then ran instantcake and installed the new 250GB hard drive back into the Tivo with no jumpers set (making it master for my drive) and I get nothing on power up. I can tell the drive buzzing but I don't really hear a drive spinning.

If at this point I install the original A drive into the machine I get the "almost there a few more seconds" screen but then the machine reboots. But my B drive is hosed anyway so I knew that would be a problem. But at least at this point I know that the machine will boot with the original drive in place.



So where can I get a different way of re-imaging the drive? Other than the instantcake way of doing things?

And in the case that I am not able to do this is there a place that will upgrade/restore my tivo for me?

[funtoupgrade]

You can download the free PTV LBA48 MFStools software as an ISO image which will need to be burned to a CD. Then you will need to get an SVR-2000 image. PM Stan Simmons for a link to one which you can download.

FYI it was not clear at all from your original post that you were using two drives in your TiVo and one got hosed. That's why your original A drive will not boot since both have to be in there working properly for the TiVo to work.

Is the InstantCake an LBA48 version for larger hard drives?

[moda253]

sorry about not being clear, I found out lasst night that the original A drive is no longer any good. Basicly I was working with a new 250GB hard drive which I was using instant cake on without success. I had a friend of mine help me last night that is a linux guru, and we were able to manually install the image off of the instantcake cd and were able to apply the switches and everything that is detailed in the Tivo Hacks book.

Basicly the self installing instantcake wasn't working -probably no fault to PTV.

So I got my machine up and running, I am now trying to get my cache card working. It makes the test call and it make the setup call but I am not impressed with the download speeds so far.

I used the driver from silicon dust for machines with LBA48 hard drives because I believe that is the Kernal that the instantcake install used and I have a 250GB LBA hard drive. When the silicon dust splash screen comes up I see an error for the cachecard driver saying driver failed to load, and I also see a memory access failure but that's because I don't have a stick of memory in it yet.


So anyway I will probably post that issue on the silicon dust forum, but thanks for helping me out if not just for a voice of reason.

Thanks.