Constant Re-booting

[shady88]

Last night I was watching On Demand and my Series 2 Tivo (16 months old) re-booted. The screen said Powering Up for about 10 minutes, then said Just a few more minutes for 5 minutes, then shut off, and started again, with Powering Up. This went on for two hours. I called Tivo and they suggested that I unplug my wireless adapter (Linksys). That didnt work, so they suggested I buy a new unit!!!! Are you kidding me? Then I go on to this forum today and see that other people are having re-boot problems too, of course no mention of that while I was on the phone with them. What a bunch of scumbags :down: . Anyways, I cant find another thread where someone's tivo is repeatedly re-booting, so completely inoperable. Does anyone have any suggestions for this. I am not aware of recently upgrading software, but possibly that did happen.

[CuriousMark]

What you are seeing is different than the spontaneous reboot issue you are reading about. For those people their Tivo comes back just fine and continues to work for a day or three and then reboots again.

Your symptom is typical for a TiVo with a failing hard disk drive. Although you may want to replace the unit, you do have other options. First if your TiVo is under warranty you can get it repaired or replaced, so start there. If not under warranty anymore and you are very computer savvy, you can pull the hard drive and use the drive manufacturers tools to test it and see if it is bad, failing, repairable and go from there. If you are not quite that savvy, you could buy a replacement hard drive from one of the special TiVo community sponsors that advertise here. (Look in the upper right corner of the page). That drive can be slipped in following fairly simple instructions, and you will be good to go in a little while. Finally, if none of that appeals to you, you can go shopping for a replacement TiVo.

Good luck,

CuriousMark

[shady88]

Thanks Curious, that is helpful. At this point, if my hard drive is shot, it seems to me that I should drop Tivo and simply use a comcast DVR. It only costs $5 a month, vs the $13 I am paying now, plus I dont have to buy a new unit. I can't believe that Tivo's product lasted only 16 months, what a piece of junk.

[CuriousMark]

Thanks Curious, that is helpful. At this point, if my hard drive is shot, it seems to me that I should drop Tivo and simply use a comcast DVR. It only costs $5 a month, vs the $13 I am paying now, plus I dont have to buy a new unit. I can't believe that Tivo's product lasted only 16 months, what a piece of junk.
Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, consider running a disk check. I should have mentioned this in my first post, but forgot.

Look at this thread, which does a pretty good job of describing how to do it.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3845759&highlight=disk+check+57+pause#post3845759

If you do decide to go with the cable DVR, keep in mind that it also has a hard drive and similar reliability. I think you had some bad luck, my first TiVo is over three years old and still going strong at my sister's house. Most TiVo's last much longer, and if yours is repairable, may have long life yet ahead of it. However, if you are angry enough to give up without trying, then all I can do is wish you luck.

CuriousMark

[TheWakeUpBomb]

So, I got a Tivo from a friend last fall. He had dropped another hard drive in it, but switched to an HD compatible DVR, and had no use for the Tivo.

It worked great until I came home on Sunday from a weekend trip, and there was no signal, and it wasn't even blinking yellow when I hit a button on the remote.

I tried the unplug thing a few times, and thus far, no dice. It's simply stays on "Welcome. Powering up...". Having read some on the forum, I surmised it was a hard drive problem.

My problem is that I definitely hear a hard drive spinning up when I power it on, so I don't know which hard drive is causing the problem. Is there any way to rescue the recordings on one of the hard drives (assuming one works and the other doesn't)?

I'm thisclose to just going out and buying a new Tivo - I can't live without it. I'm surprised I went as long as I did without having one.

[brewman]

I've started a thread in the main section about this, and in another thread in this forum entitle "Locked Up Hard drive". I'm really beginning to suspect it's tied to the new software download.

BTW they had me disconnect my USB ethernet adapter as well - no luck. I got the same scripted response you did. I wonder if they are suddenly getting alot of these type calls and don't want to acknowledge a problem with the download.

[lajohn27]

Brewman:

This happens with every software update. A small percentage of disks go bad. That's life.

Some partitions are bad on disks.

Follow the instructions I or CuriousMark posted in the other two threads. If that doesn't save your drive, NOTHING will and it's toast... and it was going to die anyway.

John