How does C&DE stop random reboots?

[longpets]

Last weekend I replaced the 80Gb harddrive in my Philips DSR708 with a WD 320 Gb harddrive. My wife and I have two little boys. It is amazing how much disk space Little Einsteins, House of Mouse, and Tom and Jerry can use ;) . I had previously added drives to my Hughes DVR-80 and my R10 uneventfully but didn't save my recordings, etc.

This is my original DTivo and, though not a big deal, there were a couple of things I wanted to save. I used Tiger's MFS Tools 2.0 to copy all my season passes and recordingings to the new drive (an overnight process) and then installed it in my DTiVo. (The original WD 80 Gb hard drive is safely in my office.)

Starting Sunday afternoon, the DSR708 worked fine. By Tuesday morning, however, the DSR708 started rebooting on its own. By Tuesday evening, it wouldn't go for more than a couple of minutes without rebooting. So Tuesday night, I unplugged the DTiVo and did a few Google searches. Mostly from posts here, I figured it was a hard drive issue. The drive was new. My guess is the problem was probably corruption rather than a physical defect.

On Wednesday morning (yesterday), trying to avoid removing the DSR708 from its home in the den enterainment center, opening it up, checking the connections, etc., I decided to Clear and Delete Everything (which was suggested several places). It took about 2.5 hours. I then went through the guided set up and input about 15 season passes. The DSR708 has been running fine since then.

I have only fooled around with Linux and haven't networked my TiVos so my knowledge of how the TiVo software is designed really isn't that great. Could someone here explain why the C&DE would solve my rebooting problem? I'm just curious. Thanks.

[stevel]

It rebuilds the Media File System - if that got corrupted, then the C&DE could help. But so would a 57 kickstart without wiping out everything.

[rminsk]

A C&DE could cause the TiVo to stop accessing a bad part of the disk for a while. Lets say you have a bad spot on the disk around "20 hours". You may have to get around "20 hours" of programming before it starts having problems again.

[longpets]

It rebuilds the Media File System - if that got corrupted, then the C&DE could help. But so would a 57 kickstart without wiping out everything.

Thanks. Is there one MFS per partition? Or one per TiVo. And what is a 57 kickstart?

[longpets]

A C&DE could cause the TiVo to stop accessing a bad part of the disk for a while. Lets say you have a bad spot on the disk around "20 hours". You may have to get around "20 hours" of programming before it starts having problems again.

I'm going to load this TiVo up the next week just to see if I can make it crash again. I'll get back to you if it does.

[rminsk]

Kickstart (see http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics)

While booting the power light will change from green to yellow as the line 'checkpanic' in the rc.sysinit gets executed. This happens a few seconds before the screen changes from the startup image to "almost there" and it's your cue to hold down a button (use pause) on the remote to trigger a panic. When the record light changes yellow, key in one of the following sequences:

0 - emergency call to tivo, touchtone dialing
1 - emergency call to tivo, pulse dialing
9 - emergency call to tivo, touchtone w/ 9 prefix
-- I suggest not doing any of these unless explicitly instructed


52 - emergency reinstall
-- this will act like you've received new software but will reinstall the existing software on the alternate root partition and boot it, particularly useful so you don't have to go trolling for backup images when your hacks fail.

56 - software install

57 - mfs check
58 - perform mfs cleanup
-- both of these will cause the green screen and various mfs checks

[Lee L]

Will this work on the HR10-250? I assume it does not delete anyrecordings or SP's right?

[stevel]

Kickstart works on all TiVos, though I have read that some don't change the LED colors. It does not normally delete recordings or SPs., but if you have things that were recorded on a corrupted disk, you could lose them.

[l2bengtrek]

hey guys,

If a C&D is done, it clears the channel logos out too, right? If you key in a 52 or 56, does this re-install them or are they deleted out of the software that you're telling it to re-install?

[stevel]

Well, 52 just switches back to the other partition set, so whatever you had then should still be there. I'm unsure what effect 56 actually has. Channel logos seem to be ephemeral...

[l2bengtrek]

Maybe I'll try it on an old one and see what happens

[longpets]

A C&DE could cause the TiVo to stop accessing a bad part of the disk for a while. Lets say you have a bad spot on the disk around "20 hours". You may have to get around "20 hours" of programming before it starts having problems again.

That's pretty much what happened. After loading up the drive with programming, the rebooting problem returned. Thanks.

[btwyx]

Kickstart (see http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics)

While booting the power light will change from green to yellow as the line 'checkpanic' in the rc.sysinit gets executed. This happens a few seconds before the screen changes from the startup image to "almost there" and it's your cue to hold down a button (use pause) on the remote to trigger a panic. When the record light changes yellow, key in one of the following sequences:Does this work if you've already initiated a Clear and Delete (everything but programs)? I hope it does, because mine doesn't seem to be finsihing the clear and delete. It goes straight from startup to "Clearing ...", rather quickly, so I'm not sure the above instructions apply.57 - mfs check
58 - perform mfs cleanup
-- both of these will cause the green screen and various mfs checksHow long does this take? Or how long should I let it go before I panic again.

[btwyx]

Kickstart does work if I've already initiated the clear and delete. It took me a few tries, I had to keep pressing and releasing the button, not holding it down for it to take effect. It rebooted and now I have the imfamouse green screem, which just went away, suspiciously quickly.

I'll see if it gets anywhere now.

Edit: It rebooted to green screen.

[btwyx]

Three hours later, its still rebooting to green screen. I found the backup disk and reinstalled that, its like a time capsule from 2004. The machine complained it hadn't called in for 618 days.

[newsposter]

this is remotely on topic so wanted to point it out. If you ever have a program that causes reboots, in other words you can play the program and at the same point every time it causes a reboot, just SUID the program, dont watch it, and you wont ever have to worry about that bad portion of the drive again causing a reboot.

until the drive continues to fail of course. But it's a great stop gap measure guaranteed to work if you ever have the same problem I did on my T60. enabled me to watch what i wanted before trying any sort of repair etc

[mjp]

Kickstart works on all TiVos, though I have read that some don't change the LED colors.And if the LED(s) do not change color, is a kickstart still possible? I have a series2 TiVo box that stays steady green throughout the boot sequence...

[stevel]

I have heard that it does. You can try holding down pause continuously after 10 seconds or so. If it has not changed to the startup animation after a minute, try the 57.

[longpets]

That's pretty much what happened. After loading up the drive with programming, the rebooting problem returned. Thanks.

I ultimately pulled the drive and ran Western Digital's Lifeguard utility which reported "too many bad sectors" to complete the test.

Again, thanks to all who replied. I learned a bunch.