Tivo died, move hard drive?

[sc0tty8]

Ok, I got a 40hr tivo, nothing fancy, single head unit. I had bought it used last summer, and, also bought the life time sub for it. Well, it seems as if it has shat the bed. Being that tivo does not offer the life time, and, I honestly don't need a dual head or anything fancy, can I buy another tivo, same make/model, and drop in my drive and retain all of my account info? I honesly don't care about the shows, its tv, they will replay it.

Suggestions?

[funtoupgrade]

Probably just needs a new hard drive. You can stick in a much bigger one for about the same price as buying a replacement.

[sc0tty8]

I have tivo lifetime subscription on it, its not the hard drive, its the tivo unit itself, video is fine when it boots, in the menu, and then after about 2 min of wathcing TV, it goes nuts, it won't even go into the tivo menu.

Thats why I want to know, can I pull my tivo drive, that, I am assuming, has my subscription info on it, and plop it into another tivo? I have no quims about buying a unit used off the bay and dropping my drive in.

Again, its not the hard drive.

[wscannell]

The TiVo Service Number of the unit is tied to the lifetime subscription. It is on a chip on the motherboard. You will not be able to transfer the hard drive.

You have several options:

1) If it it a TiVo brand unit, you can send it to TiVo for a refurbished unit (about $150). They will transfer the lifetime.

2) You can purchase a replacement hard drive from weaknees.com or ptvupgrade.com. This would just drop in like a PC hard drive.

3) You coudl purchase a new PATA hard drive and load the software yourself. Since your hard drive is probably bad, you would need an image or purchase Instantcake from ptvupgrade.com.

If you can get an image, use these instructions to load a new hard drive:
http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

[wscannell]

I have tivo lifetime subscription on it, its not the hard drive, its the tivo unit itself, video is fine when it boots, in the menu, and then after about 2 min of wathcing TV, it goes nuts, it won't even go into the tivo menu.

By going nuts, do you mean it is slow to respond to the remote?

Do you see strange artifacts in playback like pixelization or pauses?

If so, these are signs of a hard drive getting errors. To verify this, get a boot disc with the manufacturer diags. Then put the disk in your PC. DO NOT boot Windows. Run the diags on the drive and see what they say.

[sc0tty8]

By going nuts, do you mean it is slow to respond to the remote?

Do you see strange artifacts in playback like pixelization or pauses?

If so, these are signs of a hard drive getting errors. To verify this, get a boot disc with the manufacturer diags. Then put the disk in your PC. DO NOT boot Windows. Run the diags on the drive and see what they say.

I get artifacts/pixelization, and its super choppy, I didnt wait to see if the menu would load or not, how common is it for a drive to shat the bed?

I know its a maxtor drive, and I hate maxtor drives, so you think if I just get the mxblast tools and run it on my PC it shold pass or fail? I should try it, I got the maxblast iso burned already somewhere, so then if it is the drive, how hard is it to prep another drive? I am fairly apt and comfortable working with electronics.

How are the seagate drives in these units?

[wscannell]

Some hard drives last as little as 2 years in a TiVo, but most last longer than that.

Seagate drives are Ok, but they seem to have a little more seek noise. They might be objectionable in a bedroom, but should not be a problem in the TV room.

You may be able to copy your hard drive to a new one using these instructions:
http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

If you get errors, you could try dd_rsecue.

If you still have problems, you will need a new image. You can get Instantcake from ptvupgrade.com. This will load a new hard drive without having to enter any linux commands.

[sc0tty8]

Well, for less ehadaches and time wasted, we will pretend the drive is worm food and try that instantcake thing. I just sold a 250 gig drive yeasterday too:(