HELP! Tivo Died! Help me revive it!

[Stroller]

HIyah folk - worst case scenario this morning. After turning all the AV stuff off overnight to let it "cool down" my Tivo bought years and years ago has died a death.
When i power the box up, the fan spins on the box and the green light appears, but NOTHING is output from the scart socket.
Ive tried the usual (rebooting, changing cables etc etc) but the TIVO will not out put anything at all.

What could this be and how can i fix it? Im hoping its a DIY fix such as a HDD replacmeent, but any ideas is most gratefully received. We cannot live without our TIVO!

[blindlemon]

Most likely a drive faulure unfortunately :(

However, DIY replacements are pretty easy if you're into computers and pre-configured drives are readily available if you're not.

[Pete77]

What could this be and how can i fix it? Im hoping its a DIY fix such as a HDD replacmeent, but any ideas is most gratefully received. We cannot live without our TIVO!

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade3.html has all the necessary information for a DIY HD replacement, although you will probably need to get hold of an original Tivo backup image too as your HDs seem to have had it.

If you don't fancy doing it yourself you can go to www.tivoheaven.co.uk or www.tivoland.com and buy a preconfigured drive from one of them. A little more pricey but as the old saying goes time is money.....................

While you are at it you might want to fit a Cachecard and some RAM if you are going to go for a large hard disk size that can handle a lot of recordings. The bare 400Gb Samsung drives now cost only just over 60 quid from the cheapest supplier in the marketplace.

[Stroller]

Thanks guys - went for a 300GB pre-configured drive in the end so i can get it up and running ASAP! Cannot belive how bad things are without a working TIVO!

Didnt order a Cacecard (had already ordered the drive before i saw your post Pete!). Are they easy to install? What sort of performance increase does it give? Other than speed up the menu's what other benefits does it offer?

Cheers guys! Fingers crossed I haven't wasted £100+ on this drive now!

[Pete77]

Thanks guys - went for a 300GB pre-configured drive in the end so i can get it up and running ASAP!

Didnt order a Cachecard (had already ordered the drive before i saw your post Pete!). Are they easy to install? What sort of performance increase does it give? Other than speed up the menu's what other benefits does it offer?

A 300Gb drive will give about 102 hours recording at Best which is probably say about 120 programs when you have filled the drive up. If you record everything at Best you probably just about don't need a Cachecard. However if you recorded everything at Basic 300 Gb is about 350 hours which is over 400 items in Now Playing. The general view is that Now Playing menus and commands slow down a lot if you have more than 150 Now Playing items without a Cachecard. With a Cachecard and 512MB RAM you can have about 300 items without the slowdown.

A Cachecard also gives you network access to the box via TivoWeb from your PC and over the internet from a work PC or wherever else you want if you have broadband and a router. TivoWeb provides a lot of extra control of recordings and other features you don't have on the Tivo itself.

But as I said if you aren't going to buy a Cachecard you definitely need to record everything in Best from now on.

[Pete77]

The below links shows you what you can do with TivoWeb and a Cachechard in terms of adding extra functionality. May be you should ask for one as a Christmas present and then buy yourself the 512MB of RAM for the Cachecard as a post Christmas present. They can be purchased from a regular seller on www.ebay.co.uk or from www.tivoheaven.co.uk and www.tivoland.com:-

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com

www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/

http://tivo.lightn.org/

www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/hacking.htm

www.beaconhill.plus.com/TiVo/tivohacks.htm

http://www.arielbusiness.pwp.blueyo.../TiVo/HowTo.htm

http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TiVoWeb%20Modules

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/tivowebplus

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

www.tivohackman.com

www.weethet.nl/english/tivo_extract_videos.php

[blindlemon]

Didnt order a Cacecard [...] What sort of performance increase does it give? Other than speed up the menu's what other benefits does it offer?Apart from networking your TiVo so that you can control it from your PC and (allegedly) extract recordings to burn to DVD etc.? Not a lot... :D

Seriously, there was a long thread recently discussing the pros and cons of adding a cachecard with RAM - I seem remember that Pete77 got involved in that too! - and the general conclusion was that for a 300gb drive it should be worthwhile (for whatever reason).

[Pete77]

and the general conclusion was that for a 300gb drive it should be worthwhile (for whatever reason).

A lot more recordings you never have time to get round to watching that need handily block deleting in one go in TivoWeb being one of the advantages jusr for starters. :D

I personally think the TivoWeb Radio Times tv and radio Highlights module on its own is enough reason to get Tivoweb and its developer isn't even charging a penny piece for that highly professionally developed module.