wow..HD in 15 day old S3 just died

[Chico]

Was watching live TV when all of a sudden the screen started pixelating and freezing. I could hear a clicking noise coming from the Tivo, then it just froze. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Now I've been at the "Welcome! Powering up..." screen for about 15 minutes. I was going to upgrade the drive at some point, but I didn't expect the factory drive to die so soon! I'll be on the horn to Tivo monday, better get my SVR-2000 w/ dual 120's hooked back up for football tomorrow. I'm bumming, but I'm glad it showed it's hand before warranty expiration. I had transfered lifetime to it.

[synch22]

sucks...hope yougot from a reputable place. Reaffirm my choice to buy from costco if I end up getting one.

[Chico]

I did buy it from Costco. I didn't think of that. Might be easier than sending it back to Tivo. Thanks!

[synch22]

Seattle here as well. Let us know how the Costco return works since you transferred lifetime. I will have lifeitme as well if i make the move. I have heard in the past Tivo is good about moving it to your new box.

[ncsercs]

WD drives. Says it all. If I get a S3, I'll replace it with a Seagate. Much better drives.

[Chico]

I wondered about the type of drive...that says it all. I just realized I had the season premiere of 24 on there I hadn't watched yet. Sigh. Got it all packed up to take to Costco today.

[aaronwt]

I hope WD drives are OK. I replaced all my stock drives with the 500GB WD drives. They do have a 5 year warranty on the drives and are extremely quiet.(The 500GB drives at least)

[davecramer74]

I did buy it from Costco.

smart man, just go take it back. You dont even need your receipt, they will have you in their system.

[randywalters]

ACK! My S3 is exactly 15 days old today and this made me mute the TV and stick my ear next to my Tivo and listen for any abnormal noises !

I also bought mine at Costco so if anything were to go wrong i'd just take it back, but i wonder if it's still covered by the Tivo factory warranty? Sometimes a Costco item doesn't have a factory warranty, but is Tivo one of em? If mine were to fail, i'd like to have it repaired and sent back to me, hopefully with all my data and recordings intact.

[GoHokies!]

ACK! My S3 is exactly 15 days old today and this made me mute the TV and stick my ear next to my Tivo and listen for any abnormal noises !

I also bought mine at Costco so if anything were to go wrong i'd just take it back, but i wonder if it's still covered by the Tivo factory warranty? Sometimes a Costco item doesn't have a factory warranty, but is Tivo one of em? If mine were to fail, i'd like to have it repaired and sent back to me, hopefully with all my data and recordings intact.


If yours fails, chances are it will be a hard drive that caused it, and there will be no data or recording left, no matter what happens.

[Chico]

I just got back from Costco. The store was nuts, I had to park what seemed like a half mile away. The return line was short and they were really nice about it. Only took 5 minutes or so. The bummer is it's a online only product so they gave me a cash card to reorder. Ships from OK, so I'll have to wait about a week to get a new one.

[synch22]

did you call Tivo about your lifetime? What did they say?

[synch22]

wondering how your Lifetime will be handled with the return?

[sleepeeg3]

Ya dude, hello?!

[ewilts]

... I didn't expect the factory drive to die so soon!
I've seen brand new retails drives being dead when I got home. I've received brand new drives at work that fail to even install (high-end enterprise drives).

Drives fail. Sometimes they fail quickly, sometimes they take a long time, and sometimes you hope that the old slow drive will fail so you can justify upgrading it :-). How soon the drives fail is not an indication on the quality of TiVo's hardware. It's luck of the draw.

.../Ed

[gwsat]

I just got back from Costco. The store was nuts, I had to park what seemed like a half mile away. The return line was short and they were really nice about it. Only took 5 minutes or so. The bummer is it's a online only product so they gave me a cash card to reorder. Ships from OK, so I'll have to wait about a week to get a new one.
I ordered mine from an outfit in Michigan and was surprised to discover that it had been shipped from an Edmond, Oklahoma distributor, who is less than 10 miles from my house. Who knew?

[wmcbrine]

Hmm. Mine also came from OK -- ordered through Buy.com.

[sleepeeg3]

Industry HD failure rate is like 3%... and it's fairly flat across all brands. Better it happens now while you can return it, than later. ;)

So Chico, did you return your TiVo with lifetime on it? Which Costco was it? :)

[greg_burns]

Hmm. Mine also came from OK -- ordered through Buy.com.

Same here.

[SoCalCraig]

I bought my 1st S3 from CostCo.com. When it showed pixelation and sound drop-out problems I called TiVo, they confirmed my suspicion that it was a bad S3 and told me to exchange it with CostCo. I ordered a 2nd S3 from CostCo.com and as soon as it arrived I returned the 1st S3 to the local CostCo store. They just added the credit to my CostCo credit card. And I didn't have any problem with TiVo transferring my lifetime service to the 2nd S3.

[TomRaz]

Craig that is good news that you had no problems with transfering the lifetime subscription with Tivo.

The only problem I see with buying one from Costco is they don't always keep the same merchandise in stock for the long haul so you may not be able to exchange on in the future and take advantage of their generous return policy.

Otherwise Coscto is a great deal both on price and return options.