Anyone know when the next software update is coming?

[MJGunn]

When 8.1 was rolled out, I had this problem (my post is at the bottom of the page)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=329423

Everything is still working fine with the original HD, I'm waiting for the next software update to roll out, so I can pop my upgraded HD back in, upgrade it, and hopefully fix it that way. Any word on when that might be?

[Dan203]

Actually that sounds like a hard drive failure to me. The reason these reports always crop up after a software update is because of the way TiVo's upgrade system works. Basically your hard drive is partitioned into 3 sections. Two are software partitions and the third is for all the recordings. When TiVo installs an update it switches from the software partition currently being used over to the other one sitting in reserve. This system allows them to revert back to the old partition should the upgrade fail for some reason. However this system can also mask impending hard drive failure. What happens is the drive starts developing bad sectors in the unused partition. Then when the TiVo is upgraded the software being written to that partition becomes damaged and can cause all sorts of strange problems, one of the most common being non-reproduceable video stutters and pixelation. The upgrade is just the first sign of the problem, not the cause, so even if TiVo upgrades the software again it's likely that that other hard drive is still on the path to failure and eventually will die completely.

Dan