HELP!!! Hard drive failure?

[markchicago10]

Hello- I'm new to this forum...
I have had my Tivo series 2 for several years...
Yesterday it started freezing up during playback-
today didn't record all the shows, and now while watching live TV, it freezes, becomes pixilated, stops and starts, etc. I tried unplugging twice- same thing. Now it is clicking and basically unwatchable in both playback and live TV.

I'm not electronically handy to the point where I would open it up and start doing stuff- should I go buy a new Tivo tomorrow, or do they sell new hard drives?

As for my setup, I have satellite (Direct TV) that I use only for HBO, and the I also have Comcast digital cable with a box. I have not been using the digital cable box, because I was told by Tivo that I can't have satellite AND a digital cable box.

HELP!!!!!

Thanks-
Mark

[LifeIsABeach]

There are several places that sell new pre-configured harddrives to pop into your TiVo. I have used weaknees.com and wasa happy with them. You say that you are not handy enough to open it up and start doing stuff, but you would need to do that to replace the hard drive. If you want to you can send your TiVo to weaknees and they will do it for you. As you mentioned buying a new TiVo is also an option. Good Luck!

[CrispyCritter]

Opening the case up and swapping in a hard disk with pre-loaded TiVo software is not too hard, and gives you the opportunity to put in a much larger disk - more room for shows! You can get such a disk from a couple of places, eg look at www.weaknees.com or the TiVo community store here. (You can also buy a disk from scratch for much less money, and load the software yourself; but that requires more of a technical background.)

Since you're a long time customer, if you don't need more disk space, I would just call TiVo and see what kind of deal they can offer you on a replacement TiVo. It's often the case that it will be cheaper than buying a replacement disk.