Tivo rebooting after pixellating

[fallingditch]

A very occasional poster writes ....
I am sure this problem will have been discussed before but cannot find any evidence in the archives so here goes ...

My TiVo has had an ongoing problem for a couple of years now:
EITHER
- after a few days uptime, response to the remote starts to slow down (press button ... wait a few seconds -... see response to screen)
- areas of the picture start to pixellate (like cheap special effects in some bad B movie)
and if this occurs, then the solution is to physically power off and let it reboot. When TiVo comes back up, it will be OK for a few days - maybe a week ... and then the cycle continues.

OR
TiVo might just reboot of its own accord (whilst being watched ... or recording automatically). Evidence of this comes from the fact that we may all be in bed, but the program TiVo has recorded has been split into two parts (and the end of the first part has that evidence of pixellation) with presumably a reboot in the middle.

It doesn't seem like a hard disk issue (after all, most dodgy hard disks start to deteriorate, not stay in some sort of steady state) - but hey - I am sure Forum members will have experienced this?

[blindlemon]

If you are getting pixellation then it is very likely a drive problem.

What's probably happened is that your drive has a few bad sectors that were bad (or borderline) pretty much from the start and they simply aren't readable. If it's been happening for 2 years without getting worse then the drive is basically OK, and if it had been in a PC the sectors would have been remapped years ago. However, the TiVo has no facility to do this so when it hits a bad sector you get pixellation and/or a reboot depending on what should have been in that sector.

However, all drives do fail eventually, and this is accelerated by TiVo use, so if you have stuff on the drive - eg. recordings, settings etc. - that you wish to preserve I would recommend changing the drive as soon as you can.

[PhilG]

Actually it DOES sound like a dodgy disk - or at least one that has dodgy parts that may not be spreading (yet)

When my last disk started to die, I'd see pixellation for a few seconds, then the picture would freeze and then I'd get a reboot. Unfortunately for me, my bad disk bits were under the Tivo database so things got much worse very quickly

If you can pin this down to watching/recording a specific program then do NOT delete it and do NOT ever watch it again. In this way you will have a program "protecting" a possible suspect part of your disk and if it's only a small part, you may temporarily alleviate the problem

The long-term (or short-term to be really honest) is to get a new disk

There are really only two routes to do this
1. Buy a bare disk of whatever capacity you think will be appropriate. It's then a DIY affair to convert the disk into a Tivo disk (there are excellent instructions around). The only proviso is that you have a pc you can attach the disk to (and so far as I know, a laptop will NOT do)
2. Buy a ready configured disk (tivoheaven are my favourite). This will cost more, but you will receive a disk that it only takesa bout 10 minutes of screwdrivering to install and it's GUARANTEED
2a. As an add-on to 2, tivoheaven will also copy (or at least try to - depends on how damaged your disk is) your existing recordings, season passes etc etc from your old drive to the new one. Costs a little more but now you have an invisible replacement (except for the fact you will be without your Tivo for a few days)

In short - I would be very surprised if your disk was NOT at the root of your problem

Phil G

[fallingditch]

that's fantastic guys! - thanks for your rapid and thorough responses. Will select a hard disk upgrade path tomorrow.