Scan disk for Tivo

[rondock]

I have a Series II Duel tuner Tivo and it is showing signs of hard disk failure. Issues like rebooting for no reason and more recently having gaps in the recording of shows. For example many of my currently recorded shows will be playing fine then suddenly the picture and sound stop. The Tivo apparently keeps recording because I can fast forward and/or rewind over the dead space. Yes, I know that sounds like the cable signal was lost but the reason I think it’s the hard drive is because it’s happening a lot lately and when the picture comes back it acts like it has recorded a bunch of data and it plays that data really fast for a second or two.

So I’m thinking something simple like a scan disk might help but I can’t find anywhere that suggest Tivo has that as an option. Any Ideas?

[sender_name]

you would have to open up the tivo and connect it to a pc and then make sure that you don't allow your OS to do anything with the drive, and then run a scan on it...

[jrm01]

You can use the Kickstart 54 to check the disk as explained her (several paragraphs down at "Check the TiVo DVR"

http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/technicalsupport/compatibilityhelp/DVR_Expander_Troubleshooting_Generic.html

[rondock]

I saw this but did not think I could use it becaue it is for the HD series Tivo. I have a regular Series 2.

[rondock]

I'm a little concerned about letting windows do scan disk on the drive because I don't know what, if anything, it does to the drive that is Windows specific. I did read the option to use the hard drives own software. Guess I could try that.

[rfbluebird]

I have a Directv tivo series 2, and I've done the kickstarts to it. When you do them, the ones that involve a "check disk" will put up the scary green screen, but just wait it out. After a reboot, it should be better.

I agree, those errors sound like disk issues, when mine acts up, this is what I do. No idea if it helps, but it makes me feel better. I have a feeling that the problems (I get pixelation and partial recordings) are less frequent when I do this, but I haven't kept a journal.

[rondock]

I'll give it a try as soon as I get home, thanks.

[unclemoosh]

Running Windows scandisk or chkdsk won't work as it is not a Windows filesystem. You should download the drive manufacturer's diagnostics, make a bootdisk with the diags and run them on your drive. This is probably the most definitive way to diagnose your drive.

[LifeIsABeach]

If you have any recordings that you do not want to lose you may want to make a copy of the hard drive or download the recordings to your pc bfore the drive goes.