Can hard drive going bad cause pixellation and audio dropouts?

[srothkin]

I have a series 3 with a 750 gig hard drive (I bought the unit a few years ago from the store here). Mostly it works ok but every now and then we get really bad pixellation and audio dropouts (happened last week on Dancing with the Stars).

Is this something that can be caused by a hard drive going bad?

How do I find out if my hard drive is going bad and needs to be replaced?

If I decide to replace the drive, what specific specs do I need to look for in a hard drive to ensure it will work well with the Tivo?

How do I go about transferring the contents of the existing drive to a new drive (so I get the Tivo software and my recorded programs copied over)? Can I buy a bigger drive and copy the stuff over and not lose the recorded programs I haven't watched yet? And if so, what is the biggest drive that Tivo will support?

I am comfortable opening the unit and taking the hard drive to a PC for the cloning (if it is SATA I'll need to get a SATA interface since all of my PCs are IDE).

Thanks

[bkdtv]

Did you check your System Information -> DVR Diagnostics screen for signal errors?

RS Uncorrected errors is what the TiVo uses to measures signal errors that cause digital pixelization and audio dropouts. The DVR Diagnostics screen shows the error counts for the currently tuned channels. This error count is reset when you change channels; it is also reset when a recording begins / ends.

If you see a massive number of RS Uncorrected errors on a channel with pixelization, that tells you that a signal issue is the cause (i.e. your signal is too strong or too weak). It is possible for a signal to be too strong or too weak on a certain part of the cable spectrum, thereby affecting only a small subset of your channels. In that case, you would typically apply a small amount of attenuation (such as a -3dB attenuator) if your signal is too strong, or small amount of amplification if your signal is too weak.

As for why a signal issue might arise when everything was fine before...Cable companies do regular maintenance and infrastructure work. Many members have seen their cable signal level jump significantly when the cable company did some work near their home. In some cases, an attenuator was required to reduce the signal level, because the cable co upgrade produced a signal that was too strong for the TiVo.

If you see pixelization on a channel without any RS Uncorrected errors, then that usually means that your internal or external drive is failing.

[srothkin]

I tried going to DVR diagnostics while I had Verizon FIOS tech support on the phone. It displayed a please wait screen for a good 10 minutes before I finally unplugged the unit to reboot it.

I then went to the channel signal strength meter screen. The 2 channels (505-Fox and 507-ABC) that had problems with recordings last week both showed signal fluctuating between 88 and 99 but mostly being around 96.

We almost NEVER watch TV live and usually don't get to watch our shows until the weekend, so I really haven't been able to check things like signal strength during problems.

[bkdtv]

If you have FiOS, then it is almost certainly a "hot" signal issue. I would suggest -10dB attenuator. Order one from Smarthome.com from $1.99 (plus outrageous shipping), or request that FiOS add one during a service call. The attenuator simply screws onto the end of the cable.

If you opt to order from Smarthome, I would get a -6dB too just in case -10dB is too much.

[TiVoJerry]

Our online article (http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/technicalsupport/compatibilityhelp/DVR_Expander_Troubleshooting_Generic.html#general)for Expander Troubleshooting includes instructions for accessing Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics that could prove very helpful even if you aren't using an expander.

If you do need to replace the drive, the only way I know of to save programs is to transfer them to another DVR or your PC using TiVo Desktop.

[Jonathan_S]

If I decide to replace the drive, what specific specs do I need to look for in a hard drive to ensure it will work well with the Tivo?

How do I go about transferring the contents of the existing drive to a new drive (so I get the Tivo software and my recorded programs copied over)? Can I buy a bigger drive and copy the stuff over and not lose the recorded programs I haven't watched yet? And if so, what is the biggest drive that Tivo will support?

I am comfortable opening the unit and taking the hard drive to a PC for the cloning (if it is SATA I'll need to get a SATA interface since all of my PCs are IDE).

ThanksIt is a SATA drive.

1TB is about as big as is practical to put in a TiVo (beyond that and you start having to do special hacks to support the extra size). The Western Digital WD10EVCS drive is widely recommended here as an upgrade drive. (I just installed one myself into my TiVo HD).

If your old drive isn't totaly shot, and it doesn't sound like it is, the WinMFS tool (http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/) will let you copy your existing drive (including all settings and recordings) to a new drive.


You might want to check out the Upgrade Forum (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=25) here. It's basically dedicated to replacing or adding drives to TiVos.

[srothkin]

Thank you to everyone that helped. The problem seems to have been resolved now. Here's what I found/did:

Firstly, on the chance that the drive was bad/going bad, I bought the recommended WD10EVCS and a couple of SATA to USB enclosures and used WinMFS to copy everything to the new drive (and get an extra 250GB of space in the process). The drive was old enough and the price for the upgrade was low enough that it was worth doing even if the old drive wasn't bad yet.

I didn't try the Tivo diagnostics since I didn't have a good evening to pick to run it when something wasn't scheduled to record. So instead I used Seatools to test the old drive after I completed the replacement. Seatools reported error on the old drive, so it was good that I replaced it.

At the same time, I picked up one of the Satellite diplexers recommended in another thread and installed that between the Tivo and the wall just in case there was MOCA interference to filter out.

Unfortunately, I still saw dropouts on the next week's recordings. And I did see a large number on RS uncorrected after leaving the "guilty" channels tuned for a while without recording.

So first I tried the Tivo SMART diagnostics just to verify that the new drive is ok (it is).

Next I tried adding the 10dB attenuator between the diplexer and the Tivo and checked the SNR after that -- still a bit high sometimes, but not dropping below 32. Since doing that I've occasionally seen some small numbers on RS uncorrected, but mostly it stays at 0. But, more importantly, I haven't had pixellation or dropouts for 2 weeks now. Keeping my fingers crossed that hopefully the problem is fully fixed now, but I have the other size filters to try in the assortment.