Partial recordings for the last few weeks

[madscientist]

I've been having horrible partial recording problems on my S3 HD TiVo. It is not rebooting; I can be watching other shows and when I come to watch another I see that it only recorded 20-30mins of a 1hr show. I've rebooted it, I've unplugged it and let it sit and then plugged it back in. Tonight was the worst: I was watching American Idol and recording Lost, and after AI was done I realized only the first 30 minutes of Lost had been recorded!! :down::down::down::down: :mad::mad:

The symptoms are: the red record light is still on. If I look at the info screen, it seems correct (for tonight's 2 hour finale of Lost, the info said "1:03 (partial)" and that number went up normally). But if I play, the green bar at the bottom only shows part of the recording (in this case, the first 30 mins). If I FF to where the recording stops, my playback gets very "choppy" and "sticky" (like I press FF or RW, but it doesn't seem to do anything for a while, then it jumps forward or backward). Of course it never goes past the end of the green bar. If I check Live TV on that channel, the channel is completely grey. If I check Live TV on the other tuner for other channels, it's fine (the other tuner wasn't recording at that time). So, I stopped the recording and immediately I could see Live TV for the Lost channel, but of course I had no buffer. As soon as I stopped it, the info for the show said it was only 30mins long, instead of "1:11 (partial)" like it did while I was recording. I restarted the recording and it recorded the rest of the show, but I lost about 45mins of Lost, from the 30min mark on until about the 1:15 mark.

I have seen a number of other shows where the recording stopped early over the last few weeks, although this is the first time I've "caught it in the act". Oddly enough, it seems to happen (so far) only to my hourlong prime-time shows only. My less interesting shows that record at odd times never seem to get shorted.

I had hoped that the power cycle would help but obviously not.

What's my next step? Call TiVo? Is there anything else I can do?

Information:
TiVo S3 HD / software release 11.0c-01-2-652 (lifetime subscription)
External drive WDC WD5000AVJS-63TRA0 / 12.01C01
RCN Cable / one CableCard
All original TiVo equipment; no local hacks. I was given this as a Christmas
present in Dec 2007 to replace my venerable S1, which I bought in Dec 1999 and worked pretty flawlessly for 8 years!

[bkdtv]

You've described the symptoms of a failing external drive. :(

Many here have found they start to experience the same thing 11-16 months after adding the external drive. Remove the external drive and you should find all the issues are gone. In that case, you can either look at a replacement external drive...or follow the instructions in my signature to upgrade the internal drive.

[reneg]

For my Tivo, I don't have an external drive and i had a partial recording problem too. I have not seen a partial recording on my Tivo in the last two month since connecting a UPS to my Tivo.

[RustySTL]

I had the same issue with the release of the 11.0c update, as did many others. Almost everyone, including myself, had to end up disconnecting the DVR Expander. All of the problems stopped at that point.

Before I decided to toss out the DVR expander, I hooked it up to a different TiVo HD and have not had any problems since. Same expander, different TiVo.

Hhere is a thread "Partial recording -- total head-scratcher" that discussed most of the issues we were having.

Just don't assume the DVR Expander is defective just yet.

[dbstarter]

I have a Series 3 HD Tivo and have the same problem. I do not have an expander and I have always been connected to a UPS. Get partial recordings and the problem has become worse with the new software upgrade.

Had the same problem with a previous S3 HD and paid for a replacement from Tivo. Problem has continued.

I do not believe it has ever been caused by a hard disk going bad. Replaced the disk in the previous S3 HD and the problem continued.

The Tivo S3 HD has a major problem and is not worth it as far as I am concerned. It is junk. I am now losing too many series final programs and plan on getting rid of it and would not recommend anyone buying one.

DB