jrm01
07-06-2009, 04:31 AM
My S3 (reconditioned replacement) which has an external 1 TB Drive is starting to act flakey. Menus seem to be a little slow, and Sunday right in the middle of my watching the golf tournement it just decided to reboot. Since I have about 65 hours on HD recordings on it that I don't want to lose I decided to take some precautions.
BB had one of the My DVR Expanders (500g) on clearance, so I went in and got it for $50. I decided I would hook it up to my THD in the bedroom and then transfer the 65 hours of recordings to it for backup purposes. After all, the WD directions say it only takes 5 minutes to install this and get it working.
My first attempt resulted in THD not recognizing the Expander after the reboot. The eSATA cable didn't seem to "lock" into the THD, so I decided to reverse the connections and reboot again. This time it seemed to fit a little more snuggly. After reboot (no message) I went to System Info screen to see if it was recognized. Very strange as it had many blank fields on the screen. No Recording Capacity, No Guide dates, Last VCM was December something. I decided to check LiveTV to see if there was a guide. When I pressed LiveTV the TiVo just hung with the Menu Screen background, but no menus. Had to reboot again (third time).
This time when it came up (again no message) I went into settings and checked External Storage. The drive was recognized so I went into the Settings - External Device Menu and said to activate it and TiVo rebooted again (fourth time).
This time after the boot up I got a message when I pressed TiVo that said I had a new external storage drive, and asked if I wanted to set it up. I said yes, and TiVo rebooted again (fifth time). It went thru the boot up screens, but I never got the one saying that the drive was setup. Also, never got an error message.
System Information screen says the Recording Capacity is the same as before. The Drive is recognized as an External Device. When I go to setting menu for External Devices, it says it is there, but needs setup.
I turned everything off and went downstairs to watch some of my 65 hours of recordings. I'll try again today. I guess it could be the cable, but it is strange that the device is recognized, just not setting up.
Just love it when a five minute project turns into two hours of wasted effort.
p.s. - Just noticed on tivo.com Help Forums that someone is having very similar problems trying to divorce the Expander Drive.
p.p.s - I'm still on 11.0c software
BB had one of the My DVR Expanders (500g) on clearance, so I went in and got it for $50. I decided I would hook it up to my THD in the bedroom and then transfer the 65 hours of recordings to it for backup purposes. After all, the WD directions say it only takes 5 minutes to install this and get it working.
My first attempt resulted in THD not recognizing the Expander after the reboot. The eSATA cable didn't seem to "lock" into the THD, so I decided to reverse the connections and reboot again. This time it seemed to fit a little more snuggly. After reboot (no message) I went to System Info screen to see if it was recognized. Very strange as it had many blank fields on the screen. No Recording Capacity, No Guide dates, Last VCM was December something. I decided to check LiveTV to see if there was a guide. When I pressed LiveTV the TiVo just hung with the Menu Screen background, but no menus. Had to reboot again (third time).
This time when it came up (again no message) I went into settings and checked External Storage. The drive was recognized so I went into the Settings - External Device Menu and said to activate it and TiVo rebooted again (fourth time).
This time after the boot up I got a message when I pressed TiVo that said I had a new external storage drive, and asked if I wanted to set it up. I said yes, and TiVo rebooted again (fifth time). It went thru the boot up screens, but I never got the one saying that the drive was setup. Also, never got an error message.
System Information screen says the Recording Capacity is the same as before. The Drive is recognized as an External Device. When I go to setting menu for External Devices, it says it is there, but needs setup.
I turned everything off and went downstairs to watch some of my 65 hours of recordings. I'll try again today. I guess it could be the cable, but it is strange that the device is recognized, just not setting up.
Just love it when a five minute project turns into two hours of wasted effort.
p.s. - Just noticed on tivo.com Help Forums that someone is having very similar problems trying to divorce the Expander Drive.
p.p.s - I'm still on 11.0c software