S2 Stuttering & Pixelating / Help interpretting HD test results please

[robertnsmith]

Hi,

I have a Standalone S2 (SW vers 9.3.2b) that recently has been having video stutter & pixelation issues. I can watch the analog cable feed through my PIP on the TV at the same time and see that it is fine while the feed coming through the Tivo gets behind, stuck, pixelates/macroblocks, etc. I ran the kickstart 54 HDD test with the following results:

Sequential read test - FAILED, I/O error reading from disk
Read after random seek - PASSED
Random seek & read - PASSED
Seek vs. distance - PASSED
Long test sequence - PASSED
Quick test sequence - PASSED
S.M.A.R.T. tests
Short self test - FAILED, Identity failed
Conveyance test - FAILED, unable to read S.M.A.R.T. values
Extended test - FAILED, unable to read S.M.A.R.T. values

Are the above results clearly indicative of an impending HDD problem/failure... or do I need to take out the drive and run the full diagnostics on the drive to be sure? Or am I missing something and there's another issue?

Thanks so much,

Bob

[ggieseke]

That drive has one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. Failure of all the S.M.A.R.T. tests is particularly ominous. I would salvage as much as you can by copying shows to your computer and replace it ASAP. If there are only a few badspots you might get some joy by running the manufacturer's full diags, but in my experience it will probably just develop more.

[JYoung]

Agreed, the hard drive is toast.

I had this same issue with my Series 2 last year.
I swapped out the hard drive.