Another 4TB Drive Bites The Dust

Well that sucks!!

 

something similar happened to me when I unplugged everything (including my bolt) and went to Europe for 2 weeks. when I came back the bolt immediately started flashing after its first plug in. what I found works best is that you let it flash for 15+ minutes then pull the power plug and immediately plug it back it....that fixes it every time for me

this morning was no exception. my bolt started flashing overnight at some point and had probably been flashing for hours before I saw it...unplugged it and immediately plugged it back in....rebooted just fine

 

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But is shouldn't be flashing at all. Although I keep my TiVos running 24/7/365. I don't disconnect power from them unless it's a last resort and I need to move them for some reason.

 

yes I know, but its what fixes it for me and no one has been able to determine a 100% fix for the issue.....just wanted to help a fellow tivo'er and let others know what has work for me since this seems to be a common problem for most that swapped drives with a 4tb Seagate drive

 

@Mathelo can you post your drive's model number and are you able to get the firimware version of it? You may need to remove it from your TiVo to get this information and plug it into a PC and use Seagate Tools. Long story short, if you have 0004 firmware, you'll probably continually get the 4 flashing lights problem. If it's 0001 like aaronwt's is, then it shouldn't happen, as far as we all know. If you do in fact have 0001, please let us know. A few of us are starting to believe that a firmware upgrade has enabled features of this drive which are catastrophic in a TiVo environment. Maybe even the build date is enough information.

Did you try plugging your TiVo back into the original location just to see if it'll work again? I remember having some funky problem with one of my Minis where I might get some error if I had it on a certain shelf but not another, maybe some sort of interference issue. I could only assume that any TiVo device with wireless capabilities would act similar.

 

I know this is not your problem, but I had to unplug my Bolt for a couple seconds and when I plugged it back in I could not get a picture. I finally called TiVo support and they had me unplug it and my TV and then it worked. Seems some problems with the Bolt as the tech knew exactly what to do.

 

Step one when calling tech support for consumer devices...unplug everything, wait several seconds, plug everything back in...It works? great problem solved, have a good day!

-TL

 

Did you try the original drive to see if it works? If that is working then it must be something on the 4TB drive.

One last-ditch thing to try before tossing the drive would be to use the Seagate Tools "Instant Secure Erase" (if supported by the drive), or "Overwrite Erase" and then re-install it in the Bolt as if it was brand-new. See the documentation >here<

 

MIght have something to do with the size of the drive. I remember you needed to do some special formatting to use a larger drive in a Tivo. Forgot the specifics like the size of the drive and whether that was Bolt or Roamio.

 

The Bolt will automatically format a 3TB and lower drive size.

 

Yep I read that, but I still figure the size of the drive could be related to the issue you're having.

Another poster in this thread says he had same problem with a 4 tb drive. He also said it was Seagate brand.

And while you said it was working for a year, the Bolt has received at least a few updates during that time. The software hasn't stayed static.