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Any suggestion to resuscitate my ancient TiVO

Discussion in 'TiVo Help Center' started by noviceuser, Aug 20, 2007.

  1. Aug 20, 2007 #1 of 9
    noviceuser

    noviceuser New Member

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    Aug 17, 2007
    I bought my Sony TiVO in 12/2001 SVR 2000. It had been working without any problem until a few weeks ago when the screen froze and was not responding to any signal from the remote control. I turned the power off and tried to reboot. Unfortunately, it did not retoot itself and the hard disk made a strange noise when I tried to reboot. I think the hard disk failed. I guess I should feel lucky that it lasted this long. A Sony Customer Service representative told me that I had to ship it back to somewhere in Penn to get it repaired and the approximate cost of out-of-warranty repair will be about $160. The only benefit for repairing it even for $160 would be that I could get to keep the life-time service feature, i.e., no monthly fee. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I should do? We still have an analog. old-fashion CRT TV at home and do not need a fancy HD TiVO. I was thinking of buying the least expensive new TiVO, which I found on the web for $150 which includes one year free service. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what would be my best course of action? Does anyone know a shop in the SF Bay Area (where I live) who can fix my TiVO?

    Thank you for your assistance.

    Noviceuser
     
  2. Aug 20, 2007 #2 of 9
    jlb

    jlb Go Pats!

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    Dec 13, 2001
    Burlington, VT
    That being said, since you have lifetime on it, and you purchased it when you did, I think you are grandfathered into being able to transfer the LT service to ANY TiVo. If I were you, I would consider transferring to the HDTiVo. Not the S3 TiVo which costs $599ish, but the new lower priced HD TiVo (a slightly pared down S3) for $299ish.

    You might as well go that route and be somewhat future proofed from a TiVo perspective. As an alternative, you probably could get a good deal of $ on Ebay for it as a result of its status.
     
  3. Aug 20, 2007 #3 of 9
    robomeister

    robomeister DVD TiVo Expert

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    Feb 4, 2005
    Beltsville, MD
    Well, it depends on your willingness to tinker. :)

    You could:

    1. Buy a preconfigured drive from one of the forum's sponsors (weaknees, DVRUpgrade, etc.). Then you would open up your Sony, put in the new drive, close it back up, and fire it back up.

    2. Buy a blank hard drive (any size will do) and get a copy of Instant Cake from DVRUpgrade. Be sure to get the right version specific to your TiVo, as there are many to choose from. Then you would "bake" the blank hard drive in a old PC, open up your Sony, replace the bad drive with the new drive, seal and enjoy. "Baking" requires some PC knowledge. You'll have to open up your PC, connect the blank drive to the IDE cable (after disconnecting the existing drive), boot up the PC with the Instant Cake CD and follow the directions from the web site. Instant Cake will cost you about $20.

    3. Attempt to find a good disc image on the internet for your TiVo and getting one of the available tools to copy the disc image to a new blank drive. I've used both the weaknees boot CD and the mfslive.org boot CD with great success. mfslive.org has the newest tools that have eliminated many of the old bugs, and the web site has a handy command line generator. But on all of my upgrades, I had a working hard drive from my TiVo to work with. You have a bad drive, so getting the image from the bad drive is not a good idea. Also, finding a disc image on the internet is almost impossible.

    4. Find a local TiVo user who is handy at upgrading and let them give it a try. I can't help you there, as I live on the east coast.

    Check out the Upgrade forum on this web site. There are many helpful tips there on upgrading your TiVo.

    Hope that helps,
    robomeister
     
  4. Aug 20, 2007 #4 of 9
    classicsat

    classicsat Astute User

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    Feb 18, 2004
    Ontario Canada.
    No Sonys were sold when the first lifetime offer was sold, so that DVR's Lifetime is not grandfathered.
     
  5. Aug 20, 2007 #5 of 9
    jlb

    jlb Go Pats!

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    Dec 13, 2001
    Burlington, VT
    Ahhh....thanks for correcting me.
     
  6. Aug 20, 2007 #6 of 9
    jbernardis

    jbernardis Active Member

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    Oct 21, 2003
    Princeton NJ
    If you're not much of a tinkerer, I recommend robo's option 1 above. Getting a preconfigured drive from weaknees or dvrupgrade is a VERY easy way to go. Remove the cover, a couple of screws, a couple of cables, and you're ready to go. Couldn't be easier. I've "repaired" my S1, my DSR6000 (twice) and my HR10-250 this way (I went with weaknees).
     
  7. Aug 21, 2007 #7 of 9
    noviceuser

    noviceuser New Member

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    Aug 17, 2007
    Thank you, everyone, for helpful suggestions. Since I am really not much of a tinker, I will try Robo's and Jbernardis's suggestion of buying a preconfigured drive from dvrupgrade. DVRupgrade's website states that using their preconfigured drive will not affect lifetime service. I hope they are right about that :) When I checked weaknees, they do not carry SONY SVR 2000 drive. Thanks again everyone for incredibly helpful suggestions. This forum is really amazing.

    Noviceuser
     
  8. Aug 21, 2007 #8 of 9
    Gregor

    Gregor save the princess save the world TCF Club

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    Feb 18, 2002
    They are correct. The ID for lifetime service is carried on the motherboard, not the drive.
     
  9. Aug 21, 2007 #9 of 9
    mick66

    mick66 Dirty Burger

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    Oct 15, 2004
    The 'verse

    Weaknees does in fact carry hard drives for the Sony svr2000
    http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-sony-svr2000.php

    However, dvrupgrade has much better prices.
     

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