Bad hard drive? Need an image? Try this . . .

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Having problems with your TiVo? Is it experiencing any of the following problems?

• St-st-studering
• Slow or unresponsive
• Stuck on "Welcome Powering Up" screen
• GSOD (Green Screen of Death or Grey Screen of Death)
• Image pixelation
• General funkiness

Then it is very likely a bad hard drive. The best way to fix it is to go find that image that you made of the hard drive when it was young and healthy and restore it to a fresh new hard drive (preferably bigger than the one that is failing )

If you don't have an image of your hard drive (tisk, tisk, if you're reading these boards, then you've been warned), then you are limited to one of the following options:
1) Beg others to break the law and send you an image for your model or to send you a link where you can illegally download one (not the best option for obvious reasons and not exactly supported on this board)
2) Try a third-party solution like InstantCake which will allow you to build an image that will work for your model that you can load to a fresh hard drive. It's not free, but it's legal.
3) Try to rescue your failing hard drive using SpinRite. Again, it's not free, but it's also legal, AND it allows you to save all of your settings, Season Passes, account info, and recorded programs because it gives your failing hard drive a new lease on life. Comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee in case your hard drive is not the culprit. Also, this allows you to get a copy of your own image from your hard drive using any of the guides freely available (just Google Hinsdale or Steve Jenkins).

Personally, I opted for the 3rd option when my TiVo started studdering. It worked like magic. Then I immediately made an image of my Tivo drive and put it aside for safe keeping. That was about 6 months ago, and my old hard drive is still purring along like new. I was (and still am) amazed!

The point here is that your options are often numerous and sometimes better than snooping around on the "dark side".

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Gabe out