/ Register

Premiere XL Series 4 will not boot

Discussion in 'TiVo Premiere DVRs' started by TV Island, Mar 15, 2015.

  1. Mar 15, 2015 #1 of 10
    TV Island

    TV Island New Member

    2
    0
    Mar 15, 2015

    Advertisements

    My Premiere XL Series 4 will not boot.
    It displays the following messages during startup:
    Welcome! Starting up...
    Almost there... Just a few minutes more...

    Previous symptoms were random re-boots, video freezes, video pixellation, sluggish or nonresponsive to the remote and stuttering.

    I suspect a hard drive failure. It currently has a 1TB hard drive. I would like to purchase and install a 2TB hard drive that I spotted on Amazon. It's a Western Digital WD AV-GP 2 TB AV Video Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA II, 64 MB Cache – WD20EURS.

    My Tivo is out of warranty.

    Will this hard drive work in my Tivo? How do I install the Tivo software on the new drive? Where do I obtain the Tivo software?

    Thanks for any help that you can give me.
     
  2. Mar 15, 2015 #2 of 10
    CoxInPHX

    CoxInPHX COX Communications

    2,474
    67
    Jan 14, 2011
    Phoenix, AZ
    The WD20EURX is the most recent version. I doubt you will find a legitimately new WD20EURS, they most likely will be re-certificated drives.

    If you can get a brand new WD20EURS that is fine though.

    ggieseke should have a virgin image, make a few more posts so you can send him a PM.

    You will need to make and use the jmfs Live CD to Copy, Expand, Supersize - in that order, the virgin image to the 2TB HDD.
    The instructions look intimidating but they are pretty easy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2015
  3. Mar 16, 2015 #3 of 10
    ThAbtO

    ThAbtO TiVoholic by the bay TCF Club

    12,463
    1,099
    Apr 6, 2000
    SF Bay Area
    It sounds like it is booting up and is at the "Almost there" screen. Do you realize it takes about 5 minutes for a Tivo to fully boot up, but the Roamio only takes 3 minutes. The other symptoms may be indicating the hard drive, or the power supply.
     
  4. Mar 16, 2015 #4 of 10
    Teeps

    Teeps Well-Known Member

    2,161
    86
    Aug 16, 2001
    Torrance,Cal...
    DvrBars will also work, you just need a clean image.
    So easy, even I could do it!

    http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261
     
  5. Mar 16, 2015 #5 of 10
    MirclMax

    MirclMax Ancient Member

    1,133
    0
    Jul 12, 2000

    Advertisements

    Just wanted to say that I feel your pain. My Premiere died on Saturday ... same thing, stuck at Welcome! message .. no apparent drive activity.

    Right now I'm thinking that the timing may have coincided with the software update .. booting from the new image may have discovered a bad sector or two...

    Anyhow, if you want an easy solution, check out Weaknees.

    Cheapest solution .. buy the same model machine you have off of ebay or craigslist. Put that drive into yours ... clear and delete everything .. and start new again.

    Good luck to you.
     
  6. Mar 16, 2015 #6 of 10
    Arcady

    Arcady Stargate Fan

    3,959
    3
    Oct 14, 2004
    Philadelphia...
    That's not the cheapest solution. The cheapest (and best) solution is to buy a new drive, copy a TiVo image onto it, and put it in your existing TiVo. You can buy a bigger drive than the lame 320 or 500 the basic Premieres came with, or double the space of the XL. A 2TB drive is under $100 on Amazon. A 1TB is around 50 bucks.
     
  7. Mar 16, 2015 #7 of 10
    CoxInPHX

    CoxInPHX COX Communications

    2,474
    67
    Jan 14, 2011
    Phoenix, AZ
    Last time I checked DvrBars did not Expand to a larger HDD.

    You could restore to a 2TB HDD but then would need to use jmfs Live CD to expand.

    Has DvrBARS changed, and now also Expands.
     
  8. Mar 16, 2015 #8 of 10
    Arcady

    Arcady Stargate Fan

    3,959
    3
    Oct 14, 2004
    Philadelphia...
    I tried it out last week. It didn't have an expand or supersize option. I ended up using JMFS instead.
     
  9. Mar 17, 2015 #9 of 10
    TV Island

    TV Island New Member

    2
    0
    Mar 15, 2015
    I decided to purchase and overnight deliver a 2TB hard drive upgrade from weaKnees for $200.

    I could have gone the route of purchasing the drive from Amazon, obtaining and installing the software on the new drive, but the projected learning curve, time sump and unknown SNAFU's would have been to much to risk seeing that I'm under pressure from my TiVo addicted wife to get it fixed in a timely manner.

    Thanks for all the help!
     
  10. Mar 17, 2015 #10 of 10
    unitron

    unitron Well-Known Member

    16,595
    62
    Apr 28, 2006
    semi-coastal NC
    Thanks for helping keep a TCF sponsor in business.
     

Share This Page

spam firewall

Advertisements