Series 3 serious error message, due to eSATA upgrade?!?

What happend after the 3 hours?

TGC

 

I have seen that message once or twice before (I also have eSata drive) but it doesn't take anywhere near 3 hours.

 

Standard Tivo GSOD. I wouldn't worry about it, unless it becomes common or doesn't recover.

You probably had a brief power (or signal) interruption on the external drive.

 

It happened to me too - I ended up removing the drive. I've heard you can sometimes solve the problem by getting a better eSATA cable.

 

My wife's S3 had that error several times within 48 hours of adding an external drive. We used an Antec MX-1 and the stock cable. I'd read that the cables are the weak link, so I shut her S3 down safely and re-seated her eSATA cable. Perhaps coincidentally, the problem hasn't returned in over a month.

The actual GSOD diagnostic time has never been a few hours. Ten minutes tops. I did follow the forum's advice and replace the cables with some quality Tripp-Lite cables, but I suspect that wasn't strictly necessary. My own S3, with the same drive, stock cable, and enclosure, never had a GSOD.

Good luck, and don't be too concerned,
-T

 

I've gotten the error twice now. I don't recall the circumstances that led to it the first time, but this time, I got home, turned on the TV with 15 minutes left in the Heroes recording, and hit pause while the TV was warming up so as to not see/hear any spoilers. I saw a commercial paused, so I pressed the TiVo button, and navigated around the now playing list a little. All of a sudden I got a frozen TiVo background, with no menu text. It stayed that way for about a minute, then went to the Heroes episode listings, and I hit Play on the currently-recording ep. Then it showed the program info, and the play bar, and the same TiVo menu background, frozen. I could get the program info to come up and go away, and I could get the play bar to come up and go away, but it wouldn't actually play. Then it rebooted.

I'm so pissed this happened in the middle of Heroes.

BTW, it only took about 10 minutes.

 

I am not aware of any diagnostics other then normal hard drive diagnostics.

However, when the same thing happened with mine, it was just because the hard drive box was moved and the cable moved a little. Once I plugged it firmly in again, the Tivo warning screen went away. So, I would just try that for starters.

 

I had three reboots in a 24 hour period when I first installed my Antec MX-1 with Seagate DB35 (500GB) drive. Disconnected the drive, read up on the eSATA info/thread under the TiVo Series 3 Forum and came to the conclusion that I'd try a cable switch, went with the Siig 1m eSATA II cable and once reinstalled, I've not had one issue. My recommendation is to change the cable, however well you think it might be seated, it is more than likely the cause of your reboots...and you can see the testimonies of people who have replaced their cable in the aforementioned thread. The stock cable out of the Antec box seems to be the culprit in a lot of cases, for whatever reason.

 

You can unplug the Tivo and then swap the cable. Just don't do it while the Tivo is running.

 

Had the same problem when I added an external drive to mine. Got a better eSata cable, and it hasn't occurred again since.

 

I read somewhere that it's a little easier on the TiVo if you restart it, and as the restart begins, pull the power plug. Which makes sense--it has closed down all the read/write files and the 30-minute buffers, shut down the file system, and is only reading in the boot code at that point.

If you're compulsively cautious like me, it can't hurt. But it also works to just pull the TiVo's power at any time. They are robust machines!

-T