tivo gets stuck on power up

Force a filesystem check & fix:

Hold down pause when starting the tivo until the record light changes to yellow
then type 57 or 58

You will then see a green screen for up to 40 minutes as tivo tries to fix itself.

 

It could be bad enough that the system isn't even reading the drive. When I accidentally left my hard drive power connectors unplugged it did this. It also did this when I made a bad edit to the fstab.

If Mikerr's suggestion doesnt work I suggest connecting the drive to your computer and reading the kernel log on partition 9.

 

Its seeing at least the A drive, as no drive = no screen.
The welcome screen is on the disk.

 

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Not true. The "Powering up..." message is shown by the TiVo's rudimentary BIOS when it detects a drive (any drive) in the system.

However, if you are getting the green-orange-green change in the LED then it is at least reading the start of the rc.sysinit file, but isn't for some reason getting to the part where BIOS message is replaced by "Almost there...." (which is read from the drive).

I would concur with the suggestion to try the kickstart sequences, but if they don't have any effect then you might want to pop the lid and check the IDE connection to the B drive. However, the most likely cause IMHO would be some corruption on the A drive that's hanging rc.sysinit, so you will probably need to re-image and possibly also replace the drive.

 

You are thinking of the "almost there a few more minutes" screen. Disconnect the IDE connector from your drive(s) and see what happens. Even better if you connect a serial cable because you can watch all the initial startup items go by that aren't even related to the disk. The powering up screen is like the bios setup splash screen on your computer.

I promise you I tested this at least 20 times when my FSTAB edits went bad.

 

On my recommendations, a friend picked up a TiVo from FleaBay.

It's arrived, but stuck on 'Powering up'. I've tried the 'pause on startup', but the light doesn't turn yellow (it stays green). I suspect a drive failure (hey - it's the first thing to go wrong!).

Before I pull drives, spend ages reimaging, etc: am I on the right lines or is TiVo likely dead? Drive spins up and makes the right seek noises, but then silence. I'm concerned that I can't force a GSOD.

[EDIT] I suppose what I'm asking is that if TiVo is really dead, would you get to 'Powering Up'?

Steve - any advice appreciated.

 

Even a totally black screen doesn't mean it's dead - could just be that the drive is disconnected/missing/dead.

If it hangs at "powering up" then the boot sector on the drive might be trashed - try MakeTiVoBootable - other than that I would certainly try a different drive (eg. from your TiVo) and maybe even a new PSU before writing it off.

 

Snap! I bought one on ebay and it didn't power up. No picture on UHF or SCART.
Opened box and the IDE cable was completely unplugged from the motherboard.
I had a similar thing happen to a sat recvr a while ago as well.
Maybe the delivery guys play football with them.

Hardest part was getting the case open.
If you do try it in a PC make sure you don't connect it and then boot into
Windows - it can corrupt the Tivo system files.

HTH

 

OK - I now have the hard disk from friends TiVo so that I can try to repair it by using my TiVo.

My first problem is how to stop the mothership from retrograding the drive to 2.5.5 (I'm flagged as 2.5.5a, but he isn't).

Research has shown /SwSystem/ACTIVE is the place to be, but I can't find what the values should be for 2.5.5 - only 2.5.5a (i.e. pretend that the machine has been upgraded).

Can anyone help? To be clear: I have a TiVo 2.5.5a image that I'm using and I want it to pretend to be a 2.5.5 version to the TiVo mothership when the daily call happens.

 

Why not just obtain a clean 2.5.5 image? (check your PMs)

Either that or get him to ring TiVo CS and request an 'upgrade' to 2.5.5a - unless he uses recorded teletext (who does?) he won't notice the difference anyway!

Trying to alter a 2.5.5a image to make it look like a 2.5.5 one is more complicated than going the other way once a daily call has occurred as stuff gets added to the database as well as the version file.

 

I am having same problem. I have done the pause button and pressed 58, now it displays,

'Installing new software from the tivo service, This will take a few minutes'.

This has been on screen for over 30 minutes, is this normal?

Thanks Bob

 

Yes, it could take up to a couple of hours.

 

Hi nearly 6 hours later and it still has not changed. Is the Hard Drive knackered?

Thanks, Bob

 

Hi Bob,

Unfortunately, probably yes. If your TiVo was stuck at "powering up..." before and the GSOD doesn't complete then the chances are the drive is so seriously corrupted it won't be able to recover.

Luckily, replacement drives are relatively easy to configure yourself if you are into DIY, or are available pre-configured (although forum rules prevent me mentioning my favourite supplier ) if you're not.