6.3e software or bad hard drive?

Since you are not getting a complete boot it does sound like the drive. But since your copy of the OS is no longer able to be pulled of the current drive, you will need to purchase a copy of InstantCake to make the new drive. You may consider re-imaging the current drive just to see if it is bad. If it is, it will continue to reboot with the new image or likely it will not take the image at all. Then you have confirmed that the drive was in fact bad and it cost you an hour and $20.

Or you may want to look at this is a wonderful opportunity to upgrade to more capacity and not worry about the current drive. I wouldn't trash it though, you probably can put it into your computer. Windows can mark the bad sectors for non-use while the TiVo can't...

good luck,
mark

Sorry, I'm on a Mac, so I assume I'd have to buy an upgrade/replacement drive kit rather than mess with the drive directly. Just don't want to rush to buy a new drive if it sounds like a software issue.

Not if you have an Intel Mac

wedgecon said:

Not if you have an Intel Mac

Click to expand...

No, sorry to say I don't.

I forgot to ask -- how does one tell the difference between a power supply failure and a hard drive failure? Hate to buy one and really need the other.

jca said:

No, sorry to say I don't.

I forgot to ask -- how does one tell the difference between a power supply failure and a hard drive failure? Hate to buy one and really need the other.

Click to expand...

Sometimes you can't tell the difference. But start by replacing the hard drive since it's much more likely to fail than the power supply.

wedgecon said:

Not if you have an Intel Mac

Click to expand...

I have a dual core 17" iMac. How do you connect the hard drive? Some kind of hard drive to Firewire or USB2.0 adapter?

Have two virtually new Seagate DB35s with 6.3e that I would love to regress to 6.2a. They worked fine with 6.2a and went to hell in a handbasket with 6.3e.

You can try a USB to IDE adaptor, not sure if they work in Linux.

wedgecon said:

You can try a USB to IDE adaptor, not sure if they work in Linux.

Click to expand...

Macs are not running Linux.

wedgecon said:

Not if you have an Intel Mac

Click to expand...

I found detailed, if, perhaps, too-complicated-for-me-instructions. But no source for MFS tools for Macs. Which is required! http://mfstools.sourceforge.net/
Along with InstaCake.

I'm a Mac user. I upgrade my TiVos using a pile o' crap Gateway 2000 Pentium 200mhz box I got for free. You don't need high-end hardware to copy hard drives.

Arcady said:

I'm a Mac user. I upgrade my TiVos using a pile o' crap Gateway 2000 Pentium 200mhz box I got for free. You don't need high-end hardware to copy hard drives.

Click to expand...

I don't need to copy hard drives. I want to revert to 6.2a.
If the hardware requires Windows in any of its incarnations, I won't touch it. DR-DOS 6.2, if I remember correctly, would be fine. No Windows! I lived through 1.x through 3.1 and have followed the blue-screen-of-death for 12 or 15 years. No thanks. I would rather buy two new hard drives with 6.2a on them than screw around with Windows.

Just found this:
http://www.dvrplayground.com/article/10140/InstantCake-Instructions-and-Release-Notes/
Step 2: Configure your PC's system BIOS so that you can boot from CD-ROM, and ensure your CD-ROM is installed as the primary slave on your PC.

No interest in BIOS. Been there done that.

My R10 Tivo has been rebooting every day at 5:30 pm MDT... This all started since 6.3...

So just to update this thread. I purchased a replacement Tivo drive and the unit seems to be working again.

However, the unit hasn't yet updated it's software from the drive's 3.x software to 6.3e, so we'll see what that does. Wonder if the "6.3e software can expose/write to bad sectors on hard drives" theory will come into play?