Bad HD or system board??

1596 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by tsi2quick, Oct 25, 2007

boettcht

Discussion Starter · Oct 15, 2007

Hello All, Just want to pick your brains and confirm my thoughts, I have an S2 (540-) that is starting to have video issues with recorded shows. It started about 3 weeks ago with macro-blocking and sound drop out in the recording and now I'm seeing some show that will be recorded in a frozen state. Ie the show just freezes on the screen for several minutes and then it will start recording again missing the time that it was frozen.

Is this a hard drive starting to go or do I have deeper system board issue?

Thanks for you input.

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GusMan

· #2 · Oct 15, 2007

From what I have read around here in the past, chances are its your HD going bad. (At least it is the most common item to suspect first.)
The good news is that it is easily replaceable and could even be your chance to upgrade for additional storage space.

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boettcht

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 15, 2007

GusMan said:
From what I have read around here in the past, chances are its your HD going bad. (At least it is the most common item to suspect first.)
The good news is that it is easily replaceable and could even be your chance to upgrade for additional storage space.

Thanks, I have done that on several of my Tivos, but just wanted a second opinion on this system before replacing the drive and finding out that it was the system board.

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richsadams

· #4 · Oct 15, 2007

It does sound like a HDD issue. In some cases data corruption may be to blame; possibly bad sectors or a bad read/write head on your hard drive may be the problem. An couple of old standbys might get your HDD back on the road.

You probably already have, but if not, try a hard reboot - unplugging TiVo for ten or 15 seconds and plugging it back in. That may or may not fix things or it may bring up the GSOD (TiVos version of scan disk). If the GSOD appears let TiVo do its work and it will eventually reboot. If you still experience the same issues you might want to force a GSOD by using Kickstart 57.

Kickstart 57:

1. Unplug TiVo and wait 15 seconds.
2. Plug TiVo in, get the TiVo remote and aim it at TiVo.
3. Press and hold the pause button until the yellow/orange light(s)comes back on by itself.
4. Release the pause button and immediately type in the numbers 5 and 7 on the remote (you have about 10 seconds to do this step).
5. TiVo will reboot and the GSOD screen will come on saying TiVo has encountered a serious error. It will then run the disk management tool which can take from 10 minutes to 3 hours to complete. During this time it will look for and correct configuration problems as well as isolating any bad sectors on the hard drive so they can no longer be used.
6. TiVo will automatically reboot again and hopefully things will return to normal. (Programs that used any bad sectors may be lost.)

It's also possible that the new upgrade fouled things up. If so you could try downloading a fresh copy of the software by using "Kickstart 58".

Kickstart 58:

1. Go to TiVo Central
2. Select Messages & Setup
3. Select System Reset
4. Select Restart Receiver
5. Press Thumbs Down three times
6. Press Enter
7. While the system is restarting, during the initial screen, press and hold the PAUSE button until only the yellow/orange light(s) illuminates.
8. As soon as the yellow lights come on, press "5" then "8" on the remote.
9. Put the remote down and wait. The system will proceed to the "Almost There..." screen for a moment and then jump to a new screen, "TiVo is installing new software from the TiVo service".
10. TiVo will reboot and the GSOD screen will come on saying TiVo has encountered a serious error. It will then run the disk management tool which can take from 10 minutes to 3 hours to complete. During this time it will look for and correct configuration problems as well as isolating any bad sectors on the hard drive so they can no longer be used.
6. TiVo will automatically reboot again and hopefully things will return to normal. (Programs that used any bad sectors may be lost.)

If all of that fails, it might indeed be time for a new HDD. Best of luck and let us know how things go.

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boettcht

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 15, 2007

Richsadams thanks! I had done a hard reboot and did not get the GSOD, I'll try out the kickstart 57 & 58. I never knew about those and I've owned a Tivo since 2000! You guys are always a plethora of knowledge!

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ourdoc

· #6 · Oct 16, 2007

Same here and it just fixed my 60 hour S2. Many Mahalos!

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tsi2quick

· #7 · Oct 25, 2007

This fixed my S2, much appreciation!

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