[dianebrat]

A used Roamio Pro with Lifetime from ebay for under $250 is the best alternative if you don't want to fix the Bolt.
$50 a year for 5 years

It's also possible the Bolt issue is a power supply.

 

[dianebrat]

If I buy a used Bolt off of e bay will the HHD from that work in my Bolt with out having to do anything else to it?

In general, yes.

 

[dianebrat]

IMHO I trust Weakness more than a seller on eBay.

TiVo Bolt VOX 500GB No TiVo Fees - "All-In" Service Included ($549 Value) | 4 Tuner | For Cable or Antenna (Renewed)

$299.99

I trust a Roamio a lot more than a Bolt...
and eBay has done a lot of work becoming more buyer focused, my recommendation stands.

 

[dianebrat]

My Bolt was 6 years old and had already been fixed by Tivo once. So I decided to buy a new Edge and then go back and replace the HHD in the Bolt. Not sure why the HHD's are so expensive. Weeknees wants $150 for a replacement. Looks like E bay will be where I get a replacement. Will a Tivo only take a certain brand or type of HHD?

There are HDDs that will work in a bolt for $70 as long as 1TB is ok, any one of the bazillion Bolt HDD threads should get you what you need.

 

[dianebrat]

What's the deal with the software on the drive? On Bolt, with a compatible blank drive, once you boot with it, the software is (AFAIK) downloaded and installed onto the drive. I've done this w/the replacement 2.5" spinning drives I bought, partly to test them out and one I'm using.

I have the same issue with that being discussed, the software on the drive means nothing in a Roamio or above, just put the right flavor blank drive in the unit, and like magic the OS gets installed from the flash memory, there's no reason to go to weaknees for a basic Roamio or Bolt drive replacement.

 

[dianebrat]

I pulled the HHD out of the Bolt and connected to my PC by way of an USB adapter. I was able to see it and format it and copy files to and from it. Looks like it isn't the
HHD. However, as you can see, I can not make it one disk. E drive has 746 g of unallotted disk space and everything is greyed out to make it all one. Not sure if that is a failure or not.


View attachment 71996

Unfortunately by letting Windows add a signature and making it have a drive letter anything on it is now gone.
What you want to do is run the drive manufacturers diagnostics against the drive and do a "long test" that's the way you can tell if it's good or not.
You will need to delete all the partitions off the drive if if tests good and you decide to put it back in a Tivo

 

[dianebrat]

I was able to regain the whole 3 TB by changing it from MBR to GPT. Ran HHD test and drive is healthy. So it looks like the four flashing lights is not a bad HHD. It took awhile. I haven't used command prompt to work on a HHD in a long time. I decided a few days ago to just bite the bullet and order a new Edge. It arrived on Sat and is up and running. I just hate the TE 4 software having used TE3 for the past 5 years. Not sure what to do with the bolt that has life time. Same as the Tivo HD with life time that is stting on a shelf.

Did you replace the power supply? that is one of the standard Bolt troubleshooting steps for 4 flashing lights, it's usually power supply or HDD.
While the HDD you took out of the Bolt is fine and has now passed the tests, the way you tested it wiped all the programs on it.
There's a good possibility that replacing the power supply on the Bolt will resurrect it now that you know the drive is ok.

This is why just doing random shotgun troubleshooting isn't always the best way, if it is the PS and you had not wiped the drive in by letting windows write to it, you might have saved all your recordings.
Unfortunately the Edge is IMNSHO not an upgrade as you're now finding out

 

[dianebrat]

We only had a couple of programs that we never deleted from the Bolt HHD, since we used it mainly for time shifting. So losing them wasn't any big deal. Not sure what I am going to do with the Bolt and the Tivo HD. Both have lifetime.

Much better than " my programs! MY PRECIOUS!"