[jaybird13]

I just received my new TiVo (TCD649080) on Tuesday and immediately put a new 500GB drive in (Maxtor DiamondMax 21 STM3500630A). I used the Weeknees CD to copy the drive, which has worked flawlessly for me in several upgrades.

Everything works perfectly except the TiVo has rebooted on 4 separate occasions while I was watching recordings. From what I've read, that is usually the sign of a dying drive. Since my drive is brand new, I'm wondering if I simply have a bad drive, a bad install, or if the TiVo itself is faulty.

I'm not sure if I should first try a:
- Clear and Delete Everything
- Put the stock drive back in and see if the pattern continues
- Redo the drive upgrade
- Send the 500 GB back for a replacement
- Try to send the TiVo itself back

What steps would you guys take?

 

[dean9000]

I like your idea of putting in the stock hd and trying it out for a day or two. If it gives you problems then you have isolated it to either the new hard drive or your image.

Not familar with weaknees but I assume it is like instant cake where it has a specific image for your tivo based on model number.

Did you encounter any bad sector messages when running weaknees? I know you can get a bad drive every now and then but the whole thing seems a little odd... I haven't seen many posts about bad tivo units but I guess that is a possibility as well...

you might try a different imaging solution. I had good luck with the instant cake.... for $20 it's worth it.

If you end up going the drive replacement route I have had good luck with seagate....just bought a 500 gig one and upgraded my series 2. No problems so far.....

 

[jaybird13]

Not familar with weaknees but I assume it is like instant cake where it has a specific image for your tivo based on model number.

Did you encounter any bad sector messages when running weaknees?

The Weaknees CD actually clones your stock drive and expands it to the new drive. I'm not sure if it even checks for bad sectors.

One thing I did differently on this upgrade from past ones is use the command:

mfsrestore -s 250

Instead of my typical:

mfsrestore -s 127

Because I've read to half the size of the drive you're putting in (500 / 2 = 250). Anyone think that may have caused something to go wrong?

Before I came to work today, I started a Clear & Delete Everything on the 500GB drive. I'm going to see if that fixes it tonight. Does anyone know if doing that will fix or ignore bad sectors? Or does it simply erase everything on the drive and if you have a bad OS install, it will still give you problems?

If that fails, I'm not sure what to do next. I've checked into Instant Cake and that sounds SO much easier than the Weaknees method I've been using. But if it's a bad drive or a faulty TiVo, I'm still going to have problems.

 

[HomeUser]

mfsrestore -s 250

Instead of my typical:

mfsrestore -s 127

You have 0 swap space. The max value for the swap partition that works with the Weaknees CD is 127. The good news is for values greater you can fix it with a utility called tpip.

If you happen to start over I suggest you use the MFSLive CD it has fixed a couple of problems that were in MFSTools2 including the problem with large swap partitions.

 

[jaybird13]

You have 0 swap space. The max value for the swap partition that works with the Weaknees CD is 127. The good news is for values greater you can fix it with a utility called tpip.

If you happen to start over I suggest you use the MFSLive CD it has fixed a couple of problems that were in MFSTools2 including the problem with large swap partitions.

Thanks so much for the tip!

Do you think that's the root of all my random restart troubles - or just another problem on top of whatever is going on with the restarts?

 

[HomeUser]

Thanks so much for the tip!

Do you think that's the root of all my random restart troubles - or just another problem on top of whatever is going on with the restarts?

No, Running out of swap can be the cause of lockups and reboots probably not as often as you are seeing them however. The swap partition should be fixed because eventually it will cause an un-recoverable Green Screen of Death.

It would be a really good idea to run the usually free for download hard drive manufactures full diagnostics on the drive just to be sure.

 

[jaybird13]

I decided to pull the drive and run diagnostics on it - everything checked out fine.

I then used MFSLive to (correctly) expand my original drive.

So far, so good. No lockups, freezes or any other problems.

Thanks again for the help HomeUser!

 

[HomeUser]

I decided to pull the drive and run diagnostics on it - everything checked out fine.

I then used MFSLive to (correctly) expand my original drive.

So far, so good. No lockups, freezes or any other problems.

Thanks again for the help HomeUser!

Congratulations, I am waiting for SpinRite to finish checking a Seagate drive before I drop it into the new THD (Amazon.com $249) the first drive a brand new Maxtor failed the diagnostics out of the box. Hopefully the drive will fail seatools with an error code makes warranty replacement easier.