[dowlingg]

I have had my Tivo Premiere 4 for over 7 years now, and I know it's on its final leg. Watching shows would freeze more frequently, and the box would eventually reboot itself. It had gone into a reboot loop for the longest while.

I have now bought a Bolt Vox 1 TB (and moved/swapped the Cablecard to the Bolt). If I do get the Premiere running for more than 5 minutes at a time (reboot process - if it works - takes well over 30 minutes now), it wants to go through the Guided Setup (since the Cablecard is no longer there). It seems it needs to do that for me to get the DVR on the network.

Assuming it is the hard drive, do I have any options to try and save the shows, or am I just SOL at this point?

 

[Pokemon_Dad]

@dowlingg you can try to access it with pytivo Desktop. I believe you'll need to also have the old TiVo Desktop running. That's assuming the Premier will stay up long enough for a download to complete.

If that works, then when you get a Bolt "sidegrade" it to TE3 and so that you can pull those shows onto it from your computer. TE4 no longer allows that.

 

[kpeters59]

You could probably clone the existing drive in a cloning dock and get good results.

-KP

 

[dowlingg]

@dowlingg you can try to access it with pytivo Desktop. I believe you'll need to also have the old TiVo Desktop running. That's assuming the Premier will stay up long enough for a download to complete.

If that works, then when you get a Bolt "sidegrade" it to TE3 and so that you can pull those shows onto it from your computer. TE4 no longer allows that.

I did download pytivo Desktop (and also had the old Tivo Desktop) so - in theory - I could download them to my computer if the DVR stays up long enough.

When you talk about "sidegrade" to TE3, that means wiping out what I already have on the Bolt... right? I already purchased the Bolt and set it up.

 

[dowlingg]

You could probably clone the existing drive in a cloning dock and get good results.

-KP

Are you talking about using ddrescue, or is that something completely different?

 

[kpeters59]

I was talking about using a Cloning Dock, that's why I said cloning dock...for Googling...

-KP

 

[dowlingg]

I was talking about using a Cloning Dock, that's why I said cloning dock...for Googling...

-KP

My bad. I'm looking at the different options now. I know the Tivo has a 500 GB drive. I don't think I have any spare 500 GB drives... but I do have a spare 1 TB. Would that make a difference?

 

[kpeters59]

It would clone and leave half of it unused.

You could probably use one of the available tools to expand it fully.

-KP

 

[Pokemon_Dad]

When you talk about "sidegrade" to TE3, that means wiping out what I already have on the Bolt... right? I already purchased the Bolt and set it up.

Yes, sorry, no way around that. So cloning may be a better way to go, but that may copy over bad data from bad sectors on the other drive. Fingers crossed here.

 

[Pokemon_Dad]

I did download pytivo Desktop (and also had the old Tivo Desktop) so - in theory - I could download them to my computer if the DVR stays up long enough.

When you talk about "sidegrade" to TE3, that means wiping out what I already have on the Bolt... right? I already purchased the Bolt and set it up.

Yes, sorry, no way around that. So cloning may be a better way to go, but that may copy over bad data from bad sectors on the other drive. Fingers crossed here.

Oh, but also: if you don't want to do that to the Bolt, you could use VideoReDo to convert the files to a format any player can use, then you can use Plex to play them on the Bolt using your computer as a server.

 

[kpeters59]

When you talk about "sidegrade" to TE3, that means wiping out what I already have on the Bolt... right? I already purchased the Bolt and set it up.

KMTTG does a pretty decent job of backing up your OnePasses and Channels so that 'rebuilding' on to a 'new' TiVo is pretty painless.

Just download your shows with whatever method you prefer and you lose very little. Except time...

-KP

 

[dowlingg]

I've tried cloning the drive twice to separate 1 TB drives I had lying around. In both cases, it failed somewhere between 50 and 75% complete.

The device also doubles as a storage adapter, so I tried to attach it to my PC. That did not work either. It recognizes there is a drive, but nothing else. I don't know if it is because the Tivo drive is simply not a "Windows drive" or if there's something else. Either way, I think it is pretty much toast.

 

[kpeters59]

If Windows recognizes the Drive, that's all you'll get. The Partition is not a format Windows can recognize.

How are you Cloning?

I was talking about a 2-bay stand-alone Cloning Dock.

-KP

 

[dowlingg]

If Windows recognizes the Drive, that's all you'll get. The Partition is not a format Windows can recognize.

How are you Cloning?

I was talking about a 2-bay stand-alone Cloning Dock.

-KP

Vantec NexStar HDD Duplicator - Model NST-DP100S3

 

[kpeters59]

Oh...if that failed, you're probably stuck chasing down a current Image and creating a new drive.

-KP

 

[dowlingg]

Oh...if that failed, you're probably stuck chasing down a current Image and creating a new drive.

-KP

Since I bought the new Bolt *and* I managed to get the season passes copied over, I think we'll be spending plenty of time on Hulu or the networks' websites catching up on the unwatched episodes. I was at least able to jot down which shows' episodes we had not watched.

I do appreciate your & Pokemon_Dad's help for this. I figured it was an extreme long shot to begin with. I just have to remember that "7 years" seems to be the magic number for proactively getting these devices replaced... at least for my household anyway. (I have had one Tivo pass away right at the 7 year mark.)

 

[Pokemon_Dad]

Thanks @dowlingg, sorry we couldn't help more. And that's a good attitude: I've retired even the best TiVo boxes here within no more than seven years. Consumer electronics products are seldom made to last more than five, especially products that are always on. Seven years means we won a Bonus Round.