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Frozen, Dead, or Bad Drive .... Thoughts

1192 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Dkerr24, 
O
Hey Guys,

I did a couple of searches but couldn't find an accurate answer. So if this has been covered, please just point me in the right direction without flaming.


I have a Series 1 D TIVO. It was working fine till about 6 weeks ago when I unplugged it to do some painting.

I hooked it back up last night. First it came to "Powering Up" and seemed to hang. I let it sit for an hour but nothing happened.

Today I opened the case and blew out all the dust with compressed air. Now nothing happens when I power it up -- One green light on the front - that responds to pressing any of the front buttons.

However the screen is black. I can hear the drive spinning, but I don't hear the heads moving too much.

I removed the drive and ran the "MakeTivoBootable"

Put the drive back, and still black screen.


Any thoughts.... Did the TIVO die by being unplugged ? Is the drive dead ? Is it just a bad Saturday ?

Thanks,

Dave
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wedgecon
The Tivo did not die simply by being unplugged.

I would check the following before replacing the drive.

1) If you have another receiver I would plug it into the same cables and see if it works.
2) I would remove and reinsert the access card
3) Use the Hard Drive manufacturers utility to check for physical errors on the drive.
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O
Should the TIVO box do anything without a hard drive plugged in ?
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Can anyone tell me what the unit does - if anything - without a hard drive plugged in ?


I would like to know what direction to look in (unit or Hard Drive)


Thanks
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wedgecon
If you still get the powering up, the hard drive is at least partially working. If you do not even get that it may be bad.

I would start with the hard drive first as that is the problem 90+% of the time. I would take it out and run the Hard drive diagnostics on it and if it is good I would use mfstools or instantcake to put a new image on it.
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Dkerr24
o2manyfish said:
Can anyone tell me what the unit does - if anything - without a hard drive plugged in ?

I would like to know what direction to look in (unit or Hard Drive)

Thanks
Click to expand...
I know a series2 unit will still show the powering on screen, but that's it. Don't know about an ancient Series1.
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