[RepairDad]

Hi all,

A month or so ago I decided to increase the recording cpacity of my TiVo Series 2 (TCD240080) box. I already added a second 120GB drive a year or more ago but I'm suffering from "TiVo full" erros constantly (I'm a packrat, okay?).

So I decided to upgrade the 120GB drive to 250GB. I put the A and B drives in a spare PC and ran msftools. I got an error stating the A drive could't be read. After a few failed attempts I decided to put everything back together. Now TiVo fails to boot. It gets to the "almost there" screen then I get a green screen saying there is a major problem, please wait up to 3 hours. Then it reboots, almost immediately, and starts the process over again -- ad infinitem. :down:
Next, I decided to restore my old backup ('cause I can't make a new one since I can't read the A drive) from a year or so ago, and mfstools says it's invalid.
I decided next to just put in my OLD A drive that I stored away, and at least have 80 hours again. TiVo trys to boot and just hangs forever.

So, NOW WHAT? I've been without TiVo for nearly a month and can't figure out what to do. I MISS MY TIVO!

Any and all suggestions will be graciously accepted!!!!!

~Rick

 

[HomeUser]

Just the oblatory Check the Primary, Secondary jumper settings ( maybe the A and B drives are set reversed)

 

[RepairDad]

The drives are both set to CS. ANd I put them back into the TiVo in the same location, on the same cable connector, as before. Maybe I'll manually set Master/Slave and see if that helps?

~Rick

 

[funtoupgrade]

Not sure, but I don't think the backup/restore process will work with CS. Try setting master/slave as you suggest and see what kind of progress you can make.

 

[captain_video]

Many PCs won't recognize the drives correctly if the jumpers are set to Cable Select. You should always set them to Master, Slave, or Master with Slave attached, depending on the type of drive you have. The same goes for using dual drives in a Tivo. A single drive can be set to CS since that's the default setting for all Tivo single drive setups but you're better off specifying which drive is master and which is slave so you know which is which if you ever have to pull them from the Tivo. It doesn't hurt to label them as "A" or "B" either.

Your boot problem may be due to a bad cable or cable connection. Check all cable connections including the ribbon cable that connects to the front panel and the one between the power supply and mainboard. I'm not familar with the architecture of the original S2 SA Tivos but I believe they're similar to the S1 DTivos. The ribbon cable between the power supply and mainboard was notorious for causing all sorts of boot problems in those units. If you have this cable then try removing it and cleaning the contacts with a pencil erasor. Flip it end for end and reinstall it. You may have to do this several times before it seats properly.