I've had some true wierdness with my Tivo over the past month. And, just when I thought I had it all solved, it comes back again.
The brief rundown:
I have a Sony SAT-T60. About 4 or 5 months ago I upgraded it and put 160GB and 200GB Maxtor drives in, moving from a single drive configuration to a dual drive one.
Everything had worked fine until, about a month ago, I lost the green background on my Now Playing list. (I don't recall if other backgrounds were affected.)
Within a couple days, another problem had developed. I would select to play a program. Immediately, the screen would come up asking whether or not I wanted to delete the program, as if the program had just ended. When I went back to look at the program, it would indicate that there was a partial recording (i.e. 44mins of a 1 hour show). So it did record something, but when I try to play it, it simply asked if I want to save or delete the program. Not all programs would exhibit this behavior, just some.
I then encountered a followup issue. When I would select to not delete the program (the one that wouldn't even play as mentioned above), I would get the following error message:"Error playing a recording. The recorder was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may have been trying to record on a channel that you don't recieve." Well, I do get the channel. I can view it right now.
The next problem became much more severe. Within a couple days of the afforementioned behavior, another problem occurred. I would be watching a recorded program and the show would freeze in the middle of playing. Then, after 3-5 seconds, the Tivo would shut off. I would turn it back on and it would go through the "Welcome" and "Almost there" screens. Then it would reacquire the satellite signal, finally going back to live programming. This was repeatable behavior as I could watch the same program and it would freeze at the same position on the recording and go through the whole bootup sequence. If I skipped past that part of the program, I could continue to watch the program to its end. Not all programs did this, just an occasional one.
Finally, the last straw. I turned it on one morning to find a grey screen saying "CANNOT BOOT KERNEL". The only thing I could do was unplug/replug. This did not help. I used Maxtor's Bootdisk to test the drives and no problems were found. (incidentally, those two drives are now running without a hitch in my Windows computer).
To solve the problem, I reinstalled my original 40GB Tivo drive that I had kept as a backup. Once successfully installed, all afforementioned problems went away. My Tivo ran without a hitch with that drive for 3 weeks.
Then I took the plunge. I took 2 different drives, both Maxtor 160GB drives, and went through the upgrade process again. These drives were in my Tivo for less than a week when the same sequence of events began to happen: first the loss of the green background, then oddly premature ends to programs, and finally programs freezing and the Tivo rebooting. The only thing that has not happened this time that happened before is the "CANNOT BOOT KERNEL" error, which I fully expect to happen in the next couple days.
Calgon take me away!
Anyone seen this sequence of events, or something similar? Is it a weakness in Maxtor Drives? Is the 137GB barrier interfering in some way? Am I doing something wrong? Does someone have a voodoo doll of my Tivo?
Help!
Darrin
The brief rundown:
I have a Sony SAT-T60. About 4 or 5 months ago I upgraded it and put 160GB and 200GB Maxtor drives in, moving from a single drive configuration to a dual drive one.
Everything had worked fine until, about a month ago, I lost the green background on my Now Playing list. (I don't recall if other backgrounds were affected.)
Within a couple days, another problem had developed. I would select to play a program. Immediately, the screen would come up asking whether or not I wanted to delete the program, as if the program had just ended. When I went back to look at the program, it would indicate that there was a partial recording (i.e. 44mins of a 1 hour show). So it did record something, but when I try to play it, it simply asked if I want to save or delete the program. Not all programs would exhibit this behavior, just some.
I then encountered a followup issue. When I would select to not delete the program (the one that wouldn't even play as mentioned above), I would get the following error message:"Error playing a recording. The recorder was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may have been trying to record on a channel that you don't recieve." Well, I do get the channel. I can view it right now.
The next problem became much more severe. Within a couple days of the afforementioned behavior, another problem occurred. I would be watching a recorded program and the show would freeze in the middle of playing. Then, after 3-5 seconds, the Tivo would shut off. I would turn it back on and it would go through the "Welcome" and "Almost there" screens. Then it would reacquire the satellite signal, finally going back to live programming. This was repeatable behavior as I could watch the same program and it would freeze at the same position on the recording and go through the whole bootup sequence. If I skipped past that part of the program, I could continue to watch the program to its end. Not all programs did this, just an occasional one.
Finally, the last straw. I turned it on one morning to find a grey screen saying "CANNOT BOOT KERNEL". The only thing I could do was unplug/replug. This did not help. I used Maxtor's Bootdisk to test the drives and no problems were found. (incidentally, those two drives are now running without a hitch in my Windows computer).
To solve the problem, I reinstalled my original 40GB Tivo drive that I had kept as a backup. Once successfully installed, all afforementioned problems went away. My Tivo ran without a hitch with that drive for 3 weeks.
Then I took the plunge. I took 2 different drives, both Maxtor 160GB drives, and went through the upgrade process again. These drives were in my Tivo for less than a week when the same sequence of events began to happen: first the loss of the green background, then oddly premature ends to programs, and finally programs freezing and the Tivo rebooting. The only thing that has not happened this time that happened before is the "CANNOT BOOT KERNEL" error, which I fully expect to happen in the next couple days.
Calgon take me away!
Anyone seen this sequence of events, or something similar? Is it a weakness in Maxtor Drives? Is the 137GB barrier interfering in some way? Am I doing something wrong? Does someone have a voodoo doll of my Tivo?
Help!
Darrin
