[ciper]

It could be something else but my first guess would be a failing drive. You should find your current and old copy of the kernel log and save them to your PC. Search through them for the messages that would indicate its having trouble reading a certain spot. Here is a portion of my logs from an S1 that had a dying hard drive

Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: Stopping immediate on Ide
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: IDE: tivo DMA engine aborted
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hda: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hda: irq timeout: error=0xd0 { BadSector UncorrectableError SectorIdNotFound }, secCnt=208, LBAsect=13684944
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hda: disabled DMA
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hda: ide-tivo re-enabled DMA
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hdb: disabled DMA
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: hdb: ide-tivo re-enabled DMA
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: cachecard: readsectors returned 0 instead of 65536!
Jul 14 01:20:59 (none) kernel: ide0: reset: success

 

[ciper]

would that be something that I can access via telnet or do I need to pull the HDD from the unit and hook it up in my desktop PC and use the boot disc?

Also - if it is telnet, which directory would the kernel log exist? and would it be kernel.log? Is there an easy way to do a file system search?

You can view the logs from Telnet, Serial, Ftp, TivoWebPlus or by connecting the drive to the PC.

The entries I posted were from /var/log/kernel AND /var/log/Okernel (Okernel is the old copy)

If you plan to view them directly on the tivo with the Joe editor you can do a find by hitting "CTRL-K F" then typing "ide" and pressing enter and finally "CTRL-C" to cancel. Now you can continue to hit "CTRL-L" to keep finding the next entry.