Series 2 - Lifetime Stuck on Welcome, Powering up

5759 Views 20 Replies 8 Participants Last post by lrussell, Mar 3, 2012

jpascone

Discussion Starter · Feb 3, 2012

I am BROKE, is there anything I can do, perhaps a drive scan using some sort of remote button configuration before sinking any money in to a fix? Series 2 Lifetime are selling for around $100 these days so it's really not worth any sort of monetary investment. Unit has been upgraded. Forgot what the new configuration was.
Thanks.

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

replaytv

· #2 · Feb 3, 2012

If you have an extra Tivo of the same model you could swap drives after doing a 'clear and delete all' on the donor Tivo before you take it apart. Or can get a fairly cheap 'donor' off of craigslist or eBay, and do the same thing.

I have never done it, but I thought I had read that you can push certain buttons when the Tivo is coming up and make the Tivo go back one version of software. But that would only fix it if the hard drive is OK, but the software is partially broken. Or that is my thinking. But I am not that schooled on all of that.

If it is a dual Tuner lifetime then the going price is over $200 once it is fixed.

lillevig

· #3 · Feb 3, 2012

jpascone said:
I am BROKE, is there anything I can do, perhaps a drive scan using some sort of remote button configuration before sinking any money in to a fix? Series 2 Lifetime are selling for around $100 these days so it's really not worth any sort of monetary investment. Unit has been upgraded. Forgot what the new configuration was.
Thanks.

Maybe this is what you are talking about:

http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-codes.php

That might give you a quick check of the drive but the best way is to pull it, download the manug=facturer test SW and run that. You should also look at the capacitors in the power supply (surf the web for "capacitor disease"). Basically, the capacitors start bulgin on top as they go bad.

jrtroo

· #4 · Feb 3, 2012

Upgraded how? If you installed a larger hard disc, but the original back in - FREE! Just make sure you have a back up image, just in case.

robomeister

· #5 · Feb 4, 2012

A few questions and then an attempt to help.

Do you have any spare IDE hard drives available for testing? Something in the 200GB range or larger would be great. Or you could use the hard drive in the unit now.

What is the model of the TiVo? This can be found on the back of the unit. For TiVo branded models, it should read TCD240xxx or TCD140xxx or something like that. Or look at the first three digits of your TSN (Tivo Service Number). That will tell us what model you have.

If you are into tinkering, you could try reapplying a clean image onto your existing drive and see if that will help. You would lose all your recordings, but if it doesn't work, then you've already lost those recordings.

I can provide you an image for most TiVo models, but I need to know what you have. I have created the images with the WinMFS program from mfslive.org. It works in Windows and is pretty easy to use.

If you need an image, send me a PM with your email address and we can try to fix your Series2 TiVo.

robomeister

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unitron

· #6 · Feb 4, 2012

jpascone said:
I am BROKE, is there anything I can do, perhaps a drive scan using some sort of remote button configuration before sinking any money in to a fix? Series 2 Lifetime are selling for around $100 these days so it's really not worth any sort of monetary investment. Unit has been upgraded. Forgot what the new configuration was.
Thanks.

Do you feel comfortable opening up the unit?

Do you have a PC with at least one PATA/IDE controller port (40 pin header thingie)?

There are several things to try before we have to look at spending any money.

However, start checking Craigslist for someone selling (cheap) or giving away the same model (or nearly so, if yours is a TCDxxxyyy, you just need to match the TCDxxx part) to cannibalize.

QuasarKid

· #7 · Mar 1, 2012

robomeister said:
If you need an image, send me a PM with your email address and we can try to fix your Series2 TiVo.
robomeister

I am hoping you can / will help me, I have the same problem.
My TiVo quit yesterday, (clicking HD). The internal HD is a WD800 and isn't recognized when I put it in a USB drive into my computer. I am pretty sure that is my only problem I have been reading all day, (forums), and have learned that I need to put an image onto a new drive before it will work in the TiVo. But finding an image file online is very difficult. I saw your post offering to help japascone and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. If you are willing to help me I can email you a picture of the data plate on the back of my TiVo. If not I understand.

unitron

· #8 · Mar 1, 2012

QuasarKid said:
I am hoping you can / will help me, I have the same problem.
My TiVo quit yesterday, (clicking HD). The internal HD is a WD800 and isn't recognized when I put it in a USB drive into my computer. I am pretty sure that is my only problem I have been reading all day, (forums), and have learned that I need to put an image onto a new drive before it will work in the TiVo. But finding an image file online is very difficult. I saw your post offering to help japascone and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. If you are willing to help me I can email you a picture of the data plate on the back of my TiVo. If not I understand.

On the back of the TiVo, where the power cord plugs in, is a sticker, and on the sticker you should find the model number, which should start with TCD (unless it's a one of the satellite receiver models or models with a DVD drive).

What is that number?

QuasarKid

· #9 · Mar 1, 2012

I need

QuasarKid

· #10 · Mar 1, 2012

5 posts

QuasarKid

· #11 · Mar 1, 2012

to post

QuasarKid

· #12 · Mar 1, 2012

pictures, sorry for the "mess"

QuasarKid

· #13 · Mar 1, 2012

This is the label on the back, maybe more info than you asked for.

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unitron

· #14 · Mar 1, 2012

QuasarKid said:
This is the label on the back, maybe more info than you asked for.

For those of you playing along at home, here's a fuller description

http://www.tivopedia.com/model-directv-r10.php

Kid, I did some searching in some of the usual locations and came up dry.

You should post your request in this thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=388695

to increase the chances of it being seen

Or you can go to forum sponsor dvrupgrade

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/index_tcf.cfm

and pay $40 for the Instant Cake version

But first you should make sure that it's the hard drive gone bad and not something else like the power supply starting to go bad, which might light the front lights but not provide enough current to spin up the hard drive.

Do you have a known good IDE/PATA drive which works in that USB thing in which you tried the TiVo drive?

Does it show up in the BIOS before the computer loads an operating system?

Were you trying to find the TiVo drive on the computer after booting Windows or did you boot from the MFS Live cd?

TiVo drives do not use the same partition types and file systems as PCs, and will look like an unformatted drive to Windows, except trying to look at it with Windows (except with the WinMFS program) could screw up the TiVo drive.

Does your PC have any IDE/PATA headers?

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unitron

· #15 · Mar 1, 2012

QuasarKid said:
This is the label on the back, maybe more info than you asked for.

If you happen to be in the Denver area, here's an entire R10 for $50

http://denver.craigslist.org/ele/2872954773.html

and that's before you start negotiating.

QuasarKid

· #16 · Mar 1, 2012

Why I am sure the drive is bad is the night before the TiVo quit, it was working fine, the next morning, 7 hours later the drive was clicking and I had a message on the tv powering up. There had been no power outages throughout the night. After turning it off for 2 hours I rebooted the TiVo and I could hear the drive spin up then 3-5 clicking sounds and the drive would quit spinning.
The USB drive adapter was tested in the computer with another good drive and the drive was recognized but when the TiVo drive was put into the same adapter it was not seen. When the TiVo drive was put onto the ribbon cable and the computer cold booted the bios showed all the drives connected except the TiVo one.

I am 99% sure this drive is bad, but cant be sure it is the only problem. Based on the age and what I have read on the net, I feel replacing the drive will fix it.

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unitron

· #17 · Mar 1, 2012

QuasarKid said:
Why I am sure the drive is bad is the night before the TiVo quit, it was working fine, the next morning, 7 hours later the drive was clicking and I had a message on the tv powering up. There had been no power outages throughout the night. After turning it off for 2 hours I rebooted the TiVo and I could hear the drive spin up then 3-5 clicking sounds and the drive would quit spinning.
The USB drive adapter was tested in the computer with another good drive and the drive was recognized but when the TiVo drive was put into the same adapter it was not seen. When the TiVo drive was put onto the ribbon cable and the computer cold booted the bios showed all the drives connected except the TiVo one.

I am 99% sure this drive is bad, but cant be sure it is the only problem. Based on the age and what I have read on the net, I feel replacing the drive will fix it.

Yeah, sounds like drive replacement time.

Go read the adapter thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=416883

to see what SATA drives people have had success with in Series 2 TiVos.

A JMicron chipset based adapter should work, since yours is an S2, and you'll get a lot more GB/$ than with a PATA/IDE

I've got a feeler out to someone with an R10 for an image for you.

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QuasarKid

· #18 · Mar 1, 2012

Unitron,

I have a 200GB IDE here waiting to use so that seems like the logical choice rather than use a sata to ide converter.

Thanks for looking for the image, I'm waiting.

QuasarKid

· #19 · Mar 2, 2012

I am looking at buying InstantCake to get this up and running. When I fill in the boxes it says I need 6.4a but in the support tab it says I may need 6.2a. I have no idea what was on my TiVo before. What do I choose to be sure I don't get a conflict with DirectTv?

unitron

· #20 · Mar 2, 2012

QuasarKid said:
I am looking at buying InstantCake to get this up and running. When I fill in the boxes it says I need 6.4a but in the support tab it says I may need 6.2a. I have no idea what was on my TiVo before. What do I choose to be sure I don't get a conflict with DirectTv?

You need to start your own new thread, where you lay out your situation, entitled "Exactly which IC for R10, 6.2a or 6.4a?", over in the Help Forum, in hopes of attracting the attention of people like classicsat who know about the satellite models.

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