[bfranci]

A friend of mine has a Series 1 Philips Tivo...he sent it in for a new hard drive six months ago and all was well until today, when he's been getting the Green "Severe Error" message on his screen. His box has been rebooting constantly and still no fix to the problem. He's pretty fed up and wants to get a new one.

Question is...he has a lifetime subscription on the box. Is that "recoverable" despite the error (i.e., if someone puts a new image or hard drive or whatever on the box, would the lifetime sub. still be applied)? He'd like to sell the unit on eBay to someone with the wherewithall to fix the box, but he wants to make sure he gets the value out of having the lifetime sub. on the box.

Thanks,
Brad

 

[pdhenry]

Lifetime is keyed to the motherbaord, not to the hard drive. A failed HDD can be replaced without losing the lifestime status.

A potential buyer might want some assurance that the problem lies with a replaceable part.

 

[bfranci]

Good point PDHenry, which brings up a follow up question.

Is the severe error screen usually tied to the hard drive, or is it generic enough to be any kind of problem whatsoever?

 

[ZikZak]

It's almost always the hard drive. The GSOD is tivo's attempt to seek and destroy the bad sectors.