[marcelh]

Help!! Tried to upgrade my DirecTV HD DVR HR10-250 with two drives.
Used Instant Cake using a Seagate 500Gb and Seagate 400Gb drives.
Instant Cake worked great and looked o.k. until I installed in Tivo and
plugged it in! It would not fire up no lights etc. so I took it apart again
to see why, It seemed to not have enough power, I hooked up original
250Gb drive and worked fine, I thought maybe Power Supply was weak?
Got a new Power Supply with same issue, then I noticed some smoke!
the "A" drive 500GB shorted out and burt something out!! Do not know
why? I tried again with 400Gb and 250 Gb Seagates again, This time
same thing again "A" drive burnt out again!! So now with two brand new
Drives Shorted out I was very confused as to what is happening! So this
time I used original 250Gb drive "Maxtor" with a 250Gb Seagate using the
original Maxtor as "A" drive and everything worked fine!!!! Now unit is working
but still don't know what happened and if I can warranty two burnt drives???

Any help is appreciated as I don't want this to happen again!!

Thanks for any help,
Marcel

 

[HomeUser]

Drives circuit board sitting on something conductive
Screws too long shorting against the R/W board.
Power supply not wired correctly.

 

[captain_video]

I've fried drives before and they still replaced them under warranty. If your Seagates are the latest models then you've discovered that you can't use two fo them in the same Tivo. The power supply can't supply enough current for them to start up simultaneously. 9th Tee makes a SmartStart power supply protector fo $20 that inserts a delay in the power supply circuit so that both drives don't start simultaneously and load down the power supply. I haven't tried it myself but it may be your only option if you are hellbent on using dual Seagates in your Tivo.

 

[marcelh]

I've fried drives before and they still replaced them under warranty. If your Seagates are the latest models then you've discovered that you can't use two fo them in the same Tivo. The power supply can't supply enough current for them to start up simultaneously. 9th Tee makes a SmartStart power supply protector fo $20 that inserts a delay in the power supply circuit so that both drives don't start simultaneously and load down the power supply. I haven't tried it myself but it may be your only option if you are hellbent on using dual Seagates in your Tivo.

Did not know that you could not use two Seagates together!!! That is what I tried
is that why the "A" drive fried???? Could explaing it but still don't understand as to why it would fry the hard drive rather than just not powering up!

Marcel

 

[HomeUser]

High performance drives like the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 draws 2.8 Amps on the 12V at power-up resulting in 80W peek load for 2 drives. What is your TiVo power supply rated at?

I don't think that Seagate drives draw any more power then other comparable drives. The consumer grade IDE drives like the Seagate db35 drive are rated for a max peek of 2A on the 12V and 1A on the 5V during power up. 2 drives would draw a total of around 60W, which is about what some of the TiVo power supplies are able to supply.

I do recommend using the WeaKnees Power Trip when using 2 drives in any case. As a general rule the higher the performance of the drives the more power the drive will draw and the more heat that is generated.

Most switching power supplies are designed to quickly shut down when overloaded protecting the electronics on the load. I doubt if just overloading the power supply with the extra drive caused the smoke to leak out of the drives. I have not tested this theory on the TiVo power supply however.

More likely causes:
- Shorting the circuit board to the case or other electronics.
- Using screws that are too long touching and shorting the circuit board.
- Plugging the power connector upside down.
- Plugging in the data cable offset by one or more pins.

 

[jhhyde]

I managed to fry a new Seagate drive when I was upgrading my HR10-250 to 500gig. I went to the Seagate website, got an RMA, shipped the drive back and they replaced it with a reconditioned 500 gig, no questions asked. It's running fine. Yeah, Seagate!

 

[HomeUser]

I managed to fry a new Seagate drive when I was upgrading my HR10-250 to 500gig.

Just curious how did you fry it? Does the HR10 have an analog power supply (big transformer)?

 

[jhhyde]

No, when it was in my computer and I was wiggling it to get the cables off of it, I think I touched a metal part in the computer and it shorted something. It would not power up either in the computer or in the Tivo after that. Seagate took it back though.