[xxdrunkenslothxx]

Hello!

I recently got a used Tivo Premiere 4 Series (TCD746320) with lifetime service for $25 that I bought to use for OTA. I haven't even really been able to use it yet. I just finished getting it set up and having the lifetime membership transferred and was trying to find a decent antenna to use.

I finally found an antenna that would work better, hooked it up last night and BAM, the screen is stuck on "Welcome, Starting Up..." From what I Google this generally means a failed hard drive or failing power source. My Xbox One takes the same power supply so I tried that in it and it didn't make a difference. So I'm guessing it's the hard drive.

I'm not tech savvy whatsoever and on a very tight budget so I don't think I want to put $50+ in a 10 year old piece of equipment. Are there any cheap and/or used options out there for hard drives that I can look for? How hard are they to install? Can someone who's a complete dunce with computers, etc, figure it out?

I only paid $25 for the thing. Should I just chuck it and cut my losses? Or should I try reselling it - would anyone be interested in an old Premiere with a broken hard drive since it does have the lifetime service package.

Just not sure what to do or how to proceed. I haven't even got to use the darn thing yet so I'm not sure if I'll even like it.

 

[ggieseke]

Building a new drive is pretty easy, but by the time you buy a drive and have it shipped you'll probably be over $50. Almost any drive that's at least 320GB will work if you have one around, and I can provide a clean image that you can restore with DvrBARS (free in the Upgrade forum). Ideally it would be a 3.5" drive in the 5400-5900 RPM range that uses CMR vs SMR technology.

If you don't want to bother, I'll take it off your hands if we can find a cheap shipping option.

 

[xxdrunkenslothxx]

Building a new drive is pretty easy, but by the time you buy a drive and have it shipped you'll probably be over $50. Almost any drive that's at least 320GB will work if you have one around, and I can provide a clean image that you can restore with DvrBARS (free in the Upgrade forum). Ideally it would be a 3.5" drive in the 5400-5900 RPM range that uses CMR vs SMR technology.

If you don't want to bother, I'll take it off your hands if we can find a cheap shipping option.

Thanks for the reply! What about something like a WL 320GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA2 3.5" Hard Drive? It seems to fit everything except it doesn't mention CMR or SMR. Sorry, I don't know anything about hard drives.

 

[ggieseke]

Thanks for the reply! What about something like a WL 320GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA2 3.5" Hard Drive? It seems to fit everything except it doesn't mention CMR or SMR. Sorry, I don't know anything about hard drives.

Sounds fine, and I don't know of any drives under 2TB that use SMR technology.

 

[xxdrunkenslothxx]

Sounds fine, and I don't know of any drives under 2TB that use SMR technology.

Hmmm that one's only $10. Might be worth a shot if I can find a good step by step on how to do it. I can use a computer fine but I'm completely dunce when it comes to programming or setting anything up.

 

[HarleyRandom]

This happens to me on my HP Windows 10 desktop. It started happening recently when the computer would freeze and I had to unplug it because the off button doesn't work when everything is frozen. CTRL-ALT-DEL works sometimes, but it takes a long time. An ad blocker solved the freezing problem (mostly) but no one would give me any advice about getting the "Welcome" message to go away and let me start using the computer. They told me stuff to change to make the computer not freeze but i was afraid of what might happen if I changed anything. CTRL-ALT-DEL is the only thing that seems to work but it takes a long time.

If McAfee turns off my computer after a scan I get the same result when the computer is turned back on.

 

[ThAbtO]

Thanks for the reply! What about something like a WL 320GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA2 3.5" Hard Drive? It seems to fit everything except it doesn't mention CMR or SMR. Sorry, I don't know anything about hard drives.

You can run into an issue where the drive may not have sufficient sectors on the drive to hold the image, because images occupy the entire drive. You can try the 320GB drive and see if it can hold it. It would be hard to tell unless you try.