[CharlieVA]

A few days ago, my Tivo box would not accept any commands from the controller. So I unplugged and replugged in. It got stuck on the 'Powering up' screen.

Hoping for the best, I replaced the hard drive. I wasn't able to test the hard drive before replacing because I had no way to plug in a SATA drive to my laptops.

After replacing the HD, when I plugged it in, I got the 'Powering Up' screen and after about 30 seconds, it flashed to gray, then black, and back to gray.

That's where it stays.

Any suggestions? I really don't want to buy a new Premiere.

 

[V7Goose]

Huh? You replaced the drive, but you have no way to hook it up to a computer? Did you buy one pre-imaged, or just try to slap in a raw drive off the shelf?

 

[CharlieVA]

Huh? You replaced the drive, but you have no way to hook it up to a computer? Did you buy one pre-imaged, or just try to slap in a raw drive off the shelf?

raw drive off shelf!

 

[V7Goose]

raw drive off shelf!

Well, that explains your problem - the TiVo is no different than any other computer in that the operating system must be installed on the drive before it can boot up.

If you do not have a working drive from your specific model of TiVo, you will have to locate an image somewhere to load on that raw drive, or else you can buy a pre-imaged "plug and play" drive from several sources (but those will cost you a lot more than buying a bare drive).

If I were you, the first thing I would do is buy a sata-USB adapter ($10-$35, lots of different options) to connect your original drive to your computer and run the free Western Digital diagnostics on it.

 

[CharlieVA]

My original drive appears to be dead? Tivo locked on the Welcome screen. After putting in the new drive, that's when I got past the Welcome and on to the gray screen.

 

[V7Goose]

Well, you have already bought one new drive that is of no use to you, so you can keep buying things in the hopes you find a fix, or you can go through a logical process.

Your existing drive is probably bad, but you do not know that without testing it. Your options are pretty simple.

1. Buy a new TiVo and throw that one away - the most expensive, but guaranteed fix.
2. Buy a pre-imaged drive. This will solve your problem IF the only thing wrong is your drive.
3. Buy an adaptor and start the process by testing your existing drive. This will help you avoid buying other things that may not help. If it is actually bad, then you will need that adaptor anyway to set up a new drive. This is the least expensive way to start the process, and probably the cheapest in the end.

You decide . . .

BTW - in your original post you did not give much information on how far the the boot process went before it got stuck, or even tell us what model you have. There is a possibility that your original drive allowed the boot process to get far enough to run the kickstart codes to test the drive - this is not as good as the WD test utility, but it may give you the option of forcing a reload of the software if you can get it to pass the HDD tests.

 

[Corran Horn]

My original drive appears to be dead? Tivo locked on the Welcome screen. After putting in the new drive, that's when I got past the Welcome and on to the gray screen.

A Tivo will lock on the welcome screen when you don't have a drive in it at all.

 

[CharlieVA]

My model is a TCD648250B.

My initial problem was not getting past the 'Welcome -Powering Up' Screen. After installing the new drive, the WPU screen was up for about 30 seconds before it flashed to all black, then instantly to all gray. It stayed all gray.

The new drive is returnable so I should only loose the restocking fee of 15% or about $10.

Last night I had decided to buy a new box but changed my mind. The Premiere supports 1080p vs the Series 3 supporting 1080i, but with my vision, it doesn't much matter.

I hate to buy an enclosure and none of my 'nearby' box stores (BB and OD) stock it.

I'm considering buying a preimaged drive on ebay. Price is reasonable.

By the way, thanks for all the help so far.

 

[brettatk]

I'm confused. If you were going to replace the main hard drive in a computer, would you simply go buy one, replace the old one, and expect it to boot up without loading some sort of operating system on it?

You are on the right track, but you have to load the Tivo's image onto the new drive before it will work. If the drive that is messed up was the original then your choices are limited. You could buy a program called InstantCake that would have your Tivo's image on it and then you could load it on the new drive. Of course the drawback is that it sounds like this will be above your head and I doubt if I were you I'd try it. The simplest thing you could do is to return the one you bought and buy a preimaged drive as mentioned earlier then you can just swap it out with the old one like you did with the one you bought. It will be more expensive but for someone with limited computer knowledge it's the way to go.

Here is a link for a preimaged drive on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/TiVo-Series-3-TCD648250B-Hard-Drive-Upgrade-P-P-1TB-WD-/250713371556?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a5fae73a4

Many people on this forum have bought from this guy without any problems. If you think you might want a 2TB drive instead, those go for $179.99 as opposed to the 1TB at $109.99.

I'll also mention that if you aren't using it for OTA only and you have cablecards, expect to have your cable company roll out a truck in order to repair them when you get the Tivo back up and running.

 

[V7Goose]

My model is a TCD648250B.

My initial problem was not getting past the 'Welcome -Powering Up' Screen. After installing the new drive, the WPU screen was up for about 30 seconds before it flashed to all black, then instantly to all gray. It stayed all gray.

The new drive is returnable so I should only loose the restocking fee of 15% or about $10.

Last night I had decided to buy a new box but changed my mind. The Premiere supports 1080p vs the Series 3 supporting 1080i, but with my vision, it doesn't much matter.

I hate to buy an enclosure and none of my 'nearby' box stores (BB and OD) stock it.

I'm considering buying a preimaged drive on ebay. Price is reasonable.

By the way, thanks for all the help so far.

The initial power up screen has several phases. The key is to watch the lights on the front. Your s3 box will start the boot process with all lights on, then briefly change to just a single orange light. If you are getting that far with your original drive, then you can run the kickstart codes.

If you can get a pre-imaged 1TB drive for $110 as mentioned above, that is a great deal. I'm not in the business of selling those, but I wouldn't go to the effort to buy a drive, configure it, and ship it out to someone for under about $150. But I still wouldn't throw out over $100 on a replacement drive without knowing for a fact that my current drive was toast. But that's just me.

Anyway, good luck on getting it fixed. If you do decide to replace it, I'd happily pay the shipping plus a few bucks more to take the old one off your hands. I do not know what is wrong with it, but it would be a possible parts backup for my existing lifetime S3 (gotta protect that expensive lifetime subscription on an older box!).

 

[dlfl]

As far as I know DVR_DUDE (the eBay link provided above) has a very good reputation here but if buying from eBay scares you, try weaknees.com. They are reputable too, although they will charge more.

 

[CharlieVA]

Thanks guys. I'll probably be buying a pre-imaged drive from somewhere. But I'm also thinking about buying a used drive on ebay and swapping drives.

And thanks for the 'comment', Brett. I guess I've gotten used to so many plug and play items, I didn't give it much thought about an operating system. I won't tell you I'm a retired programmer. I remember how excited I was when I bought my first disk drive for my IBM PC AT. It was 10 megs!

 

[brettatk]

Perhaps I misunderstood and I was wrong.. You might very well be capable of doing the swap out yourself. If you are, I or others could point you in the right direction. I've upgraded several drives , it's really not that difficult but today if I had to do it I'd save the time and energy and just buy the pre-imaged one from dvr_dude on eBay. Good luck!!

 

[CharlieVA]

New Hard Drive arrived already.

Everything was going along swimmingly until Tivo tried to communicate with Comcast. No luck.

Phone techs couldn't solve. Tivo tech said it looked fine to him and called Comcast himself. Comcast said I needed an in home tech visit.

We'll see what happens Tuesday.

 

[steve614]

Yeah, if you have a cablecard in the Tivo, it will have to be paired with the new hard drive.
It could be done without a tech visit, but Comcrap requires a 'truck roll' so they can tack an extra fee to your cable bill.

Luckily in a few months, cable companies will be required to allow users to self-install cablecards.