Tivo Hard Drive problem

I have an older Hughes TIVO model with a hard drive that won't spin
up. After tinkering around with it I found that if I disconnect the
IDE cable with the power still plugged in the drive starts to work.
Then I reconnect the IDE cable and everything is fine. I have swapped
out the hard drive, power cable, and IDE cable thinking one of those
devices might be the culprit, but to no avail. I am at a loss on what
it could be. Anyone have any ideas.

"Art" wrote
I have an older Hughes TIVO model with a hard drive that won't spin
up. After tinkering around with it I found that if I disconnect the
IDE cable with the power still plugged in the drive starts to work.
Then I reconnect the IDE cable and everything is fine. I have swapped
out the hard drive, power cable, and IDE cable thinking one of those
devices might be the culprit, but to no avail. I am at a loss on what
it could be. Anyone have any ideas.

Have you set the drive's jumpers correctly? Also, how many
drives? Is the drive you're having trouble with the original drive?
Sometimes having more than one drive (or a drive that draws a
lot of power by itself) overtaxes the power supply. weaknees.com
sells something that delays the drives' power draw, so you may
want to check that out as well. Or, you may have a bad power
supply. They sell those as well.

http://www.weaknees.com/tivo_parts_bin.php

Make yourself a MFStools boot disk or CD. Put the drive in your PC.
Boot up with the MFStools bootdisk or CD and see if your drive works
there. Don't boot up in windows with the drive connected or windows
will render the drive usesless by writing a signature to it.

For more information go to groups.google.com and do a search for "tivo
hinsdale"

You should be able to figure out if the drive is bad or not. It
doesn't sound like the drive is bad to me. Sound like it might be the
MB/controller, but who knows. If you're lucky it's the drive and you
can simply replace it. Let us know what happens.


(Art) wrote in message . com...
I have an older Hughes TIVO model with a hard drive that won't spin
up. After tinkering around with it I found that if I disconnect the
IDE cable with the power still plugged in the drive starts to work.
Then I reconnect the IDE cable and everything is fine. I have swapped
out the hard drive, power cable, and IDE cable thinking one of those
devices might be the culprit, but to no avail. I am at a loss on what
it could be. Anyone have any ideas.

"Art" wrote in message
om...
I have an older Hughes TIVO model with a hard drive that won't spin
up. After tinkering around with it I found that if I disconnect the
IDE cable with the power still plugged in the drive starts to work.
Then I reconnect the IDE cable and everything is fine. I have swapped
out the hard drive, power cable, and IDE cable thinking one of those
devices might be the culprit, but to no avail. I am at a loss on what
it could be. Anyone have any ideas.

Sounds like the drive itself is having power-up problems. Either that or the
power supply is giving up and not providing enough juice to it during the boot
cycle.

In either case, RUN do not walk and make a backup of the drive. This to save
yourself the agony/hassle of rebuilding it from scratch and getting your Tivo
configured again.

The Hinsdale FAQ (search for it) is very helpful in this area.

Basically, if you've got a PC with enough free space (around 3gb or so) then
pull the drive out of the Tivo and put it in a PC. Boot one of the many Tivo
CDs (I use the "johnny death CD") and back up the drive to an MS-DOS partition
on the PC. You could then immediately dump that backup image onto a brand new
drive and save yourself the eventual hassles of drive failure. They DO wear out
eventually.

Be SURE TO READ THE HINSDALE FAQ before attempting any of it.

-Bill Kearney

I purchased an upgraded harddrive and networking solution from PTV upgrade
(http://www.ptvupgrade.com) last October. The upgrade went smoothly but
last week, the drive crashed and Tivo was down ...I thought I was sunk
and would have to purchase a new drive, but when I contacted Lou at
PTVupgrade, he told me he would send me a new drive at no cost and work with
me to get my system up and running.

I received a new drive 2 DAYS LATER! and Tivo was happy!!!!

I can't believe the level of support I've had from PTVupgrade. Unlike many
internet companies, they stand behind their products and services and when I
problem comes up, they do not hide!

If you need a Tivo upgrade, I would highly reccomend PTVupgrade - if my
experience is any example, they are a great company to do business with...

Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions about PTV!!!

Kevin

PS - I need a HDTV Tivo Solution!!!!



"Art" wrote in message
om...
I have an older Hughes TIVO model with a hard drive that won't spin
up. After tinkering around with it I found that if I disconnect the
IDE cable with the power still plugged in the drive starts to work.
Then I reconnect the IDE cable and everything is fine. I have swapped
out the hard drive, power cable, and IDE cable thinking one of those
devices might be the culprit, but to no avail. I am at a loss on what
it could be. Anyone have any ideas.


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I figured out the problem. Thanks for everyones input. Turns out is
was condensation on the Parlex cable that runs from the motherboard to
the power supply. Looks like their was alittle oxidization on the
cable. I took it off and cleaned it and the drive started next time I
connected the power plug.

Thanks....Art