My Series2 TiVo 240-0000-E06F-E50E(made August 2003) with lifetime service was working fine this morning. When I tried it this afternoon, it was power cycling between a b/w powering up screen and the a color screen. I unplugged it and plugged it in again, and it is stuck on the color/orange powering up screen forever.
This TiVo was upgraded/hinsdale a few years ago(2006) with a Seagate drive with 5/year warranty.

I had a newer Tivo(540-XXX-XXX-XXXX)made 2005, which was sitting on the shelf not being used because it had the $12/month service fee for it. I traded the hard drives between the units. My original unit did not power up at all(no light on the front at all), even when trying to do the kickstart code by holding down the pause button. The new Tivo just got stuck on powering up screen.

I switched back the hard drives. Now my original Tivo won't start up and the light doesn't even come on at startup. My other unit starts up fine and seems to be working fine, I just don't want to pay the $12/month for service.

I tried starting up by holding down the pause button, and it wont do anything. How long is it suppose to take to doing something?

Is there another way I can test the hard drive to see if that is the problem?

Is there a problem between switching hard drives between a series2 240xxxxx and series to 540xxxxx models?

Any other suggestions of something to try?
Thank You