Apparent bad drive after OS upgrade..

Thanks Michael.

Actually, if I read your answer correctly, even though the S3 is now frequently "losing" the external drive, you are more inclined to blame a bad OS partition on the internal drive?

(Because you said that minor video errors on the [external] drive would have minimal effect.)

Thus, copying the external drive might help, but most likely won't.
Therefore, combining the pair onto a single 750GB or 1TB drive would seem the best solution. I see that you sell 1TB drives as part of upgrades or kits with software installed, but they are not in the list of bare drives - can I buy one bare, or should I buy the upgrade internal drive and make a backup of its image before messing with it?

Thanks again,

Mike

Here's the deal with hard drive failures after OS updates:

The OS is stored on a certain partition of the hard drive. There are two such partitions, and new OS version load to the other partition, then they switch which one is active. So, sometimes, problems in that other partition, which were dormant, show up after that partition houses the new OS copy.

Unlike a computer hard drive, problems in video storage areas are largely ignored, since the video is so data-heavy that a minute bad area doesn't affect what the viewer sees on-screen.

Yes, if you make an exact copy (dd) of the external drive, you can swap it and use that.

Too many coincidences

I know that Weaknees sells HDDs and upgrade kits, and I'm willing to buy one, but there are too many recent stories of frequent reboots that "look like bad drives" since the Dec 6th software update, which makes me think something else is afoot.
My S3 was perfectly happy with its TiVo-blessed WD DVR expander for over a year, but now suddenly it will reboot and/or lose the external drive, sometimes even when watching live TV (of course I realize it is still buffering). Any attempt to fast-forward, especially past the 1/3 point of the recorded program will cause freeze/hang/reboot. No GSOD.
I have powercycled the TiVo and the external drive, verified that the eSATA connectors are the "long" variety (properly seated), moved the ext drive from horizontal to vertical, tried fitting it with feet to get more air under it....
I don't want to trash all my wife's programs, and I'd be perfectly happy to transfer everything to a 1TB internal (A) drive if that would fix it, but a nagging doubt about the SW update remains. Can anyone confirm that the SW update is good, and that I should really be blaming the HW?

An S3/HD question - if I make an exact drive image of the external drive, and reconnect it (without having "divorced" the original), will TiVo still think it is "married", or does it have some other method of detecting a drive change?

MookieNJ -

That really sounds like just a failed hard drive. They generally last longer, but, like anything, some last much longer than average, and some fail much sooner.

Damn I came home from work, turned on my TV, and saw the "Welcome" screen frozen on my screen. Who knows how long it was stuck there? The restarts continue!

This is crazy, my Series2 TiVo is hooked up to another TV and has been working fine for over 5 years now, and my TiVo HD seems to have died in little over a year. I can't help but feel ripped off here .

Any more ideas how to get this thing fixed?

I have had my TiVO HD for a little more than a year now and have just begun to experience very frequent and seemingly random restart issues.

It doesn't seem to follow any pattern, I don't have any pixelization or audio problems that might indicate a hard drive problem. I have tried the Kickstart programs suggested over at the TiVo Community forums with no luck. I have 2 Cable Cards installed from Cablevision and I'm going to try reinstalling them as suggested here. I am really hoping for some success because it's no good having an unreliable and often unusable TiVo.

Basically, you just power down, disconnect the Expander, and boot. The TiVo will ask if you want to remove the Expander, and you agree.

Kwamster, your original problem is the exact problem I'm experiencing. Although I have a 500GB internal replacement drive from WK coming in the mail today, I am wondering if you or someone could describe how you "divorced" your WD Expander from your internal drive. I just want to know the true cause of my problems .

Kevin

This DOES appear to be a common problem with the version 11 upgrade. It started happening to me last night after almost two years of problem-free viewing, although in my case it seems worse when I'm recording in HD - I haven't set up a Netflix account yet.
Check out the threads about Netflix and version 11 in this forum, there are hundreds of posts over the last week or two:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...splay.php?f=51

This is not a common problem and I"d recommend that you give Tivo a call.

New TiVo HD - Restarts randomly

My TiVo came on Monday 12/8/08 and I started to use it on my basic cable. The box spent some time updating the software and the following day Netflix appeared and then another update later the Video On Demand appeared. I've noticed that the box restarts randomly. I do notice that most of the time it is when I'm streaming Netflix or if it's communicating with TiVo. The box is a 'refurb' box, but I find it hard to believe that a box just out from TiVo has a bad drive already. It seems like there is a software issue, it hangs and is very slow to respond. i.e. press TiVo Central and then the background takes a moment to appear. I'm no expert, but it seems like this new software is buggy and causing the restarts. As I type this the cable company is here installing my CableCard and while they were installing it the TiVo was trying to acquire signal and restarted in the middle of the process and they had to start again. I haven't called TiVo yet, but plan to call them in the coming days if it continues. Anyone noticing similar issues with their boxes restarting when it's doing something via the Ethernet?

Sounds like a good plan - also be sure your eSATA cable is rock solid. We've seen some cheap ones out there that can cause problems.

So far, so good, knock on wood.

Well, I divorced the expander and RMA'd it with WD. So far, without the DVR expander, I haven't had a single freeze or reboot in almost 24 hours. The expander is covered by warranty so it can't hurt to have it replaced. If the replacement causes the same issue, I'll probably invest in an internal upgrade as I definitely will need the capacity through the holidays.

Thanks, everyone.

It really sounds like a drive. Just be aware that a replacement drive won't see your external drive be default.

Is it software or hardware?

Same here. Same model, same problem. Just started happening in the past 2 weeks. Can't make it through a show without it freezing up then rebooting. I tried the cable card trick on page one and that didn't work, either. I tried disconnecting the external WD DVR Expander drive and that didn't seem to help, either. And of course the warranty was up in October.

Before I invest in a new drive, I want to make sure that this isn't a 9.4 software issue, instead of hardware. Neither internal or external drive is showing any signs of failure -- clicking, fan running constantly, skips, etc. Just this freeze and reboot nonsense which seems to have come out of nowhere.

Is there a kickstart we can try? And how does that work again?