Rebooting with a new drive could leave either a bad power supply (feel free to email us pictures of yours to [email protected] and we'll take a look) to a motherboard problem that we can fix (cost for that repair is about $230).

I have a Tivo HD series 3 that started rebooting a few months ago. I replaced the old 160GB hard drive with a new 1TB drive from WK but the DVR is still rebooting and is getting worse, rebooting almost daily. Sometimes it reboots when I'm watching live TV, other times when I'm watching a recording. It's almost as if switching back and forth between tuners can make it reboot, though I have sat and done this but not been able to force a reboot. It also reboots overnight (both tuners on the same channel the next day) and is often stuck on a frozen screen when I turn on the TV in the evenings. Sometimes the frozen screens have funky colors, sometimes the frozen screen is accompanied by a squealing sound. It's not able to record any shows because it's always stuck. I have tried leaving it on specific channels that have the strongest signal, but it still reboots.

I did check out the power supply when I was in there replacing the drive but didn't see any bad caps. I only have an OTA antenna, no cable cards. I do have it connected to Ethernet now whereas before I was using WiFi. I'm bummed that I blew money on a new drive and now it looks like I should have just bought a new DVR, or maybe this would still be a problem?

Any ideas on what I can try?

High pitched sound could be a bad power supply - more info is here:

http://www.weaknees.com/bps

As far as transfer methods, thing like TiVo Desktop, iTiVo, pytivo, Toast - these can transfer to some Macs and PCs in most cases from networked units.

Thank you so very much for replying on a busy week-end.

"So consider transferring them to something else ASAP if they're important. "

I would love to - how does one do that?
Are they in a format that is readable by computers with Windows?
Also - when plugged in, it emits a very high pitch sound - is that indicative of anything?

That's almost definitely a hard drive problem. A "replace" kit for your model should fix the problem:

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

You can test your drive with a Kickstart 54:

http://www.weaknees.com/54

If your drive fails, your recordings are gone. So consider transferring them to something else ASAP if they're important.

Hi Really need help please:
I have read everything buut do not see how my situation is totally the same as what I read:
TivoHD recently taking a long time on Orange "Welcome!powering Up" Screen...
after about 15 minutes, it does power all the way up and seems to work.
Having trouble connecting to the network however. When I tried a different network adapter, it caused the machine to reboot again. Have been able to get it to power up several times, although it takes a very long time. Can play and navigate regularly, but as soon as I do anything with the network adapter or HDMI cord, it seems to re-boot.
My primary concern is not the hardware to use in the future, but my recordings.
Thank you for any guidance.

You should definitely try the "overnight" test - no question about it.

Beyond that, which exact Series3 TiVo do you have?

Hi. My 7 year old Tivo HD (S3) started rebooting a month ago. Once or twice every couple days, it would either be all black on the TV, or would show the Welcome, Powering UP screen. Sometimes in the middle of a show, or when starting to watch something pre-recorded. Based on guidance from Weaknees, I ran the Kickstarter 54 Smart diagnostics, stopping short of the overnight since the others all ran clean. The drive is a year old, 1TB, from DVRDude. I assume the drive is OK but, maybe not.

Based on Weaknees Troubleshooting, I opened the Tivo case to check out the power supply. Sure enough, I saw a couple capacitors with raised roofs. So, I replaced the power supply with one from Weaknees. That was last Thursday. Last night, UGH, when starting to watch a show, it rebooted. Dang. So, I'm back to the drive. I'll run the overnight, on "54". I see in the Kickstarter Menu that there are options 57 and 58 that might run "FSCK". True? Any value running them? I saw the idea of using a UPS. Any recommendations on troubleshooting the wall power to see if I have power spikes?

Thanks for the quick response! The power supply seems fine so I guess I'll be getting one of your replacement drive kits.

That sounds pretty clearly like a bad hard drive. If it reboots during the overnight test, then that pretty much has to be a bad hard drive.

You could *also* have a bad power supply. See this page for info about bursting capacitors on TiVo power supplies:

http://www.weaknees.com/bps

My TiVo HD (TCD652160) started randomly rebooting a few days ago. I'd be watching live or recorded TV and it would restart, sometimes successfully going to the menu and other times the screen would turn completely grey. Things I've tried:

- Unplugged everything from the back of the box and rebooted. Didn't fix the problem.
- Ran the Kickstart 54 regular SMART test and everything passed. I tried running the overnight version but the machine kept restarting within the first 1-2 hours of the test.
- Found this thread and went through the steps. Took out the 1 cablecard and started going through the "no cablecard" Guided Setup. Got to the part where program info starts slowly loading and then the box rebooted by itself again. Screen would get past the Powering up screen and go to the "Almost there...." screen and then turn completely grey. Went through this process 3 times already with the same result each time.

I got the box from TiVo a long time ago so it's out of warranty. Any ideas on what could be the problem? Hard drive? motherboard? I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I don't have to buy a new TiVo

Yup - I'd say sending it in to us at this point is a good plan.

See this repair service for the TiVo Series3 models:

http://www.weaknees.com/s3s4

The flashing on the screen is just multicolored light, no defined pattern. Originally, I was getting the normal TiVo screen saying I was powering up, and almost there with continued recycling. So I ordered and installed a new drive (this is the second time - the first was 2+ years ago. Worked fine until now). With the new drive in, I get the flashing blue light. Then I switched back to the "just replaced" drive and now get the flashing blue light with it. Sounds like I need to send the box in for repair by WeaKnees.

That's probably a power supply, but it could be a motherboard problem.

Can you describe the flashing on the TV a bit more? Do you see a TiVo screen when it flashes on? Have you tried a different HDMI cable?

I have a series3 TCD648250B TiVo Box.