Brand new drives rarely are bad out of the box, and if you have the identical problem with the old and new, then unfortunately you may not have a drive problem. Feel free to email us for additional assistance, and if you do, please email the order number so that we can look up your TiVo model.

Well, thanks to your support department I have a partial solution to my problem and I want to post it here just in case anyone else runs into this problem. I have a Humax (Tivo Series 2) with a DVD burner. Your support department requested that I disconnect the DVD burner's IDE Cable from the motherboard and then try powering up. Well, that did the trick, and I now have a working Tivo. So, I guess I didn't need a new hard drive in the first place, and now I have a unit that no longer has a working DVD player/burner. In other words, if you have a DVD burner with your unit, try disconnecting that before spending money for a new hard drive. Your support department will get back to me on how I am suppose to proceed to get everything fully operational.

That's right - for the units with DVD burners, the symptom of being stuck on "Almost There" or rebooting at that point can sometimes be a bad burner. Just disconnecting the IDE cable from the burner and then powering up does the trick in in those instances. This affects Pioneer, Toshiba, and Humax models.

I am having problems with my DSR708. About a week ago we had a storm where we received no signal for the entire evening. The next morning all seemed fine, so I chalked it up to cloud cover/interference. We left town for a few days and when we got home no programs had been recorded. The to-do list still showed a program from the previous night as waiting to be recorded. So I powered down the unit, unplugged it and removed/reinserted the card. Restarted and got the "Welcome Powering up" and "Almost there" screens. Then static and no reception. Cannot get anything to appear from either the tivo page or satellite reception. The light on the front of the box responds when I press the remote, but nothing on screen. Does this sound like a motherboard issue, or something simple like a hard drive? Suggestions?

whinning noise from my series 2 tivo 240080

can anyone help me regarding a whinning noise from my tivo?was really loud this morning and I restarted unit-seemed to help some.Is it the drive or could it be a fan whinning on a power supply ?I purchased my 240080 in 2001 and have had no problems so i'm due I guess.short of buying a new one(I already have hd unit in other room) what do you all suggest I replace 1st?

You basically have all of the possible sources: Fan, drive and far less likely, power supply. There is no way for anyone to tell you what the source is without listening. You can try this: Turn off unit. Insert toothpick slightly into the fan grill. Power on unit. If noise stops, then you have a bad fan. If the noise continues, then it is most likely a drive.

If you want more space in your unit, then I'd suggest a drive and you can get a fan as well at the same time. Up to you.

thxs Jeff

Thxs for the troubleshooting info-seems as if unit as requieted down and is performing well--can one refurbish a series 2 into an hd unit w/your parts?

Nope - no way to add HD to a Series 2 unit.

The Tivo Dvr40 With dual drives and fan kit. Help I have a dierect tv tivo with the orignal 40 gig maxtor dive and a 300gig secondary drive. The master drive I think is dying is there any way to use just the 300gig addon drive I bought a yr ago or do I need to buy a new master drive. If I unplug the unit I am able to get it to boot back up. The maxtor drive does get quite warm. The secondadry fan with the twin brezze kit is spining slowly sounds like bearings are worn. Oh yes and I get just no video when left on ovrnight. Just grey screen. Anyone know if I could send back second hd to have tivo op added to it? Or is there a way to do it my self? Doug.

We can test and reformat:

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

If you want to do it yourself, you need to make a backup, then re-image that to the 300 only:

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com

Hi,

This pertains to a Tivo standalone series 2, model 540040.

I returned from a vacation and turned my TV on and found the Tivo stuck at the yellow and black "Welcome! . . . Powering up" screen. The backlight and the green indicator on the front panel are ON. (The unit was working fine when I left for the vacation), Tried unplugging and plugging the AC several times and the result is always the same -- stuck at that same screen.

Read through this forum and some others and concluded that I must have a bad HDD. I opened the Tivo and tried putting the power on and off several times. The HDD, a Maxtor 40 GB, seemed to be powering up, but I did not detect any sounds that would indicate attempts to reboot.

I then downloaded and installed SeaTools for Windows on my PC running Win XP. I removed the HDD from the Tivo and mounted it in an external USB enclosure and tried to run the diagnostics. The only tests I could run were the short and long 'generic' and those passed -- all other tests showed 'test unavailable' (see log below).

I remounted the drive in the Tivo using a brand new cable to connect it to the motherboard, hooked it back up and powered it up, Same result . . .

I've sort of eliminated the power supply as being the culprit since the hard drive supplies seem to be OK (although I did not test them), there is video out and the front panel lights are on. Any suggestions as to what I should try next?

One more piece of data -- there is absolutely no response to the remote, other than to the buttons that control the TV input and power. No lights blink, etc.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

We do often see drives that pass SeaTools tests, and still fail to boot in a TiVo, either because of latent errors, or software corruption.

We'd recommend trying a new drive kit to see - you can return it if it doesn't fix the problem:

http://www.weaknees.com/t544.php

OK Michael. Will try that and report back when I have installed it.

Thanks!!

Michael,

The new HDD did the trick!! . . .

I was concerned initially because the same 'Welcome . . . ' screen came up and stayed on for a few minutes, but just as I was about to start cursing the screen changed and soon thereafter guided setup began.

The only problem is that I can't connect to my network. . . . That worked fine before my old drive failed. I'll need to work on that problem.

Thanks again!! . . .

Try rebooting your router. That seems to do the trick pretty often.