I'll change my television source to the Tivo, and its frozen in 'Powering up'. The premium weak knees charges for pre-loaded drives is more.
I did, in fact, do a search, and found, but it was a thread from 7 years ago. I don't know if the information posted is still applicable/relavent, especially since that one was a series 3, and I have a series 2, 80G. Obviously, it's WAAAAAYYY out of warranty.
But I have a lifetime plan, and I'm fine with the non-Hi-Def Tivo. So, I don't want to buy/can't afford a new one for $300.00, then another Lifetime service for $400.00.What happens is that the Tivo randomly does three things, which are as follows:1. It will freeze during 'Live TV'. This means that I have to un-plug it, let it re-boot and power up. (The Tivo is powered on 24/7/365). This is not a major issue, just irritating.2. It will go back into a reset phase, meaning, the Tivo 'Master Light', as I call it (The one behind the logo) is bright.
I'll change my television source to the Tivo, and its frozen in 'Powering up'. Again, un-plug, reboot. Also not a major issue, just irritating.2. Playback, just recently, has begun stuttering and pixelating. I'm not 100% sure if it is audio-related or video-related. I THINK that its audio related, due to once the audio track is back, everything is fine for a while.
THIS one is a major issue. I don't want to watch an episode of, say, NCIS, and when things are happening all over the place, it stutters, pauses, etc, forever (and FF won't work), and I could drive to Starbucks for a Frappachino and come back, and it still stuttering (It DOES record the entire episodes of shows, though).As is suggested in the aforementioned 7 year old thread, I've already taken off the cover just in case it was heat build-up, but the fan is running completely fine.
I also had deleted tons of saved recordings from last year (The entire season of Ghost Whisperer, for example), thinking that the newer shows were being recorded onto bad sectors. This seems to have worked so far.So, I was thinking that maybe de-fragging the hard drive would resolve my issue. But, now comes the fun part.
As I understand it, Tivo is not Windows based, and that's the only OS that I know. (well, to be perfectly honest, not 'know', but 'have used'). I believe that Tivo is Linux-based.Question 1: Does de-fragging work the same way in Linux as Windows?Question 2: If I were to purchase a larger HDD, besides formatting, what exactly do I need to do? Is the information/steps to take that is in the 7 year old post still valid?Question 3: If I drop in an additional HDD into the Tivo, leaving everything else alone, will that work?Thanks!
My TiVo Series 3 had stuttering/pixelation problems for a while, then I realized it had stopped recording shows. Then it died - it would just constantly reboot. I suspected it was a hard drive problem, and most of the software tools for dealing with TiVo drives are Windows based, but all my home computers are Macs. So I bought a pre-formatted terabyte drive from Weaknees.com, and swapped it in for the one it came with. End result: very little time spent (maybe 10-15 minutes, and I took it slow to make sure I didn't miss anything) turning a dead TiVo into one that's worked flawlessly for the last year. When my Series 2 became corrupted I spent $20 on an and another $100 on a bigger HDD. Very painless installation, and now I have 120 GB of storage instead of 20 GB.You can do all of this yourself, for free, as long as don't mind fiddling.
But if your time is worth more than your money, buy a pre-imaged HDD or use something like InstantCake.Of course another option is to use your present lifetime account to get an upgrade to a new TiVo with lifetime. That's what I did recently.
Now I just have to buy a TV to go with it. Of course another option is to use your present lifetime account to get an upgrade to a new TiVo with lifetime. That's what I did recently. Now I just have to buy a TV to go with itOh, my gosh, I didn't realize they were still offering that - if you can, it's well worth considering.
A current-gen TiVo doubles (and triples) as a Netflix and Amazon streaming box, and I certainly use it to automatically download some video podcasts. If you don't have to pay for a monthly subscription, the cost of upgrading gets lower and lower the longer you own it. (Well that's how I justified jumping from a Series 1 to a Series 3.).
I'll second the 'buy a formatted drive' option. You can probably replace the hard drive. Look at the tools here.I'm actually in the process of trying this for my Tivo HD. I've been having similar issues.
If you can hold out for a couple days, I can report back on my progress.I'm not in a rush, so I will patiently wait. Thanks, everyone, for your input.
A couple of these I'll further investigate.I did the upgrade last week, and it was a breeze. I used the software I linked to, and it took about 30 minutes for the whole process. I tried to use the clone option with both drives hooked up first, but it was taking forever. The copy rate was like 80,000 B/s. Yeah, I'm not missing an K or M. This would have copied the content, which was about 4 shows, but I didn't need it.
I then just did the backup and restore option, which took about 3 minutes. I haven't had a freeze yet. I've even seen a few spots that probably would have sputtered before. I think it was happening when I was getting dropped packets from my cable provider.