Nope - the DVD won't work if the drive is bad. What you've got really does just sound like a bad drive. New drives are here:

http://www.weaknees.com/sdh4.php

I have a similar problem with my Toshiba SD-H400. Last night, my wife and I finished watching an hour-long show on TiVo. I left it at the program list and went upstairs for a few minutes. When I came back, TiVo <sob> was at the grey "Welcome. Powering up..." screen and I heard a faint intermittent "brushing" sound. (Not really a "clicking" but more like someone was regularly brushing something.)

I rebooted. Grey screen. I let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes, and it never got further.

This morning, I unplugged my USB Linksys wireless adapter and tried again. Nothing. When I plug it in, no lights come on for about 45-60 seconds. Then the green Standby LED comes on and then the green Record LED.

I re-connected the wireless adapter and rebooted again. This time I tried the "kickstart" feature described on TiVo's forums. When I saw the right-hand green Record LED, I pressed Pause. The left-hand yellow LED came on and I pressed "57." The left-hand yellow LED went out, but nothing else seemed to happen.

Hard drive? Power supply? We did have some bad thunderstorms last week (Chicago), but TiVo's been working fine until now. I also have it connected to an UPS, so it shouldn't be affected by power surges, etc. From the WeaKnees troubleshooting, it sounds like the HD rather than a PSU. OTOH, I've also read about people seeing all the lights and video out work but their HD isn't spinning up and it's a bad PSU. Is it worth looking inside before ordering a HD? I don't hear any of the regular disk activity noise, so I'm not 100% sure the drive has spun up. (All I hear is that "brushing" sound.)

If it's the HD, and I buy the SD-H400 300G with ground shipping, do you have an idea when it would arrive in Chicago (60005)? I assume 2-day shipping would arrive Mon and 3-day shipping would arrive Tue (no Saturday delivery?). TiVo just released $25 coupons. Would WeaKnees match them?

BTW, who manufactures the replacement HDs? I hope it's Seagate because I've had the worst luck with IBM/Hitachi or Western Digital. (Maxtor's an unknown quantity for me.)

Thank you for your help. I'm going to light a candle for my lost shows now...

Update: I tried the kickstart again, and it got to the Almost There screen. But then the GSOD appeared. (That's the one where it says there's a serious problem and it's going to take 3 hours to fix, right?) After 15(?) seconds, it seemed to reboot--it went back to the grey Welcome. Powering up... screen. Then the Almost There screen again. Then GSOD.

I watched that happen three times and turned off my TV. Is it supposed to do that for 3 hours or does that mean the HD is truly hosed? Or something else?

I'll turn my TV on in 3 hours and see what it's doing. But, if it's the HD, I'd like to order (from WeaKnees) ASAP so it arrives ASAP.

I think you may have already placed a drive order, but for the sake of this thread, it does sound to me like a drive replacement is in the near future.

Yes, I've placed a drive order already. Once I got into the kickstart page and the rebooting cycle, I was fairly certain it's the HD. Thank you for following up and confirming.