Frozen Humax

Hey guys, not sure if this is common or not but I've got a Humax DRT400 that seems to be - unhappy. I don't use the unit very often after switching to a S3 HD model, so when I turned on the TV with the Humax recently all I saw was a single image frame from the local news, as if it was Paused. I Powered it down via un-plug method and now it hangs up at the "Welcome! Powering Up..." screen.

I've attempted to run the Code 54, 57 & 58 kickstarts. Every time, after the red light appears, I enter a Code, the screen flashes grey, then "Welcome! Powering Up…" re-appears. The left orange light stays lit for a few seconds then goes out. I've let it sit for up to 40 minutes but the screen never changes.

Guessing at this point the HD may be dead, it's an upgraded model although I can't recall the capacity, model or when I installed it, honestly. I may crack it open tonight & take a look. Any hope of reviving the unit?

I may also have the original HD, perhaps I can swap it out & see if it still functions. Thanks!

Sounds like a bad drive, but if you have the original (and it was working when you pulled it), that's a good plan: Try the old drive and see if anything changes.

Wow, fast Reply! Will do, I'll report back either way. Thanks again.

Got the unit open, I think the drive that's in there is the original. It's a WD800BB 80GB model, so I bet it's just toast. Are there any diagnostics I can run by hooking it up to a PC, or should I just throw in the towel? I know I could get a pre-configured drive or bare drive & InstantCake it, just not sure it's worth the investment at this stage.

Maybe try reading the first post of this very thread?

Bah, I read that the first time I visited! Early onset senility, coming to a town near you! Thanks again, I'm off to play Sherlock Holmes for a while...

We have a TiVo Series 3 that stopped working.. it would respond slowly at first and then finally stopped doing anything. Having replaced a hard drive in a Series 2 a few years ago I assumed this was the problem. Sorry to say.. I flipped a coin and ordered a hard drive from a competitor of yours. When I installed the new drive and plugged it in.. I get four colored lights on the front and the TIVO emblem lit up.. Nothing on TV screen. I checked installation and tried again.. same result. I did an online search for help and was directed to your trouble shooting page.. It was suggested that even though the fan was spinning perhaps it was the power supply... I ordered the needed unit from you and installed it this afternoon. With the TIVO on the kitchen table and the case open I plugged it in... the same four colored lights..I had earlier tried this with the cablecards removed.. made no difference. I am at a loss.. have more invested in this repair so far.. $2.13 just for a T8 torx bit.. added to the large hard drive and the power supply than the cost of a new Premier model TIVO.. Any help greatly appreciated

Problem solved.

HDVR2 constant reboots

I have a hughes HDVR2, its powering up, cycling through the Welcome, and almost there screens and then reboots. I tried following the directions to test the drive in the tivo but could never get to the test screens. I took the drive out, ran it through maxtor powermax testing and it reports the drive is fine. Is my best bet to buy a replacement drive, or is there anything else that could be causing the issue?

thanks,
Dave

That Maxtor drive is pretty old and could easily be the cause of your problem. If it passed the long test, it could be software corruption, but we have also seen plenty of situations in which a drive passes but doesn't work in a TIVO for some reason. I'd suggest you either try a new TiVo hard drive or a flat-fee TiVo repair.

I plugged in my Tivo Series 2 after a year or so of it not being used. Everything worked ok for a couple days and then it started overheating and switching itself off. I noticed the back fan wasn't spinning so I replaced that. It worked fine for another couple of days and then it did the GSOD but after 30 minutes or so it started back up again and worked for about a day. The all of a sudden while I was watching TV it shut itself off kind of suddenly, and when rebooting it hangs at the Please Wait screen. Any idea whether this is a HD or power supply issue? How can I tell the difference? I am thinking of pulling out the HD to run diagnostics but if you guys have a different idea let me know. Thanks. Also, a side question -can I plug the HD into an external IDE USB enclosure to run diagnostics that way? Thanks again. Hoping for a quick response as I have some time to troubleshoot tonight. Awesome site!

Green screen is typically caused by a failed hard drive; I'd start there.

Whether you can put your drive into an external case depends on whether the testing software will recognize drives attached to a USB port. You'd have to look at the testing software to see. BEWARE of attaching your drive while in Windows XP. You have to get a DOS-based version of the testing s/w, which may not like a USB-attached drive.

Your Maxtor link is bad because they got bought out by Seagate.

Thanks - I just added a note to use the Seagate tools for Maxtor drives now.

I have a Hughes DVR40 and an RCA DVR40. One of them has a bad hard drive. Everything inside the cases looks exactly the same, but when I tried to swap hard drives I got a hardware error message. I tried to "clear and delete everything", but that went on for 1 1/2 hours. So, should these hard drives be interchangeable?