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TiVo Premiere in reboot cycle, HDD tests ok. Advice?

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  • #1

    TiVo Premiere in reboot cycle, HDD tests ok. Advice?

    I have a Premiere XL that's run flawlessly for 3 and half years. Then yesterday displayed GSOD.

    1. Going the logical route, I pulled the HDD and ran the WD diagnostics, Quick and Extended Test ran with no errors. After finding the instructions, I ran ddrescue to an identical drive. ddrescue completed with no errors. To me this says my HDD is fine.

    2. I installed the cloned drive in the Tivo and with this drive it just enters a reboot loop of 'Welcome...' and 'Almost There...'
    3. Started trying the Kickstart codes. 54-Thru short test, says disk is fine. Tried each of 51-Software Upgrade, 56-Software Install and 52-Emergency Software Reinstall. None of these got to the 'Installing Service Udate.' screen.
    4. Checked the BIOS Battery.
    5. I do have a failing fan. It is still spinning but making lots of noise.
    6. Checked P.S. +5.15 and +12.35. Little low but should be ok, I think. (other opinions are welcome.)
    7. Re-installed the original drive that tests ok, Ran Kickstart 57 . This morning it was at the GSOD. Now this disk always encounters the GSOD. Does not respond to Kickstart codes.

    Although before the GSOD, I was experiencing slight pixelation and studdering in a show I record every day and it was occurring at the same point in the recording (I keep multple episodes so it wasn't likely writing to the same place on the disk). I thought maybe cable was doing it. Also, sometimes when I used the back arrow, I see the preview window but the rest of the screen was black. Had to go to live TV then the TiVo key to get to the menus.

    So, before I bite the bullet and buy a replacement disk form WK, is it still possible there is something else or is the HDD is causing? I'm wondering if files on the disk got so whacked that the BIOS can't boot the disk any more. But why doesn't Kickstart 52 work?

    Thanks,
    John
    Tags: gsod, premiere
  • #2
    That really all does sound like a bad drive. We've seen dd_rescue copy with no errors, on bad drives. That's a sequential copy, and in real-world TiVo use, the drive is under much more random demand.

    I'd either try the TiVo extended test in the kickstart 54, or just try a new drive kit from us.
    Been here a long time . . .

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    • #3
      Originally posted by WK-Michael View Post
      That really all does sound like a bad drive. We've seen dd_rescue copy with no errors, on bad drives. That's a sequential copy, and in real-world TiVo use, the drive is under much more random demand.

      I'd either try the TiVo extended test in the kickstart 54, or just try a new drive kit from us.
      Thank you for the quick reply.

      This still leaves me several questions.
      1. Freshly downloaded WD Diagnostics Extended Test says the drive has no errors. What could TiVo be doing to a drive that tests good with WD diags but still is failing? This isn't logical to me. I'm going to see if WD has any random read tests that could confirm a failing drive.

      2. On the original drive, I cannot get into any of the Kickstart modes including 54. Any ideas why?

      3. On the cloned drive, I can get into Kickstart 54, but cannot get to the update screen for KS 51,52 or 56. What does that indicate? I am currently running KS 57 on the cloned drive to see if that changes anything.

      John

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      • #4
        1 - I don't know why that would be from a technical standpoint, but I've seen it before.

        2 - Nope.

        3 - I can't say I've seen that.
        Been here a long time . . .

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        • #5
          Well, after the KS 57 finished, I could no longer run KS 54 or any other KS code. And the TiVo was in a reboot loop: Welcome, Almost There, GSOD. the MFS check seems to have finished off the OS on the drive.

          The DvrBARS backup and restore encountered the error: MFS volume header not found. Seems to indicate the OS trashed the structure on the disk.

          So then, I ran the best diagnostics I could find on the drive. HD Tune Pro. I ran full surface scan, then a write and read of zeros across the whole drive. It found one suspect sector about 3/4 into the disk. S.M.A.R.T reports the error after the diags uncovered it. Performance tests ran with no out of spec results.

          So, taking a calculated risk, with DvrBARS, I backed up then restored the OS from the WK disk onto the original disk and the system is up and running. I know that it's possible that that bad sector could be in a critical place. But what are the chances? And that the OS would fail such that the OS would trash the disk.

          I'm really feeling that there is some serious problem with the TiVo OS that will trash the disk. Is there any other evidence that would support that? Do you think TiVo knows or cares about this?

          Thanks for your time,
          John
          Last edited by DocBrown; 03-10-2014, 06:57 PM.

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          • #6
            We just haven't seen many bad OSes on drives that don't have underlying physical problems. It happens, but probably in less than 5% of bad-OS situations.
            Been here a long time . . .

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            • #7
              DocBrown, did this technique allow to recover Tivo operation AND your keep your show content, or did you loose everything?

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