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Premiere Quit: melted area on HD Connector + Smell

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  • Premiere Quit: melted area on HD Connector + Smell

    New Member: my first post (I looked but didn't find anything like this problem in existing posts.)

    My 2010 Premiere TCD746320 Quit. It has a WD My Book AV 1TB expander drive connected (thus recordings are shared across both HD's, I believe). Yesterday, the TiVo began constantly chirping and had a slight electrical burning smell. The TiVo wouldn't work, nor could I get live TV. Before opening the TiVo, I thought it was probably an HD failure.

    Upon opening the cover, I discovered a melted/bulging area on the top rear portion of the wide plastic connector to the HD. Also, there was a black smudge on the underside of the top cover right over this part of the connector. Does this indicate a short at the connector? Is the HD possibly ok? Or could the hard drive data be recoverable?

    I ask these questions because I have LOTS of recordings I'd like to recover if possible and if it wasn't too expensive. (And if I understand how the expander drive works, neither drive independently contains complete recordings -- i.e., I need both drives to work to play back any recording.)

    My thinking at this point is to send the TiVo in to WeaKnees for diagnosis and repair. Is that a reasonable approach?

    Or is it highly probable that it is simply a failed hard drive? (I can buy and replace a HD myself.)

    Can/does WeaKnees recover data and transfer it to a replacement drive, if that is needed? (Would it then work with my expander drive?)

    On a related note, is there a way to routinely back up my TiVo hard drive? So this could be avoided in the future?

    Thanks for any help!

    Jim Thornton

  • #2
    We've seen this a few times. In most cases, the drive is actually fine. Replacement of the power supply could get the unit working again with the recordings intact. We have power supplies here:

    http://www.weaknees.com/ps

    In some cases, the drive gets fried also. If that has happened, then you are right, your recordings are gone because they are shared across both drives.

    We do have this complete repair option:

    http://www.weaknees.com/s3s4

    If we can transfer data, we will. No additional charge there.
    Been here a long time . . .

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