Tivo has become very slow to respond. Help needed

[belair_boy]

G'day All

Back again after about 4.5 years of satisfactory TiVo ownership.

Just in the last couple of weeks my TiVo has become very slow at responding to commands from the remote.
The remote shows the red led on button press and the TiVo shows a yellow led to acknowledge the press but it can take minutes to respond.
This can be anything from a channel change to any of the menu functions. It only does it now and then but when it does it drives me nuts.
The menu screens take a long time to refresh and it appears like the TiVo background is jerky as if it struggling to perform its standard house keeping.

I have a separate 1TB hard drive and although there is a lot stored, there is always plenty in the deleted folder. I have done nothing different recently so don't know what direction to take.

A google search show a similar problem with TiVo boxes in the UK but not AUS and nothing recent.

Any help or suggestions would be welcome because, as I said, it drives me nuts when it does it.

[petestrash]

I assume it's a TiVo HD you are talking about and have moved this thread to the TiVo HD section.

The TiVo has very little RAM so almost every command including showing a menu is actually read from the hard drive.

Slow down of the system is usually because of hard drive issues.

Given you say you have had the TiVo for 4.5 years, it would not be unusual to start having issues with the hard drive, which is slowing down the read speeds.

This issue can be just clutter or the drive starting to fail.

If the shows are not that important to you, do a clear and delete everything. it will setup the TiVo as new.

If you don't want to lose the shows, replacing the drive/s is the other option, and given their age probably about time before they fail totally.

[belair_boy]

Thanks for the reply Pete.

I was suspecting the hard drive/s and what you said supports that.

I will transfer the programs I want to keep to the PC and do the clear and delete everything.

If there are still problems I will have to look at replacing the hard drives.

Is there a handy link to a "how to replace the hard drives"?

Also is there a way to check the drive before replacing or should I do it on my PC after it has been removed?

Thanks again.

[petestrash]

Pretty sure there are plenty of links on you tube about drive replacement.

Once you have backed up, you can use most drive tool programs to check the drive. Seatools from Seagate is quite good.