Reporting "hardware error" after mod and software upgrade

[commie]

Hi guys,

After installing the new chip and updating the software as per the (excellent) instructions on these forums, when i go to the Now Playing list I get the following message:

A hardware problem has been detected which needs your attention. Until this problem is fixed, you will not be able to record programs or watch recordings. You will need to restart the TiVo Media Device now. If you see this message again even after the Media Device..."

The message is cut off and I can't seem to scroll to see the rest.

If I look into the logs, I can see in the tverr log that it is complaining about "Keyring entry [xxx] hasn't started" (where xxx is one of several short strings like HM_HSC, HM_DSC, HM_ELOG, AA) and also messages around a failure in DecryptMachineKey().

Did I cook something while I was changing the chip over?

Any help much appreciated,

Cheers
Troy

[cpab]

G'day Troy,

"A hardware problem has been detected which needs your attention. Until this problem is fixed, you will not be able to record programs or watch recordings. You will need to restart the TiVo Media Device now. If you see this message again even after the Media Device..."

I've had this message myself a few times in the last couple of months.

To answer your question quickly, I think the hard drive is on the way out.

To give some information to back up my assessment:

Firstly, that has been the line that I have been given over the last year, from Darren and others more experienced than me.

Of course, there is always a chance that the hard drive failure is not the problem.

My experience of 2 weeks ago:

I bought 2 Tivos with Expanders recently. I now realise that I paid too much, but that's the way it goes:

I 'modded' the Tivos and upgraded the software, did a guided set up on each, because they hadn't been used in a while and all went well.

Both Tivos had 320Gb HDDs. My idea with the 1Tb Expanders(one was still brand new in a box and hadn't been used) was to clone - WinMFS them from the 320Gb HDDs. This is not the best idea, but based on one being new, I thought I'd have a good one.

Before embarking on the cloning, I checked the drives in my Acronis disk checker; One was only 79%, while the other was 100%.

I went ahead anyway and cloned the 79%er. All went well after firing it up in the Tivo, only to arrive at the situation you are reporting above.

I put the 320Gb back in and it works fine.

Next I did the 100%er and that all went well, but still came up with the same outcome as you and my previous 79%er.

I rechecked this drive in Acronis and it came up as 93%.

The problem as I see it with these drives is that they're nigh on 10 years old and though the last one started at 100% it quickly started to fail from that point.

I've done a few 1Tb upgrades now and all successful with new hard drives, one even successful after taking 7 hours to clone from a failing original 160Gb.

I hope this gives some useful facts about the hard drives in the Tivo.

You may still be able to WinMFS - clone that failing drive onto a new drive.

Regards

Chris

[Darren King]

The only time I have seen this error is if a hard disk and/or image used from ANOTHER TiVo is used. To confirm: go to your system information screen and see what the TSN is. If it is all zeros instead of a number starting with 663 then that is definitely what is wrong. To remedy do a full "clear and delete everything".

If the above is not the problem then I would be interested to know further.

[commie]

Hi guys,

Sorry I'm a bit slow getting back, been a bit flat out. Thanks to both of you for your quick responses.

Darren -- you nailed it. It was exactly that, I had taken the disk out of my dead tivo and put it into another one. The "Clear and Delete everything" fixed it, good as gold now.

Chris -- From your description it sounds like it might have been the same thing for you, if you were swapping disks out then it seems that's what will do it. I had figured that you could just swap disks around, but obviously not... must be something on the board that ties it to a particular disk.

Thanks again to you both for taking the time to reply, hopefully this post also helps someone else when they hit the same problem in the future.

Cheers,
Troy

[Darren King]

I had figured that you could just swap disks around, but obviously not... must be something on the board that ties it to a particular disk.


The motherboard has your TSN service number. So does the hard disk. Both must match. Doing a "clear and delete everything" writes the motherboard TSN to the hard disk.