Hi Phil
The "Your PTV Receiver is starting up. Please wait a moment" screen is also known as the Boot PROM screen and is actually in a chip on the motherboard. You would even see this screen with NO hard disk connected.
As such you are either faced with a few scenarios here:
1. The IDE controller on the TiVo motherboard has failed. Unlikely however.
2. The power supply in the TiVo has failed in a fashion that still allows power for kicking the TiVo into life but not fully. Possible, but unlikely.
3. The hard disk has died. Most likely. Even if your PC BIOS can recognise it that is no certainty the drive is being read and therefore you won't get past the Boot PROM screen on the TiVo. Hard drives that are working fine and appear OK can fail after a power cycle.
My suggestion, like I always advise, is to get another test hard disk and see if you can restore operation of your TiVo with that. It can be anything from 1GB upwards. If the TiVo still shows no signs of improvement after testing with another hard disk then you can then make a decision on what to do about getting the TiVo repaired.
I understand you don't have a test hard disk but at the same time don't want to reimage your current one however you are going to have to do one or the other before an assessment on what the next step is. There is no other option - unless of course you have another TiVo to drop the current hard disk in which I'm tipping you do not otherwise you would have tried that already.
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