Need help identifying a possible hardware problem

[contact411]

I have been fighting w/ my TiVo for way too long now and any help is VERY appreciated.

Here is my situation:
- During the summer my TiVo was giving me warnings about the temp level quite often, I removed the cover and the messages went away for the most part (only saw them on REALLY hot days).

-Two months (err so) later the tivo dies its death. Keep rebooting to the first "please wait" message never starting up.

-I try and reimage the orginal master drive (40g) w/ 25xtreme but it fails and I assume the drive was bad and this was the reason it wouldnt boot

-I reimage the old secondary drive (80g) as a single master drive, put it in the tivo and it boots to the menus and all seems well.

- Realizing I need to add a lifetime subsciption to this new drive I try and get to the bash prompt with no success (being an idjot). Before I realize I need to use a null modem (now I know this) to get to the bash, I decide the image must somehow have gone wrong and I need to reimage the drive (dont ask)

- After reimaging the drive the TiVo now will not even turn the lights on when it is plugged in. I think maybe the hard drive is bad somehow and decide to run down to Fry's and grab a 120g (you can never have to many hard drives). Image the new drive and still get the same result.. no lights.. almost seems like the power supply doesnt have enough juice..?!?

I'll take all opinions..advice..ridicule..and yes 420 is probably half the problem.

Thanks,
contact

[captain_video]

First of all, is this a standalone Tivo or a DirecTivo? I'd start by checking all of the cables to make sure they're all connected securely. The ribbon cable between the power supply and mainboard in a DTivo is a major source of bootup problems and needs to be reseated periodically if the DTivo hangs at bootup.

Check to make sure your power supply is functioning properly. Does the fan come on and the drives spin up when you plug it in? Do you hear a clicking noise from the power supply? Check the voltages at the connector going to the hard drives and make sure you're getting about 5.3V and 12V on the yellow and red wires with respect to ground (black). Make sure the drives are connected when taking these measurements. There are several threads in the experts forum about power supply issues that you should check into. There's also a troubleshooting post in the How Tos Only sticky in the main DirecTV Tivo hacking forum.