HR10-250 wont boot up.

[flagmaster]

I just purchased a used/broken hr-10-250. I already have a fully working good one, and I was hoping to maybe get lucky and be able to fix this one up and use it as a 2nd unit perhaps.

When I power the unit up, I get the "Welcome. Powering up..." and it never gose beyond that.

I hooked up the serial cable and I get this....


ide_identify timed out
autoboot failed to read boot sector
init there is no device
Service number is 3570000A0C23DAA.
What is password?

The HDD is a WD 250 gig, and it is spinning. I The power supply looks to be ok, but I have not checked for +5 and +12 yet, but since the main board gives video, and serial io, I guess the ps is probably ok.

I also have not tried the pull the hdd and put it into a computer and boot it up with the linux lba 48 cd yet to confirm if the hdd is just bad...but I thinking it is.

So, my question to the experts is....

IF the HDD is completely shot, and the only backup data I have access to is my other hr-10-250's "tivo.bak" file I made......

Question 1: If I replace the drive with a fresh new WD 250 gig....then what?

Sub Question A: will my tivo.bak file restore onto a new drive (yes) and will this drive actually work in THIS tivo with a different serial number and different access card?

Sub Question B: If not, what should I do?

[Skippye]

The easiest thing to do is to buy an instantcake cd @ http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores...el&ModelID=100 and reload the latest software on the existing hard drive or buy and new hard drive. They also sell ptvnet http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/ptvnet.cfm
Easy stuff to use with great results without writing linux scripts.

[PlainBill]

I'd download and use the manufacturer's diagnostics on the 'bad' drive. If it passes, try to restore your backup to the 'bad' drive (due to quirks in mfstools it may not restore). If it does restore successfully, but the system does not work you will have to do more troubleshooting. If it does work, you will have to either run 51killer or do a Clear and Delete everything.

If it fails the diagnostics, you have two possible choices - buy a new drive (I'd suggest a larger drive) or test your existing drive in the new system. Another option is to try the 'bad' drive in your existing system.

It's your money; rather than spend $20 for Instantcake, I'd suggest spending the money to get an even larger drive.

PlainBill

[flagmaster]

Ok,

I pulled the drive out of the tivo and hooked it to my computer.
BOIS/POST recognized it. But when I tried to make a backup of it, it just got stuck saying "One moment, analyzing drive"---never came out of that.

I fired up GwSCAN (gateway scan--same as WD-DIAG) and it...

SMART TEST - error
READ TEST - fail, bad read element.
WRITE ZEROS to DRIVE - passed.
SMART TEST - pass
READ TEST - fail, bad read element.

I even swapped the electroncis controller on the drive for another WD250 I had, and it failed in the same way.

I guess I need a new drive before I can proceed.

I will try the restore of my "tivo.bak" file before I go with the cake program...

Will DTV still sell me a new card and let me add this to my account?

or active the card that came with it?

[PlainBill]

They will sell you a new card, it is very unlikely they will allow you to use the old one. Still, it doesn't hurt to try - you can never tell what a CSR will do.

In this process, you might want to consider the opportunity to upgrade to an HR20-700. The latest information indicates they now will provide them free to people with HR10's. DirecTV has added about 30 HD channels recently, with more to come by the end of the year.

PlainBill

[flagmaster]

Ok,

I took a spare WD250 gig ide drive from my computer, and I did the mfsrestore onto it from my tivo.bak file, and it went fine.

I put into into the new tivo, and it booted up ok, but then gave me some message about a hardware problem was found, called it error #51.

Since this drive dose not have any recordings on it, I ok'ed that and went into the "Clear and Delete Everything".

Its chugging away, says it will take 1 hour.

Will this work, or am I going to still need some kinda "51killer" procedure?

If so, could you point me to the link to get the files/procedure? I have not had to do that before.

Thanks.

Carey

[PlainBill]

You won't have to run 51killer. When a TiVo or DirecTiVo boots up it compares the serial number of the system (stored on the crypto chip) to a hardware identifier (based on the serial number stored in the crypto chip) to the drive. If it doesn't find the identifier, it creates one. If the one it finds does not match the one from the crypto chip you get an error 51.

Both C & D E and 51killer delete the hardware identifier; 51killer is faster if you have a hacked system. But by the time you read this you will probably have a working system.

PlainBill

[flagmaster]

Humm...

Well its been almost 3 hours now, and it still "Clearing and deleting everything".
I will give it a few more hours and reboot it.

[flagmaster]

Hour number 5 has come and gone, and its still stuck.

I typed in RESTART on the serial port and it rebooted back into the "Clearing and Deleting everything".

So, I re-restored with mfsrestore the tivo.bak file again, and Im back to the #51 errors.

Since this image already had the hacks for ftp and telnet, I guess I need to try the 51killer stuff.

Any tips to locating the 51killer for an hr-10-250 with with software version : 3.1.5f-01-2-357

I will start my 51killer quest now, but if you have something that would helpful in my hunt, please post as a reply. Thanks for all your help, you guys are the best.

Carey

[flagmaster]

Humm,

From what I can tell, I can only get the 51killer.tcl from a website called "tivostuff.com" which apparently is down and under construction. Can someone help me out and pm me with a link to where I might get this much needed script?

Thanks much.

[ScanMan]

51killer.tcl is part of AlphaWolf's All-In-One Utilities.

[flagmaster]

Thank you for that.

I extracted the 51killer.tcl and I ftp'ed it to the system that was giving 51 errors, and ran it. Type yes, and all is well now. Thanks again everyone.

Carey