HR10-250 Reset during HD broadcasts :<

[svirfnebli]

Disclaimer: ** I'm really not a forum noob - If my topic has already been discussed, I am sorry for my post. I have looked through tons of pages from my search and not found anything to answer my question- Please direct me to any threads that apply if there are any thanks **


Ok, so i've had this unit for about 2.5 years now and I'm happy with it save for the speed etc.. I have a strange problem that occurs though .. About a year ago I started having issue when watching HD broadcasts (Not OTA). I would be live watching a show which was recorded via seasons pass, and BAM it would just reset - Usually on NBC or ABC. Then it would restart and start recording again.. this for the most part went away until a week ago when I finally plugged in the phone for the first time and I believe it downloaded a software update... Now it's back.

It happen on Monday during heros. Heros started at 9:00 pm. The first recording ended at 9:17, but the tivo didn't crash until 9:48. Looking at the details of the recording in the now playing list, it said "0:48 duration", however when I actually start watching it, there is only 17 minutes recording.

I cannot figure out what it is .. I'm thinking maybe my dish is losing the sat feed and that causes the box to crash? Is this a common problem?

Thanks,

Svirf

[scottp461]

I've had the same thing happen and believe that the recording encountered bad sectors on the hard drive and was not able to continue. It keeps trying to record, hence the longer duration, but eventually it crashes the unit, resulting in a restart. I could be wrong, but that is my take on it. What I did to isolate the bad area is to save the failed recording so that the problem area won't be recorded to again. I'm not sure if this works. I guess only time will tell. My unit was still running 3.1.5f when this happened and hasn't been upgraded yet. My other unit has upgraded to 6.3a and has been working perfectly since the update almost 2 weeks ago. The problems I do experience are about the same as when it was running 3.1.5f. I don't attribute any problems to the 6.3a software itself.

I never had a consistent problem with restarts, but I did have a LNB problem that corrupted the signal on certain HD channels for a while. This can crash the unit as well because all those data errors put a heavy load on the processor as it tries to decode the corrupted signal. My feeling is that an over taxed processor and/or bad sectors on the drive(s) is the root of many problems. A DVR is, after all, just a very specialized computer.

My best bet, you have some bad sectors on your hard drive that are causing your problems.

[svirfnebli]

Wow I never even thought of that... Particularly saving one of those partial recordings to keep it from writing over that sector again. I'm going to try that

Thank you VERY much.

svirf

[litzdog911]

In my experience this is one of the first symptoms of a dying hard drive. If you're concerned about the recordings currently on your HR10-250, think about replacing/upgrading that hard drive soon.

[scottp461]

To be sure, increased bad sectors are an indication of iminent hard drive failure, but so far every new TiVo I've had has had at least one very bad spot right out of the box, this includes units I've bought from WeaKnees and directly from D*. WeaKnees told me that they reset the bad sector map when formatting their drives in favor of increased capacity, since their customers would rather have the additional capacity. I would rather have the reliability, but I guess I'm in the minority.

I do keep an eye out for increased drive problems and I am currently off-loading programs from my HDVR2 since it is over 3 years old and I've discovered a second area of bad sectors that wasn't there before. Hope to finish before the fatal crash, but am looking forward to increasing it's capacity with new much larger drives when the time comes.

The best thing I can say is pay attention and know that the drives will fail at some point. Don't get caught off guard.

[svirfnebli]

In my experience this is one of the first symptoms of a dying hard drive. If you're concerned about the recordings currently on your HR10-250, think about replacing/upgrading that hard drive soon.

Hmm ok, that isnt a bad Idea. Is there any threads / websites you can recommend on doing just that? I imagine it is not as easy as just going to fry's and buying a big 750 gig harddrive..

Thanks

svirf.

PS: I must say I'm amazed at how helpful the people on this forum have been. This is very rare. I'm so used to hearing "LOL l00k @ teh n00b with teh qu3st10n"

[litzdog911]

Check out these resources ....

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25

http://www.weaknees.com/index.html

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/

http://www.9thtee.com/