Tivo HUMAX Stuck on Clearing and Deleting Everything

[jacksplat]

My HUMAX was purchased a year ago and worked fine until recently live TV and recorded TV would play OK for a short period, then start stuttering, then freeze for about 5 seconds, advance one frame and freeze again, forever. The remote didn't seem to be able to cut through the freezing frames. The only was to break the cycle was to unplug the machine and reboot.

To remedy I went to settings and chose clear and delete everything. It never completed that process even after letting is run for a full 24 hours.

Now on power up it is stuck on "Clearing and deleting everything. This may take up to an hour."

Leaving it like this for days does not fix it.

The power supply seems OK since it gets this far. The HD and fan spin up.

I do hear a clicking occasionally, like a solenoid, about every 5 minutes or so. The screen doesn't change when it clicks.

I'm wondering if I need to re-image the HD. But before I go through that hassle, how do I know if the HD is fried or just needs to be re-imaged? It's only 1 year old. The HD came with the machine and is a Maxtor MaxLine II 250GB ATA/133 HDD. The HUMAX is model # T2500, Mfg Part # 51T04101336122.

I hate to can a 1-year-old HD. If I cannot resurrect the HD I might just switch to using the cable company's DVR as I don't want to keep dumping money into this machine. I love my Tivo...but this is a real hassle and it's not the first Tivo we've had problems with.

Help keep my Tivo ALIVE!!!

[Lou Jacob]

My HUMAX was purchased a year ago and worked fine until recently live TV and recorded TV would play OK for a short period, then start stuttering, then freeze for about 5 seconds, advance one frame and freeze again, forever. The remote didn't seem to be able to cut through the freezing frames. The only was to break the cycle was to unplug the machine and reboot.

To remedy I went to settings and chose clear and delete everything. It never completed that process even after letting is run for a full 24 hours.

Now on power up it is stuck on "Clearing and deleting everything. This may take up to an hour."

Leaving it like this for days does not fix it.

The power supply seems OK since it gets this far. The HD and fan spin up.

I do hear a clicking occasionally, like a solenoid, about every 5 minutes or so. The screen doesn't change when it clicks.

I'm wondering if I need to re-image the HD. But before I go through that hassle, how do I know if the HD is fried or just needs to be re-imaged? It's only 1 year old. The HD came with the machine and is a Maxtor MaxLine II 250GB ATA/133 HDD. The HUMAX is model # T2500, Mfg Part # 51T04101336122.

I hate to can a 1-year-old HD. If I cannot resurrect the HD I might just switch to using the cable company's DVR as I don't want to keep dumping money into this machine. I love my Tivo...but this is a real hassle and it's not the first Tivo we've had problems with.

Help keep my Tivo ALIVE!!!

Sounds like you have a bad hard drive in the unit, and short of replacing it, if it is bad, there is nothing else you can really do.

If you are comfortable removing it, connecting it to your PC and running diagnostics on it, that is one way to verify the problem. You can also order our 'repair service' and send us your unit. We'll figure out what is wrong and fix it!!!

Lou