InstantCake Problem on Philips DSR6000 - SW-ICAKE-S1DT-DL-001

[stonelyson]

Hello,

My 6years old Series1 DirecTV DSR6000 drive pass away and I purchased the InstantCake about a month ago , can someone please help !!

Cake is on a Single Drive without any errors during the installation but problem start happing after 7-10 days usage... on both cases 500GB and 250GB

Case 1.
-- Installed on a brand new Single 500GB. recording time showing ~472 hrs on the screen and everything looks fine initially.
After about 7 days running the cake on my single 500GB drive , some of the shows that recorded previous will not able to play and display "Error playing a recording" message , I have no choice but deleted the shows , those shows were able to play before but after couple days it couldn't play anymore ... Also when playing some of the shows , at the same spot, the Tivo will automatic reboot, I replayed the show at the same spot and it happened again, so I deleted that program but it happens very often with other shows.

Also , some of the shows are mixing up with each other , example , I recorded CSI for 1hr , when playing the show it will mix up with others (Dateline , Freinds ) showing an incorrect time (2hrs , 30min , etc) status bar...

So, I think may be there is a problem on the 500GB drive, I installed the cake on a Single 250GB drive and try again...

Case 2.
-- Same problem on my Brand new 250GB after 7-10 usage.

I even try installed the cake again on another 250GB drive and same problem.

I emailed the problem to support@dvrupgrade.com and all they reply to me is there isn't a problem on the software. But I really think there is , I understand they tested the cake on different size drives 250GB , 500GB and 750GB but did dvrupgrade really tested the software on a Philips DSR6000 and let it run for couple weeks for QA ? Or is there some update from TiVo recently and make it fail... Please please help me !!

My Cake Info:
InstantCake for Series1 DirecTV TiVo Units DSR6000
InstantCake for Philips DSR6000 (3.5c)
SW-ICAKE-S1DT-DL-001

Any reply is appreciated !! Thanks :)

[stonelyson]

This morning, Screen showing "cannot boot kernel" !!! What's going on with the cake ?

[Rick Travis]

This morning, Screen showing "cannot boot kernel" !!! What's going on with the cake ?IS your cd attached to HDB Primary channel slave and the target drive connected to HDC secondary channel master? Maybe your motherboard disk controller is failing. Try HDDscan at www.HDDguru.com. do a scan on the disk and make sure it passes. I have heard of problems with the Seagate drives with quality control. I use Maxtor or Western Digital. I don't know which drives you are using?

[stonelyson]

Yes, I did install it with

CD Rom as HDB Primary Slave and the target drive as HDC Secondary Master

Both 500GB and 250GB are Seagate ! I don't think is the drive failing since same issue happened on both drives but you could be right on the Seagate control issues.

Could you please explain a bit more on the quality control issues ?

[Rick Travis]

Yes, I did install it with

CD Rom as HDB Primary Slave and the target drive as HDC Secondary Master

Both 500GB and 250GB are Seagate ! I don't think is the drive failing since same issue happened on both drives but you could be right on the Seagate control issues.

Could you please explain a bit more on the quality control issues ? I have a friend who bought two Seagate 750 both were dead on arrival. Also suggest you go to www.newegg.com and look up the Seagate drives and look up the customer comments on the drives. They are interesting.

[stonelyson]

I think I may found the problem.... Possible is my bad. I did changed the phone setting and making the daily call !!! I manually removed call waiting prefix with the *# and making the call !!

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvrupgrade-support-center/?mod_id=2&id=115

I am going to reinstall my cake on the seagate 500GB and will not change the setting on the phone. more important i will NOT connect my phone line...

[Rick Travis]

I think I may found the problem.... Possible is my bad. I did changed the phone setting and making the daily call !!! I manually removed call waiting prefix with the *# and making the call !!

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvrupgrade-support-center/?mod_id=2&id=115

I am going to reinstall my cake on the seagate 500GB and will not change the setting on the phone. more important i will NOT connect my phone line...Good Luck :)

[Lou Jacob]

Seems odd that you'd be having a problem if you've used 3.5c and its making the daily call. As far as I know, there is not a later version of the software out (eg. 3.5d) but if there is, that could definitely cause a problem (hence the recommendation to not plug in your phone line).

Please keep us posted on what happens...

I'm thinking that you might have a bad cable or power supply in your unit - so if the problem keeps happening, you might look into that...

[stonelyson]

Hi Lou or Others,

My cake is working after 2 weeks, However, the fakecall isn't working. It keeps pop up the message saying haven't able to make a success call in the pass 14 days or so...

I did not change any of the setting (*# .. etc) , I've noticed the fake call was working at the beginning for 2-3 days and afterward every call is failing on the information message.

Is there anyway to fix this ? or the only solution is keep delete the message of fail calls ?

THanks !!
Edit/Delete Message

[stonelyson]

Hey Lou,

I found the following from one of your old post but need your confirmation before try it on my unit regarding the fix on fakecall. Please reply and help

http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/12446/Fix-for-Daily-Call-Nag-Message-with-a-DirecTiVo/

===============

rootwrite
mv /etc/password /etc/passwd

ps -ef | grep crond
kill -9 <the number to the left of the word "root">
crond

fakecall.tcl
===============

but it will run automatically at 4am every day moving forward.

Thanks,
Derek