Tech
TiVo gets the best of me
I haven't blogged about TiVo in a longtime, though I continue to be very happy with the service. Recently,though, the power supply died in my six-month-old TiVo Series 2 unit. Whilecovered under warranty, this required Humax to send me out a new unit,as the power supply can't be replaced separately. So, a new (well,refurbished) unit arrived on Friday. It's date of manufacture, inMexico -- December 9, 2005. Interesting supply chain metric there.Anyway, knowing that it was just the power supply that was out on my oldTiVo unit, I planned to swap the hard drives between old and new upon thenew unit's arrival. I wanted to get at all those saved episodes ofDora the Explorer for my daughter, of course. So, I opened up bothunits, saw that the contents were entirely the same, and proceeded to switchthe hard drives. Once complete, I connected the new TiVo, and gotnothing but a blinking green light. Oops. I figured I was busted on the hard drive swap, so I switched them back. Plugged it in, and same blinking light. Weird...could TiVohave shipped me a broken replacement? A couple of hours later, I thought I'd take another look inside and seewhat might be wrong. There are very few moving parts on the TiVo,so there wasn't much to go wrong. I discovered, though, that I hadin fact screwed up one of the few things that could go wrong. I hadconnected the ribbon cable to the hard drive upside down. Notoften that an interface connector will go in two different ways, but thisone apparently does. Once I righted this, the unit booted up justfine. Note: I suppose this means I will have to give back my geekmerit badge. Now I had a new problem -- the old hard drive was causing an error in thenew TiVo box, and I couldn't even so much as watch the existing recordedprograms until the hardware problem was resolved. It appeared I wasindeed busted on the hard drive swap. Bummer. Sadly, I putthe new HD back in the new unit and was off and running.The last challenge was when the new unit asked me to activate. Goingto Tivo.com/activate and following the steps provided me with the opportunityto sign up for TiVo monthly service again. Already being $300 intothe last unit for lifetime service, I was concerned that the new unit didn'tmap up to me as a subscriber. So, I went the old fashioned way andpicked up the phone. There I was reassured that my lifetime servicewas indeed transferable to the new unit, and they took care of this forme. I just spent ten minutes putting all my "season passes" on thenew TiVo. In the meantime, I've missed about three weeks of Law &Order/Law&Order CI and am going through withdrawl. Anyone happento TiVo the last few weeks?
I haven't blogged about TiVo in a long
time, though I continue to be very happy with the service. Recently,
though, the power supply died in my six-month-old TiVo Series 2 unit. While
covered under warranty, this required Humax to send me out a new unit,
as the power supply can't be replaced separately. So, a new (well,
refurbished) unit arrived on Friday. It's date of manufacture, in
Mexico -- December 9, 2005. Interesting supply chain metric there.
Anyway, knowing that it was just the power supply that was out on my old TiVo unit, I planned to swap the hard drives between old and new upon the new unit's arrival. I wanted to get at all those saved episodes of Dora the Explorer for my daughter, of course. So, I opened up both units, saw that the contents were entirely the same, and proceeded to switch the hard drives. Once complete, I connected the new TiVo, and got nothing but a blinking green light. Oops.
I figured I was busted on the hard drive swap, so I switched them back. Plugged it in, and same blinking light. Weird...could TiVo have shipped me a broken replacement?
A couple of hours later, I thought I'd take another look inside and see what might be wrong. There are very few moving parts on the TiVo, so there wasn't much to go wrong. I discovered, though, that I had in fact screwed up one of the few things that could go wrong. I had connected the ribbon cable to the hard drive upside down. Not often that an interface connector will go in two different ways, but this one apparently does. Once I righted this, the unit booted up just fine. Note: I suppose this means I will have to give back my geek merit badge.
Now I had a new problem -- the old hard drive was causing an error in the new TiVo box, and I couldn't even so much as watch the existing recorded programs until the hardware problem was resolved. It appeared I was indeed busted on the hard drive swap. Bummer. Sadly, I put the new HD back in the new unit and was off and running.
The last challenge was when the new unit asked me to activate. Going to Tivo.com/activate and following the steps provided me with the opportunity to sign up for TiVo monthly service again. Already being $300 into the last unit for lifetime service, I was concerned that the new unit didn't map up to me as a subscriber. So, I went the old fashioned way and picked up the phone. There I was reassured that my lifetime service was indeed transferable to the new unit, and they took care of this for me.
I just spent ten minutes putting all my "season passes" on the new TiVo. In the meantime, I've missed about three weeks of Law & Order/Law&Order CI and am going through withdrawl. Anyone happen to TiVo the last few weeks?
Anyway, knowing that it was just the power supply that was out on my old TiVo unit, I planned to swap the hard drives between old and new upon the new unit's arrival. I wanted to get at all those saved episodes of Dora the Explorer for my daughter, of course. So, I opened up both units, saw that the contents were entirely the same, and proceeded to switch the hard drives. Once complete, I connected the new TiVo, and got nothing but a blinking green light. Oops.
I figured I was busted on the hard drive swap, so I switched them back. Plugged it in, and same blinking light. Weird...could TiVo have shipped me a broken replacement?
A couple of hours later, I thought I'd take another look inside and see what might be wrong. There are very few moving parts on the TiVo, so there wasn't much to go wrong. I discovered, though, that I had in fact screwed up one of the few things that could go wrong. I had connected the ribbon cable to the hard drive upside down. Not often that an interface connector will go in two different ways, but this one apparently does. Once I righted this, the unit booted up just fine. Note: I suppose this means I will have to give back my geek merit badge.
Now I had a new problem -- the old hard drive was causing an error in the new TiVo box, and I couldn't even so much as watch the existing recorded programs until the hardware problem was resolved. It appeared I was indeed busted on the hard drive swap. Bummer. Sadly, I put the new HD back in the new unit and was off and running.
The last challenge was when the new unit asked me to activate. Going to Tivo.com/activate and following the steps provided me with the opportunity to sign up for TiVo monthly service again. Already being $300 into the last unit for lifetime service, I was concerned that the new unit didn't map up to me as a subscriber. So, I went the old fashioned way and picked up the phone. There I was reassured that my lifetime service was indeed transferable to the new unit, and they took care of this for me.
I just spent ten minutes putting all my "season passes" on the new TiVo. In the meantime, I've missed about three weeks of Law & Order/Law&Order CI and am going through withdrawl. Anyone happen to TiVo the last few weeks?
Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on December 18, 2005, 10:34am