Tivo hard drive failing. A few questions

[ABrowne]

Two days ago my trusty Virgin Media Tivo, which is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary, started to get into difficulties. It has crashed several times, got stuck on restarting a few times, displayed all sorts of lights, including the three green ones that signify a fault, displayed the "green screen of death" (ie "The DVR has detected a serious problem..." etc, which I believe is indicative of a hard drive issue), lost all my recordings and series links, only for them to magically reappear again later, and so on. Currently it appears to be working, although I suspect it won't be for long.

A few questions, if anyone know the answers:

1) Do I need to wait for it to fail completely before it's worth calling Virgin to report a fault?

2) Will they be able to replace it with another Tivo, or do they no longer do that? Reason I'm asking is my TV is even older than the Tivo and doesn't have an HDMI port, so it wouldn't work with a V6 or TV 360.

3) If they can replace it with a Tivo, would it be another 1 terabyte Tivo? I paid extra for the 1 terabyte model when I got it.

4) If they can't replace it with another Tivo, do they offer a choice between V6 and TV 360 or is the only option TV 360 now?

Thanks very much.

[BenMcr · Accepted solution]

1. No, but it helps as the diagnostic systems will show the box as not working.
2. Yes it'll be another TiVo
3. Sorry, all TiVo boxes are now 500GB
4. An upgrade is a separate conversation, you won't be forced over

[japitts]

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@ABrowne wrote:

4) If they can't replace it with another Tivo, do they offer a choice between V6 and TV 360 or is the only option TV 360 now?

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You're correct to assume that "DVR has detected an error" means hard drive failure, and any recovery is likely to be short-lived and temporary.

As Ben has mentioned, a conversion from TiVo/V6 > 360 is a completely different conversation to a faults swapout. I'd only add that...

Expect any VM sales agent to encourage 360. A conversion is voluntary, and an upgrade from TiVo > V6 should be an option if that's what you'd prefer. There are substantial differences between the two, so do your homework first - knowing a conversion is a one-way trip.

[Beth_G]

Hi ABrowne,

Thank you for your post and questions.

BenMCR has advised correctly - if the box does need to be replaced (from what you've described, it sounds like it does) you will receive another Tivo box.

I'll pop you over a private message now so I can take a look at the account and discuss a replacement with you. You wouldn't be charged for the replacement box 🙂

[ABrowne]

Hi Beth,

Thank you for your reply and PM.

As predicted the box failed again. I called 150 yesterday and reported the fault to Chloe, who was very helpful in sorting me out with a new Tivo. I said I could do a self-install if that was an option rather than an engineer coming out. She arranged that. The new Tivo arrived today and is now installed and working.

It's a shame that the 1 TB Tivos aren't available any more, but other than that, all good 😊.

[Hayley_S]

Hello @ABrowne,

Thanks for the update on this, I am glad that you have got this sorted now 🙂

If you ever need anything again you know where to find us.

Many thanks,