Comments on: The TiVo Gods Hate Me

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:14:41 +0000

Dude that sucks, I was gonna get one soon. I’m having second thoughts now.

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:17:21 +0000

I added the My DVR Expander basically to try it and because I could do so effectively for free at the time. I’m not sure I’ll bother expanding again, 250GB is probably enough for my use most of the time.

I checked the warranty online and my My DVR Expander is out of warranty. I know I’ve had it for over a year now, I think I got it in early 2007. However the other drive does still have limited warranty coverage, so I’ve requested an RMA swap. I’m debating if I want to stick that bare drive in the My DVR Expander enclosure and re-expand the TiVo.

I have done internal drive expansions a few times on other TiVos as well.

By: windracer

windracer — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:20:43 +0000

The same thing happened to my own MyDVR Expander just the other week: freezing video causing reboots on my THD and then the click of death. Luckily mine was still under warranty (just barely) so I got a replacement from WD.

But yeah, losing all of those saved recordings really sucked.

By: Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:02:40 +0000

I woke up this morning and turned on the TivoHD and the exact same thing happened to me. I was rewinding and fastforwarding and it would pause rewind pause rewind. I was playing and it was stuttering. And then I got online and one of the first things I read is your post having the same issues. I disconnected the DVR expander and lost some recordings but I think the problem has stopped. I’m not happy about this. I have had the DVR expander less than a year and it is already broken?!?

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:57:52 +0000

Unfortunately, the WDC MyDVR Expander has been plagued with issues, and your experience is quite common (especially after TiVo software updates). Thankfully, WDC is quite liberal with their return / replacement policy (likely because they acknowledge that all is not well with the product). My recently died, and I decided that is is time (despite the fact that I have some remaining warranty left on my TiVo to upgrade the internal drive. It just seems like a more reliable solution in the end. See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160 for more details.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:29:45 +0000

I feel for you man .

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:03:21 +0000

Yeah, I may end up doing that if I can’t find a legal copy. That’s my last resort. Some things I’ve found are re-airing in the coming days, like last night’s Heroes (re-airing tomorrow on G4) or L&O:SVU (re-airing Saturday), and some other shows. All the TiVoCast stuff I can just re-download, of course.

Terminator: TSCC and last week’s Heroes I bought from Amazon VOD. Tonight’s Fringe isn’t up there yet, but it should be in the next few days. I believe Comedy Central has complete episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report online.

The anime looks like it’ll be the problem to find from a legit source.

By: al

al — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:53:33 +0000

Simple solution.

Bit Torrent. TIvo ate one of my recordings of smallville a while back so i just downloaded it from a bit torrent.

By: Morac

Morac — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:36:35 +0000

I’m sorry to hear that you had a run of bad luck. Maybe you can get the drive functioning long enough to make a copy of it to another My DVR Expander?

Stories like these are partially responsible for me not getting a DVR Expander. It just seems like they are prone to frequent failure.

Even though it’s not officially supported, it seems like upgrading the internal drive is a better way to go since there’s less points of failure.