Any TiVo experts? Sudden issues tuning OTA HDTV despite solid signal

[adrew]

I have a TiVo HD (just turned three years old). It is probably the best piece of consumer electronics I have ever owned.

We have cable internet and a few standard-def local networks and shopping channels (the cheapest package). I use a big Channel Master antenna up in the attic to record OTA HDTV with the TiVo instead of using the feed from the cable company (they strip out the channel guide data so their feed is useless).

Anyway, it has worked absolutely flawlessly until this evening when it started displaying any HD channels with big ugly chunks of digital pixelization. For a few of them it displays nothing at all except "Searching for Signal..."

I unhooked the antenna from the TiVo and ran it straight to the TV and it displayed all of them with a perfect picture and 95-98 signal strength in the diagnostic screen. (It is a Sony XBR 34-inch CRT HDTV if that matters)

I already restarted it and it took about five minutes to boot back up. Then it played the welcome video like it did when we first got it it. Have to admit that has me a little worried -- it never did that before.

Any ideas? Is the TiVo's tuner shot? Should I do a factory reset on it? I am going to be pissed if it's broken because I just re-upped my service.

[adrew]

I did a little more research last night and got into the "Kickstart 54" service menu, ran the diagnostics and got a "Fail 7" code which points to a bad hard drive. So it looks easy enough to fix.

[Impeccable]

What are you working with an XBR960 OR A 970 ?

[adrew]

It's the not-quite-as-fancy 970. Still love it, though.

I ran a bunch of the other TiVo diagnostics, all of which pointed to a bad hard drive. But what is puzzling is that it works absolutely flawlessly if we tell it to record the standard-def programming that comes from the cable company.

That kind of makes me think it is a problem with one of the tuners -- but is it really likely that if the hard drive is going out that it would have sufficient bandwidth/error correction to deal with standard def and not HD?

We haven't had much free time to watch TV lately, though, so it has been kind of low on my priorities list.