WeaKnees says that our factory drive failed their diagnostics. Although I was hoping it was the new drive, which would have been under warranty, I was already fearing it was the factory drive. If it was just the second drive, I would have expected that programs recorded on the original drive would have been fine. But, all the recordings were bad. Also, the errors were really unpredictable. When we replayed the same recording, the video and audio stuttering would usually occur in different places each time.
So, we’re looking at a $79 charge to have them reformat the second drive to work as a standalone. That will leave us with 120 hours of recording space, instead of 157 hours. The other option would be to replace the factory drive with another new drive, but I don’t think we’ll do that. First, we’ll likely buy an HD TiVo in the not too distant future. Also, now that I have the mounting bracket and fan for a second drive, I can easily handle getting another drive and formatting it myself. The tools for formatting drives for a TiVo are quite good.