I’m not sure the drive that came with this TiVo is actually bad. I put it in another external enclosure and now it seems to work just fine. So my purchase of a 160Gb drive may have been unnecessary. But the power supply is next to be replaced, and the evidence is stronger there.
I never knew they were this puny:
Each of these TiVos has a power supply that is rated 38W max. By contrast, every other TiVo manufactured has a power supply with a max rating of 61W-78W.
Your run-of-the-mill PC has, what, 300-400W output? I understand there were cost and noise issues to consider here (wonder why no one came up with a Mac Mini-style design?) but still, that seems pretty marginal, even when you consider how little the system has to do.
If this doesn’t work, I’m selling it. Watch this space.