The “Welcome! Powering Up . . .” Screen
A note from the troubleshooting archives: The Welcome! Powering Up Screen.
When you first boot any TiVo DVR, you’ll see a version of the “Welcome! Powering Up” screen. For most units, it’s one of these two below. For the oldest TiVos, it looks a bit different.
This screen is built into the firmware on the motherboard of the unit. Software updates don’t affect it, and you’ll see it even without a hard drive installed in the unit.
The next screen is the “Almost There” screen. It’s at this point that the TiVo starts to read data off the hard drive. So if you get as far as “Almost There” that means you have a hard drive present and the motherboard has begun reading from it. Older units with the gray “Welcome” screen can progress to a gray or orange-and-black “Almost There” screen depending on the software version.
So the progress during start up is a good place to do some troubleshooting if you suspect you’ve got a hard drive problem. If you get to the “Welcome! Powering Up” screen and no further, the TiVo can’t read the OS from the hard drive. So in 99% of those cases, a replacement hard drive with the right TiVo OS on it, properly formatted, will fix the problem.
Have a different problem with your TiVo? If you get no screen at all, then you may have a bad power supply, or just a cabling issue. If you get further than this screen, then you could still have a hard drive problem or another issue.
5 comments 
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February 7th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
You say, “If you get to the “Welcome! Powering Up” screen and no further, the TiVo can’t read the OS from the hard drive.”
What if I get to the “Almost there!” screen and no further? Does this also mean that the TiVo can’t read the OS from the hard drive?
February 7th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
If it’s a Series 1 DirecTV TiVo, that usually means you have a bad modem. There are a few ways to deal with it, but as long as the rebate is around (until 2/28/06) it probably just makes sense to get a new unit.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I have a Toshiba SD-H400 DVR with Tivo Basic. I kept getting an S03 error message, so tried hitting “Pause” and then “57″. Now I never get beyond the “Welcome. Powering Up” screen – it goes dark and repeats, hour after hour.
Any suggestions for dealing this this?
January 18th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
It seems that Tivo has a lot of defective units getting stuck at the Welcome, Powering Up screen. Shouldn’t they be reimbursing people or fixing this?
January 18th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
TiVo has been making units for nine years now. I wouldn’t call even a four year old unit with drive failure “defective.”