"WeaKnees claims to repair TiVos, but they don't even have parts! The only thing they do is swap hard drives. That's all! To add insult to injury, they charge double the normal price for their old drives, plus an outrageous fee.
If something goes wrong with your TiVo, don't repeat my mistake. Don't send it to WeaKnees for repair. You'll just be throwing your money away. Instead, buy a new power supply online (about $10). If that doesn't fix your problem, try replacing the hard drive. That is all WeaKnees will do for you, but you can do it for yourself. Faster, and for a lot less money. If a new hard drive doesn't fix your problem, you can throw your TiVo away. It cannot be fixed. Don't go wasting your money, like I did, hoping WeaKnees can fix it. They can't.
DO NOT TRUST THE CROOKS AT WEAKNEES. "
"I recently purchased a hard drive from Weaknees. The hard drive didn’t fix my TiVo problem. I then purchased a power supply. This didn’t fix my problem either.
They only agreed to take back the power supply because I bought the hard drive more than 30 days ago. They already charge a 15% restocking fee and they still refused to help me out. I am not even sure if the hard drive works.
I still have the original packaging for the hard drive and everything. "
"If you browse the reviews here, you'll notice they're all many years old. That was back when weaknees.com was a respected company. But that was then, and this is now.
Weaknees used to do legitimate repairs, but not anymore. They cannot repair or replace any TiVo components manufactured in the past ten years or so. They cannot repair Roamio's, Bolt's or Edge's. They won't divulge that before taking your money, though.
The only thing weaknees.com knows how to do is replace hard drives. They also sell power supplies and remotes, but at outrageous prices. Many retailers sell both of those items at about half what Weaknees charges.
If your TiVo is having trouble, chances are it's the hard drive. You can open the box and replace that yourself. It's easy! Not only that, but you can probably upgrade to a much bigger drive. Just this year, I put a 12TB drive in my second Roamio. I just opened the box and swapped the drive. That's all there was it! Not only that, but new drives use less power than old ones. My new 12TB drive uses about half the power as the 1TB drive that came with it originally.
The other possible problem is the power supply. TiVos now use standard power bricks you can buy on Amazon or Newegg or many other places. Quality 12 volt, 2 amp power supplies cost less than $15. But Weaknees charges up to $40 for them.
But...
If it's not the hard drive or power supply that's at fault, you're probably out of luck. Don't make the same mistake I did, sending it to Weaknees for repair. They'll take your money, and tell you they can't fix the TiVo motherboard. For those who aren't technical, the motherboard is the computer inside your TiVo. That's all there is inside the plastic case; just the motherboard and a hard drive—that's all! Weaknees claimed to have spent 4 hours working on my TiVo. That's absurd! Anyone can diagnose a bad hard drive in minutes. (I sent my TiVo to them after testing the hard drive, and told them so!) They literally stole my money, knowing full well they couldn't repair it!
Weaknees used to be good, but now it's just a bunch of crooks trying desperately to stay afloat. Taking advantage of anyone who doesn't know better. I didn't know better then, but I do now."
"The management at Weaknees.com realized that the third party handling the financial transaction for this purchase made a mistake. Weakness has corrected the problem and I now have a full refund. I thank them for their diligence in resolving this matter."
"The shipping of the replacement was very fast, the replacement instructions were good, and my TiVo operates perfectly with the added bonus of having twice as much storage space."
"I can't thank Weaknees.com enough. I bought a TiVo 652160 TiVo Upgrade Kit: Replace with one 1 TB hard drive. It was super easy to do the install, the instructions and the tools made this a breeze! The re-programming of the TiVo took the excess time to do. I think 3 hours before the TiVo was ready to record with it's "new brain" or hard drive. You guys are the best and hopefully I'll get another 10 years out of my TiVo. Thanks Again!"
"Outstanding!!! Great products (and fast, free shipping!) My Tivo was stuttering and was no longer watchable - very frustrating .. was ready to get rid of it but the lifetime service can't transfer to a new unit, so that really made me hesitate to get rid of it (even with the good specs on the new units). Instead, I ordered my replacement hard drive from Weaknees.com, popped it into the tivo with their easy to follow instructions and our beloved tivo is 100% again - family is happy again recording our favorites!! Took all of 15 mins., plus the tivo setup after. Was great! Thanks!!"
"Thank you for your speedy service on my tivo box...Your the best!!!!!!!!!!!"
"For all the pain of losing my Tivo, Weaknees made it somewhat bearable. After an amazingly fast response to my email they diagnosed the problem, bad hard drive. I ordered a new one (doubling the capacity was a great bonus) and it arrived a couple of days later. It took longer for the Tivo to reboot than it did to put the new drive in. Now, if they could make the recordings I lost come back....."
"I cannot tell you how pleased I am with my service from weaknees! I expected my machine to
be gone 4-6 weeks but the day they received it from me it was repaired and sent
back to me...on the same day. I'm very thankful to Tivo for recommending this
company to me. I've had my machine for 7 years on the lifetime time and thanks
to weaknees my plan is still intact. I highly recommend weaknees to everyone!
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"Just a note to verify how easy your kit made replacement of my Tivo drive. I have a series 2 with lifetime service - a few days ago, it began to miss updates. When I called Tivo, they diagnosed the issue as a failure of the device to communicate and download updates. However, I do have a 2nd Tivo, and it did not have the same problem. A quick Google search brought me to Weakness Forum, and there I quickly determined that the issue was a hard drive failure after following instructions to test the drive.
I ordered a replacement and followed the included (very clear!) instructions. In 15 minutes, the Tivo was back online. After the program updates, the unit works flawlessly. And a great side benefit, the Tivo system information now shows that I can store up to 395 hours rather than the 40 hours maxiumum before the Weakness replacement.
In summary, this simple fix preserved my lifetime service and increased my recording capacity by nearly 10X. The pictures imbedded in the instructions were very clear and easy to follow - and included all the tools needed for the replacement. No need to hack the Tivo to format and replace a broken drive - it came ready-to-go out of the box. Great way to improve my investment!
"
"Excellent instructions, excellent serviceI I repaired my Tivo Series 3, the one with the cool display, not to mention the lifetime service. I'm thrilled with how simple and easy it was! Excellent service, great instructions and you've saved me a bunch of cash as I did not want to upgrade my TiVo box!"
"I was absolutely thrilled with the Weaknees service. I'd heard good things about them from friends, but even so, Weaknees exceeded my expectations. My TiVo has a "lifetime of the unit" subscription, so when the unit stopped working, I was worried I would have to upgrade to a more expensive unit, with more expensive service. But no worries, it was Weaknees to the rescue! They got my TiVo working again, *and* upgraded the hard drive, so it works even better than it did before, with more storage space on it. The price was reasonable, and the service excellent. Fast and accurate, and they even supplied an extra TiVo cardboard box for me, since I'd thrown away my old one some time ago. I can't recommend these folks enough. "
"I want to thank Weaknees for their excellent troubleshooting guidance. I learned about burst capacitors. I ordered a new power supply for my TivoHD. It was shipped and received promptly. It was easy to follow the repair instructions on their website. My TivoHD is running as expected and the family is happy."
"I just wanted to say thank you to Weaknees! To answer my questions within 30 min of me emailing you is unheard of these days. You shipped the external modem out to me and I recd it so fast. I was worried about setting it up myself since I'm so technically challenged, but your directions were crystal clear! My series 1 Tivo is now out of guided setup, made a daily call, and is getting all my guide information in. Thank you so much! You saved me a lot of headaches and heartache!"