If your TiVo is performing poorly (pixelates, stalls, is slow to respond) AND is out of warranty, you can try the following Kickstart TiVo disk commands to force the TiVo to perform several disk repair measures.

Credit for these TiVo Command steps is given to the original poster, richsadams, from TiVocommunity.com.

Here's a video showing in real time the Tivo Kickstart procedure to give you an idea of what to expect.

Tivo kickstart procedures generally leave Season Passes, Wish Lists, etc. intact, however data and recordings that used any bad sectors may be lost. Use these commands at your own risk.

1. Kickstart 57
2. Kickstart 58
3. Kickstart 52

"Kickstart 57" is TiVo’s built-in diagnostic program similar to Windows “check disk”. It triggers an MFS assert (GSOD), which marks the file system as being damaged. The repair process detects and repairs inode/data problems, and then runs mfscheck to clean up database and directory problems.

Kickstart 57 – TiVo Diagnostics:

1. Go to TiVo Central
2. Select Messages & Setup
3. Select System Reset
4. Select Restart Receiver
5. Press Thumbs Down three times
6. Press Enter
7. While the system is restarting, during the initial screen, press and hold the PAUSE button until only amber light(s) illuminate or in the case of some TiVo HD's, the red, green and amber lights.
8. Release the pause button and immediately type in the numbers 5 and 7 on the remote (you have about 10 seconds to do this step).
9. TiVo will reboot and the GSOD screen will come on saying TiVo has encountered a serious error. It will then run the disk management tool. During this time it will look for and correct configuration problems as well as isolating any bad sectors on the hard drive so they can no longer be used.

10. TiVo will automatically reboot after the diagnostic program has completed. This may take a few minutes to a few hours.

"Kickstart 58" is another of TiVo’s diagnostic programs. It runs fsfix with an additional option that causes it to make multiple passes over the inodes, re-hashing them and clearing collision bits.

Kickstart 58- TiVo Diagnostics:

1. Go to TiVo Central
2. Select Messages & Setup
3. Select System Reset
4. Select Restart Receiver
5. Press Thumbs Down three times
6. Press Enter
7. While the system is restarting, during the initial screen, press and hold the PAUSE button until only the yellow light(s) illuminates.
8. Release the pause button and immediately type in the numbers 5 and 8 on the remote (you have about 10 seconds to do this step).
9. Put the remote down and wait. The system will proceed to the diagnostic program.
10. TiVo will reboot after the diagnostic program has completed. This may take a few minutes to a few hours.

“Kickstart 52” is an "emergency reinstall" of the software. It will reinstall the existing software on the alternate root partition.

Kickstart 52 – Reinstalling TiVo Software:

1. Go to TiVo Central
2. Select Messages & Setup
3. Select System Reset
4. Select Restart Receiver
5. Press Thumbs Down three times
6. Press Enter
7. While the system is restarting, during the initial screen, press and hold the PAUSE button until only the yellow light(s) illuminates.
8. Release the pause button and immediately type in the numbers 5 and 2 on the remote (you have about 10 seconds to do this step).
9. After a time (generally a few minutes) TiVo will automatically reboot.

If you have performed these Kickstart TiVo Disk Commands and still have shoddy performance, it's likely your disk is damaged beyond repair and you will need to replace it. This is not as harrowing as it sounds and can be an opportunity to greatly increase your TiVo's capacity.