If you've recently bought a WD "My DVR" external SATA drive and Tivo
says it doesn't recognize it, don't stress - WD apparently changed
something in the way they prep their drives that is causing it to fail
joining with the Tivo.

This was found by yours truly when my original WD drive went bad (still
under warranty), and the replacement drive failed to mate with the Tivo,
even though Tivo could see it and all diagnostics were perfect.

Once I got through the first-level of support to someone who actually
knew what was going on, the Tivo tech (Jerry) figured out that it had to
be the drive having something wonky in the way it responded to Tivo.  He
offered to swap the drive out with a new one, so I FedEx'd it back to
them.

Got a call today, they were quite surprised (WD got in on this) that the
drive was perfect - just wouldn't be recognized by Tivo as a
"compatible" drive.  Apparently, when WD preps the drives, they do
something that Tivo looks for, and accidentally changed that.

I was the first to report the problem, but there's the possibility that
all drives my and subsequent lots are affected.

WD and Tivo are investigating the matter, and I'm sure will have a
solution soon.

In the meantime, Tivo was kind enough to ship me a drive they'd tested
to be sure it mated properly.

So, as I said in the beginning, if you've just purchased the WD drive
and it's not mating to the Tivo, it's quite likely not you.  Call WD and
tell them about the issue.  They're actually pretty good about warranty
replacements.

Douglas Bullard