Well, there's nothing tech support can do about it. So they're going to exchange it.

Now, I could have opened the thing up and fiddled with the drive -- if nothing else, I could replace the hard drive and salvage the shows (not to mention my wishlists -- why can't they give me a program to do really sophisticated scheduling over the computer, where I have, say, a keyboard?), but then they wouldn't do the exchange.

So I am out:

$49 for the replacement
$5.75 FedEx
$2.89 for the box (The Tivo's original box having been discarded in the great basement cleaning incident of last month)
$3.50 gasoline to Kinkos and back
2 hours on the phone
1.5 hours at Kinkos (!)
1 copy of the MacGyver episode "Hell Week"
1 copy of the made-for-TV movie The Librarian
1 rather good parking space

But I feel purged at the least. Now I just have to see if they'll credit me the service for the days I am bereft of tivo.

Gee. Technology sure makes our lives easier.