I had an HR-20 that worked fine for about 3 years. About a month ago, the hard drive started clicking or chattering. It did this continuously on and off. Not just when we were recording or watching, but even with the unit turned off. It had never done it before, but I initially assumed it was ok. About a week later, it started losing DVR shows -- we would start to watch one and it would just quit, and lock up the receiver. No other problems with the receiver, just watching recorded programs.

DTV sent me a new (refurbished) receiver right away.

The receiver appears to work fine, but it has the hard drive chatter going already. So far (1 day) it only chatters when we are watching a recorded program. Is this something I should be concerned about (ie. does it portend disk failure), or is this fairly normal. Should I call DTV and ask for another new one? I only ask because our previous unit never did the chatter until right before it began to fail.

Thanks for opinions.

I would call and make them aware that the new one is making an unusual noise and see what they say, it the very least, they then have the conversation on record.
If you start to lose recordings or freezing, have it replaced.

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2 HR20-700's
1 H20-100
AU-9 Slimline dish

Rattly disk drive is a bad sign. You didnt by any chance do something different soon before the original receiver kicked the bucket, did you? Put it in a cabinet? Stack it on top of another component like a receiver? Put it next to a subwoofer? Cat sleeping on it? Right next to a heater duct?

Reasonable question, but nope, nothing in my setup has changed. It has plenty of ventillation, hasn't moved, and we NEVER let the dog sleep on it

I'll give 'em a call to document what's going on. If bad things happen down the road, it should make it easier to get a fix.

A google search reveals this is a well-documented common problem since the last update. Mine and my buddies hr-20 never shuts up anymore. It sounds like a hard drive that continually defrags. It has made watching tv an annoyance. I am going to try to get them to send me a new one (pain in the ass). If not, I am going to cancel Directv--I can't stand the noise any longer...

Chatter is often normal. Clicking is not. It's a sign of the heads on the hard drive wearing out, sectors going bad, and other problems. A hard drive should only click during initial startup during the POST. Since DirecTV dvrs are never really off, you would not normally hear that. So.....it's a good chance the drive will fail. Call and tell them it's dead and you need a new one.

My HR20 isn't making any noise.

Even though a "google search" is all the evidence you need, I don't really think the last software update had any intentional or unintentional "make the hard drive noisey" subroutines.

I don't think you have to call and tell DIRECTV it's making noise to "document" the problem and make it any easier getting it replaced down the road. If you call them up one day and tell them the DVR is screwing up recordings, resetting itself, or stuttering/skipping a lot they'll replace it.