DirecTV External Hard Drive - Internet Issues

[dtfamily]

Hi, I recently switched from Dish to DirecTV and am very happy with the move. However, I am trying to hook up an external hard drive for additional storage, and am having several problems.

I have a Genie HR44 DVR (1TB), and I recenlty purchased a Fantom 3TB external hard drive (EHD). I set it up last evening, and everything seemed to work fine on setup- it recognizes the drive, I can set up recordings, etc.; but I'm having 2 issues that don't make sense:
- I set up the EHD last evening, but this morning the hard drive seemed to be "thrashing", i.e.- continuing to read/write at a rapid pace (blue light blinking), even though the Genie was turned off 8 hours earlier. I shut everything off, turned it back on, and it seems to be thrashing a bit less.
- however, when I turned on the Genie with the EHD hooked up, it won't let me connect to the internet to watch or download OnDemand programs- it keeps saying the internet connection was lost.

I've tried a couple of times unhooking the power on the Genie and restarting with either the Internal Hard Drive (IHD) or the EHD, and keep having the same problem. Each time the IHD is being used, everything works fine. Each time the EHD is being used, I get an "internet connection lost" message, and I can't download or play OnDemand, internet, etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated- I'd really like to be able to get this to work!

 

[raoul5788]

I'm assuming the external hard drive you are using is connected via esata, yes?

 

[dtfamily]

I'm assuming the external hard drive you are using is connected via esata, yes?

Sorry, yes it is.

 

[raoul5788]

Sounds like the ehd is defective then.

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

I'm not sure if this is relevant or not but as far as the internet connection is conserned.. I believe when a ehd is connected the entire dtv os is installed on it to run the dvr since it replaces the internal hdd. It is possible you will need to repeat network setup.

 

[dtfamily]

I tried an experiment, and moved my router further away from the DVR (it was beside it before). The router is now in another room, and it seems to be working. I'm wondering if there could have been interference between them being close together?

My remaining question is if it is normal for the hard drive to be accessed, even when off? It would normally be accessed when recording something, but if just watching tv, or if all is off, should it be accessing the ehd rather frequently? It's basically acting like a computer hard drive that is being accessed all the time? Any thoughts on both issues above would be appreciate!

Thanks!

 

[Lsol]

Yes it's normal. The DVR is always on unless you unplug it.

 

[jcrandall]

There will always be hard drive activity, the receiver is always recording whatever is on the current tuner to maintain a buffer. The drives get used 24/7, which is why you want to use a quality AV grade drive.