External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

My 622 went bad and I was sent a 722 as replacement. I want to transfer everything on the old one to the new, but don't think I'll need the external drive once that's completed. What I'd like to do:

Connect a hard drive, format it as required by Dish, copy the programs, reconnect it to the new receiver, copy from the hard drive to the receiver, disconnect, then reconnect the hard drive to my computer and reformat it to be a backup drive for the computer. I'm running Vista.

Can this be done?

No the contents are encrypted to each receiver.
 
My 622 went bad and I was sent a 722 as replacement. I want to transfer everything on the old one to the new, but don't think I'll need the external drive once that's completed. What I'd like to do:

Connect a hard drive, format it as required by Dish, copy the programs, reconnect it to the new receiver, copy from the hard drive to the receiver, disconnect, then reconnect the hard drive to my computer and reformat it to be a backup drive for the computer. I'm running Vista.

Can this be done?
Actually, yes. I think gdarwin mis-understood your question. The encryption is keyed to your account number, so when you plug the external drive into your new 722, everything will be readable and you can move it all back to the 722's internal hard drive if you wish. If you haven't used an external hard drive on your 622 before, you will need to pay the one-time authorization fee of $40 to Dish for the privilege of using it (even once) but it will automatically be authorized on your new receiver.

I just did all this a couple of weeks ago (622 to 722 data transfer) so I can tell you from personal experience that there is no problem at all.

Once you have authorized the use of external drives on your account number, you can use them on any receiver on your account and it will read the contents just fine.

.....G
 
Thank you, that sounds great so far. I'm willing to pay the $40 to get my stuff back. But what about the final step? I'd heard somewhere that the Dish formatting is such that the drive can't be recognized by my computer later. I know I can't view the movies from the computer, that's not an issue. But can it at least see the drive so I can reformat?
 
Thank you, that sounds great so far. I'm willing to pay the $40 to get my stuff back. But what about the final step? I'd heard somewhere that the Dish formatting is such that the drive can't be recognized by my computer later. I know I can't view the movies from the computer, that's not an issue. But can it at least see the drive so I can reformat?
Yep. put the drive back in your 'puter. Right-click on "Computer" and choose "Manage" and then "Disk Management." There you can delete the partitions that the DVR put there and create new one(s) and format them.

.....G
 
Thank you, that sounds great so far. I'm willing to pay the $40 to get my stuff back. But what about the final step? I'd heard somewhere that the Dish formatting is such that the drive can't be recognized by my computer later. I know I can't view the movies from the computer, that's not an issue. But can it at least see the drive so I can reformat?
You heard that wrong; actually someone posted such nonsense here. :(
 
...I want to transfer everything on the old one to the new, but don't think I'll need the external drive once that's completed...

He said he did not want to use a EHD

He meant that he doesn't want to use the EHD as an EHD for his DVR anymore. He just wants to use it once to enable him to restore his recordings, then keep the EHD as a PC EHD.

I understand the confusion, though.

Ultimately, he can do what he asked, including the final stage of reformatting the drive for use on his Vista PC.
 
He meant that he doesn't want to use the EHD as an EHD for his DVR anymore. He just wants to use it once to enable him to restore his recordings, then keep the EHD as a PC EHD.

I understand the confusion, though.

Ultimately, he can do what he asked, including the final stage of reformatting the drive for use on his Vista PC.

Glad we got that straighened out...
 
Complication

I got the hard drive for transferring from the old receiver to the new (Imation Apollo 250GB), and it has 2 USB cables. One is for supplemental power on PC's with low power ports. When I plug it in to the receiver, using only the main (data + power) cable, it isn't recognized. I called to activate the service a couple of days earlier, before I had received it. Am I going to have to supply more power from a PC?
 
The instructions are emphatic about not using USB powered devices. You'll need either a powered hub, computer or perhaps a phone charger.
 
Ouch! Totally missed that in the specs. Can you tell me more about powered hubs? I might be able to return the drive and get a powered one, but since this is a temporary need, getting a hub might be cheaper.
 
There is an new technology which has been introduced called Pocket Dish which is an equipment that Dish Network has developed for a person who travel quite often and want to enjoy TV channels in their destination.
Pocket Dish is a relatively old technology and it is decidedly one-way in that it permanently moves content from the DVR to the hand-held device.
 
Does anyone know if I can connect an external hard drive to my directv R22 DVR? The user guide has a picture of the back of it identifying a SATA port for an external hard drive. but the people at directv either don't know or won't say if it will work.

I did a search of the forums to see if I could find an answer, but apparently I don't know what questions to ask yet. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Clark
 
You are not loosing anything - just connect it and report back to us.
Preferably in a DIRECTV forum where such questions belong.

As an aside, don't assume that everyone knows that plugging a drive into a DVR won't do damage to anything that might already be on the drive. If the poster doesn't know what to expect, they might assume that content already on the drive could be played when, in fact, the drive will be formatted with an alien filesystem.
 

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