EHD Connected To Receiver thats Unhooked from Dish?

[Stargazer]

Can you connect an external hard drive to a satellite receiver that is disconnected from a satellite dish and it still work? I was think that this might be good for if someone wanted to take it on the road with them their recordings. If someone deactivated a receiver after disconnecting it from the satellite dish then it would still know to accept the recordings from the external hard drive. I am not trying to chat Dish Network but just thought that might be a good idea for some.

 

[steve4810]

Can you connect an external hard drive to a satellite receiver that is disconnected from a satellite dish and it still work? I was think that this might be good for if someone wanted to take it on the road with them their recordings. If someone deactivated a receiver after disconnecting it from the satellite dish then it would still know to accept the recordings from the external hard drive. I am not trying to chat Dish Network but just thought that might be a good idea for some.

This came up a week or so back when someone said they couldn't access their EHD when the dish wasn't connected. At that time I got smart-a**and said to just do x,y and z. No problem.

Then when this poster continued to complain I tried my self and, low and behold, without the dish connected I got a new (to me) error message that I had to get authorized for EHD use before I could access the disk (which I was since day one of EHD availability).

So the answer is, NO. You have to be getting a sat signal. And though I didn't prove it, I bet you have to be enabled. So if you quit or charlie TERMINATES you your EHD is a boat anchor.

 

[dfergie]

rocky tried this before he moved east... receiver was activated, but not hooked up and got the error message I believe...

 

[Stargazer]

I guess the only solution would be the Archos units (or whatever they call them these days).

 

[Agonizing Fury]

Or just leave the recording on the receiver hard drive, should work fine like that. One of my buddies had his dish cut off for non payment a few weeks ago, and can still watch his DVRed stuff on his 722.

 

[steve4810]

Or just leave the recording on the receiver hard drive, should work fine like that. One of my buddies had his dish cut off for non payment a few weeks ago, and can still watch his DVRed stuff on his 722.

This is what I was talking about.

The OP wants to use his EHD on the "upstairs" 622 where there isn't a satellite lead available.

You can watch your DVRed stuff OK but if you click on My Media you will get an error message that only goes away when the receiver is locked onto a satellite. The error message talks about getting authorized for EHD but really means there is no satellite.

Try it. Turn off and disconnect the dish from the back of the DVR. When you turn on you can view DVRed stuff fine but not so the EHD. Then turn off and reconnect the dish and when you turn back on, as soon as the sats are locked on, everything is back to normal and EHD access is restored.

 

[steve4810]

Oops! Wrong OP. I was thinking about an older thread where this came up. This OP wanted to travel with a Dish receiver and connect an EHD. And since that implies a DVR (at the present) he WOULD be better off just moving the programs from the EHD to the "traveling" DVR.

As Emily Litella used to say:

Never mind!