External Hard Drive question...

[Cobra611]

Wow, I never thought I would say this, but I will be giving up DirecTV for another provider. I truly love DTV, have been with them since '95. But, it comes down to financial reasons for me...and ONLY financial reasons. FiOS set up in my development within the last 2 months and I had the install last week. Did the Triple Play, so now I can just have one provider for the 3 services instead of 2 (DirecTV & Cablevision for phone and internet). Right off the bat, I will tell you, for me, DirecTV's HD picture is better, but not by much. SD channels are better on FiOS, but I just browse past them anyway. Now to my question, if there is anyone still reading. I used an external hard drive on each of the 2 HR21's I had. I deactivated one receiver already and the other I drop down to the Family package. Are external hd's receiver specific? What I mean is, can I use the same external drive on the other DirecTV receiver I still have for the moment or will it just ask to reformat once plugged in?? My wife still wants to watch her recorded programs before I surrender the equipment. I'm afraid if I ask to reactivate the one receiver they will make me commit to contract.

Thanks!

 

[dfergie]

Yes they are dvr specific, and it will reformat the other drive if plugged in...

 

[Cobra611]

Thank you!!

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

Yea unfortunately the external harddrives pair to the access cards of the receivers, so getting it to work on a new directv box is possible, but extremely difficult, and requires a csr that is willing to pair your previous access card to a new box (in the event of an upgrade or box swap. And doing this is extremely difficult (well not really, but finding someone to do it is.) Techs are NOT able to do this, as we HAVE to install the access cards that come with the receivers, and HAVE to return the old card with the old box.

You could try to convince a csr to swap the access cards paired to your receivers. If you find someone willing to do this, what you want will work. But like Ive said, this is against alot of policies, but is technically possible.

 

[Lanarian]

You can reactivate the one receiver. It does not renew your contract, just adds the $6 a month back on your bill..

 

[Hutch1814]

Yea unfortunately the external harddrives pair to the access cards of the receivers, so getting it to work on a new directv box is possible, but extremely difficult, and requires a csr that is willing to pair your previous access card to a new box (in the event of an upgrade or box swap. And doing this is extremely difficult (well not really, but finding someone to do it is.) Techs are NOT able to do this, as we HAVE to install the access cards that come with the receivers, and HAVE to return the old card with the old box.

You could try to convince a csr to swap the access cards paired to your receivers. If you find someone willing to do this, what you want will work. But like Ive said, this is against alot of policies, but is technically possible.

I always thought any time you hook up an external hard drive to a different device it requires you to reformat as its the software/hardware that demands it not the AC?