moving files to new DVR - strange answer from tech support

[finfan1313]

So I am deactivating my HR20-100 in favor of the new 3d capable dvr, and I decided to call tech support to see if there was a way to transfer my recordings from the HR20-100 to the new receiver. The answer I received was peculiar. It started with "unfortunately.....", which is what I expected. They went on to say 'the technology is available, but we aren't able to tell you how to do it.' they went on to say they were not provided the information for how to do it so they'd be unable to give me the details for how to do it.

Anyone have any ideas for how I might copy from one dvr to another? aside from copying it to a dvd?

Thanks!

 

[Jimbo]

So I am deactivating my HR20-100 in favor of the new 3d capable dvr, and I decided to call tech support to see if there was a way to transfer my recordings from the HR20-100 to the new receiver. The answer I received was peculiar. It started with "unfortunately.....", which is what I expected. They went on to say 'the technology is available, but we aren't able to tell you how to do it.' they went on to say they were not provided the information for how to do it so they'd be unable to give me the details for how to do it.

Anyone have any ideas for how I might copy from one dvr to another? aside from copying it to a dvd?

Thanks!

As far as I know you can not move programming from one HR DVR to another ... same goes with an EHD, when you plug it into the new recvr, it reformats so it can read the DVR and clears the programming in the process, thats the way it's always been, hopefully, that will change some day.

 

[Chuck W]

As far as I know you can not move programming from one HR DVR to another ... same goes with an EHD, when you plug it into the new recvr, it reformats so it can read the DVR and clears the programming in the process, thats the way it's always been, hopefully, that will change some day.

Actually it doesn't reformat the drive unless you move an HR2x drive to an HR34. At least not in my experiences. I just went thru this again(I did it a couple years ago too) this past Monday. The installer replaced an HR20-100 that had a 1tb drive on it with an HR24 and also installed an HR34. When I moved the HR20 drive to the HR24, it did not reformat it and everything showed up as if nothing was wrong. However when you try to play anything you get a message about the program not being fully recorded and it tries to find a complete copy(which it will never find). I simply marked everything for deletion and deleting them to clear it for the new receiver.

Now, I also took a 2tb drive that was on my other HR24 and moved it to my new HR34. In this case the HR34 DID reformat the drive, but somehow it got screwed up and would not boot on the HR34 or even when put back on the prior HR24. I ended up having to attach it to my PC and remove all the existing partitions on it(there were 3). Once I did that and reattached it to the HR34, it reformatted the drive again and it booted fine and has been good since.

 

[finfan1313]

Actually it doesn't reformat the drive unless you move an HR2x drive to an HR34. At least not in my experiences. I just went thru this again(I did it a couple years ago too) this past Monday. The installer replaced an HR20-100 that had a 1tb drive on it with an HR24 and also installed an HR34. When I moved the HR20 drive to the HR24, it did not reformat it and everything showed up as if nothing was wrong. However when you try to play anything you get a message about the program not being fully recorded and it tries to find a complete copy(which it will never find). I simply marked everything for deletion and deleting them to clear it for the new receiver.

Now, I also took a 2tb drive that was on my other HR24 and moved it to my new HR34. In this case the HR34 DID reformat the drive, but somehow it got screwed up and would not boot on the HR34 or even when put back on the prior HR24. I ended up having to attach it to my PC and remove all the existing partitions on it(there were 3). Once I did that and reattached it to the HR34, it reformatted the drive again and it booted fine and has been good since.

Thank you Chuck W, did you physically take the hard drive out of the HR20 and put it into the HR24? And would it play the programming? or would it simply give the error message and not play the programs at all?

Thanks!

 

[Aridon]

You could make a byte by byte copy of the old drive in linux and then expand the partition to fit the new drive if its larger. You might have to mate the new drive with the DVR first before performing the copy. Perhaps not. Regardless you could store the data and try it both ways.

Google Fu shows me this:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=148760