On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 17:27:00 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
I guess this is a follow-up to the earlier follow-up.
I think I've figured out why the last time I tried to move a drive
from one DirecTV DVR to another failed to work.
I had previously been using cloned copies of my 1 TB external drives.
Because it takes so long to clone a 1 TB drive, I had decided to speed
things up by cloning 500 TB drives. To do so, I needed a 500 TB drive
(or smaller) with recorded material already on it to start with. The
only one I had conveniently available was the 320 GB drive that I had
removed from my HR-21 when I installed a 1 TB drive internally. So I
cloned a copy of that to a 500 TB drive, and tried to use that on the
HR-20. This is the transfer that failed, in that the HR-20 simply
reformatted the drive for it. (Incidentally, although the cloning
process used only the first 320 GB of the drive, reformatting it made
all 500 GB available.)
So today I repeated the test, this time using a cloned copy of the 1
TB drive now internally used in the HR-21, and this worked connected
externally to the HR-20.
So it is either the fact that I was using a different size drive than
what had been previously used on the HR-20, or the fact that it was a
copy of an internal drive. HOWEVER, the copy of the 1 TB drive that
DID work today, was actually a copy of a drive that is internal on the
HR-21. But, it was originally an external drive (on the same HR-21)
that was removed from its case, and installed internally.
Perhaps John's advice is still good. You're certainly better off by
not trying to move a drive from one DVR to another. But if you have
the time and a few spare drives and like to experiment you might try
to verify it for yourself.
Post by Charlie HoffpauirOn Mon, 29 Jul 2013 18:12:14 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
Post by Charlie HoffpauirOn Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:58:09 -0700, John McWilliams
Post by John McWilliamsPost by Charlie HoffpauirOn Sun, 28 Jul 2013 09:55:40 -0700, John McWilliams
Post by John McWilliamsPost by Charlie HoffpauirInteresting, but that's not the way my DirecTV DVRs work. I have two
HR-20's and an HR-21, and I've switched from external to internal and
back several times, and both models retain the content recorded on
either the internal or the external drive. Moreover I recently learned
(from a post in this group) that you can move an external drive from
one unit to another and retain the content as well.
No!! Don't try, as moving an external HD from one DVR to another will
reformat the external, and all content will be lost.
Who in the world posted that one could safely do that??
I don't remember who posted that it would work, but I doubted it too,
so I tried it with one of my "spares" and it does work! ( I keep a
clone "spare" of each of my DVR drives, so all I would have lost was
the backup.)
I keep close tabs on DBSTalk.com, and I've never read of anyone doing
so. So, congratulations! Any chance the drive got put back on the DVR it
came from?
No. Like you, I had only heard that it would result in reformatting of
the drive, so I fully expected it to reformat my drive, and I would
reply to the poster that it had not worked. I was VERY surprised to
find that it worked! If you have two DirecTV DVRs and an extra drive,
I strongly urge you to try it for yourself.
BYW, I cloned using Easeus. I also have Acronis, but have had poor
results with it.
Well, I posted the above a few days ago, but since then had an
opportunity to try moving a drive from one DVR to another, and this
time IT DIDN'T WORK. I haven't gone back and tried other combinations
(this time I moved from the original drive from a HR-21 to a HR020).
As John stated, the HR-20 simply reformatted the drive to an empty
drive.... I don't know why it worked before and not now, but when I
have more time, I'll try repeating and see what happens. It takes a
long time to do a test, since I used cloned copies, so as not to lose
my recorded material should something screw up, and cloning the 1 TB
drives takes about 5 hours each.