Swap drives between 2 HR10-250's

[CJTE]

Believe it or not, while I did get some interesting results via Google, none were quite was I was looking for. Rather than going over to the Tivo community, I thought I'd start up here.

I have 2 HR10-250's. One is in great working order, the other has a physical malfunction (the HDD appears to be fine, however).

Assuming the HDD is in fact fine, can I then put the HDD from one of my HR10-250's, into the other HR10-250? I dont want to do it and then lose all the data from the original HDD.

I understand that models cant be mixed, but its the same model, so chances of it working are a bit better?

[BattleZone]

Hard drives are software "married" to the receiver, so if you move the drive, it won't work in the new machine. You could format the drive with something like InstantCake to put a fresh, unregiestered TiVo image on the drive, which would marry itself to the receiver when you first start it up, but of course you'd lose all the recordings.

[litzdog911]

You can do it, but you'll have to perform a "Clear and Delete Everything" before it will work. And that will, of course, erase its recordings.

[CJTE]

uhhh boy.

What happens if you DONT?
lol.

[litzdog911]

If you swap the drives and don't perform the "Clear and Delete Everything", you will not be able to record anything, or watch the shows on that hard drive. You'll get an "Error 51" (at least I think it's Error 51).

[Matt L]

Also happens if you restore the image from the wrong HR10-250...

[CJTE]

Neato.

Well, so long as it doesnt initialize the drive like an HR+... I'm alright.

I have called the client, who is attempting to re-obtain the device from RC Willey. Thx guys.