Dish 501 with a failed hard drive

[ak700rmk]

My hard drive failed. I don't really care about the content of the drive but I don't really want to pay the $399 dollars the dealer wants to charge me for a 510. Can I swap in a new hard drive? Or does anyone know where to pick up a PVR unit for not alot of money. I know I'm a cheap ass.

[pomeroy]

Swaping the Harddrive out is not something that someone should try, Thats something that the dealer has to do, You see alot of people on ebay that have tryed to save money and do it them self and end up missing up the new harddrive they are trying to put in. Your dealer could fix that for you but the question is will it last while or break again in a month? Most of the harddrives that get repaired don't last long. Your best bet is to Sell the PVR you have now on ebay. You could get over $100 for it like it is. Take what you get and put it towards a brand new PVR

[Jacob S]

You could get a new 522 for just a little more than the $100 that you might get out of it and have a two tuner receiver with 100 hours of video recording but you will also have a $5 DVR fee if you do not have AEP.

[Blockhead]

not to be an idiot and suggest the simplest but I thought the harddrive in my 501 dies because it told me so. It wouldnt let me use pvr functions or access the hardrive. I tried smart card reboot and power button reboot to no avail. Thne i unplugged it for about 20 minutes and voila it wokrs perfectly now.
If not your cheapest option is to buy the warranty from dish i think now its 3 bucks a month and starts in 30 days. In 30 days call them up tell them your harddrive is bad they will send you a new reciever and you send the old one back

[Jacob S]

The Dish warranty is now $5.99 per month. I would say that if your hard drive starts working again that it is inevitable to start failing again but it could be a good temporary fix. Some have reported not having issues again with their hard drive after they got it to work again.