Tech support--HR44 replacement

Our HR44 died overnite....woke up to the constantly re-booting mode..."blue screen...just a few more seconds...etc" never gets past this part of the re-boot, and then juust starts over. so...called and tried to get to tech support at ATT, since our account was switched to them several years ago....went thru a voice menu for a few minutes until it was just repeating itself...then I responded with "representative", another voice menu and finally connected to tech support. Asked me the usual Q's....was it plugged in? Was it pluggged in to a wall outlet or a power strip? After a while I told the tech it had been going on for about 6 hrs...and after 26 years of their service I concluded it was a faulty HR44 and could we move on to its replacement...He told me he would schedule a service visit to check it out....I said can't we just set up delivery of a new HR unit? After a while he agreed....but then told me it will take a week to get here...I said in the past it was sent with nextday service. He looked in to that and said it was not available....its coming next week and will still cost us $19.95....has already been charged on our account....This is certainly a new Directv since the ATT takeover...Luckily we still have an HR24 and can still view programming....Glad we don't have the minis, we would be without tv service...

 

thanks for the reponses...yes no service plan....have'nt needed a new rc'vr in 10 years, so thats $$$ in our pockets. Previously though had rec'vrs sent and rec'd overnite....just sayin....thanks

 

So...had some time today...got an email from DTV saying DON"T send back the old HR44....just "recycle" it safely. So, knowing I didn't have to return the old unit, I took it apart...never seen inside one. Took out the hard drive. Had an old HDD that I put in its place. Temporarily hooked it up to the SAT cable and HDMI and plugged in the power. After a minute it formatted the HDD and loaded up all the Directv data and soon I had a picture on the screen. That got me thinking....Took the old Directv HDD, plugged it into my desktop, figured out how to format the drive and did so. Then took the Directv HDD and put it into the DTV chassis, hooked it up and VOILA! it formatted and downloaded the data and is working....devoid of all the old recordings of course. So I'm thinking that on Monday night it tried to get a new softwarte update(maybe) and something caused it to have a corruption and get into that re-booting cycle. Anyway...still wqaiting for the new unit to arrive, they on friday....after that I guess I'll have a 1TB HDD from the old unit that I can use(after formatting).....it killed some time for me today...I saved the email from DTV and printed it out also for backup.

 

UPDATE: Rec'd our replacement HR unit yesterday...they sent an HR54-500 to replace our HR44-500. I hooked up everything as it was on our HR44, A/V cables,Digital audio,AM21,etc...Plugged in the power cord...quick blue screen...Hello...starting up....then it goes into a constant re-boot process....UGH!!!! Tried several times of unplugging the power cord, Red Button Reset, all to no avail. Called DTV Tech support....they tried several ideas, still would not get past the blue screen "just a few more seconds" screen. Tech then scheduled a service call, surprisingly for the afternoon. Kept it plugged in to observe, hoping something would change...it didn't. Got a call from ATT...recorded voice said tech might not show up...do I want to re-schedule? Decided not to. Then tried one more time to try unplugging everything and start over....this time I left the AM21 USB cable unplugged....THAT WAS THE ISSUE!!! the HR54 went thru the normal 1st setup procedure....got it activated....setup wifi and its working fine. An hour later the service tech did show up and took a look....He disconnected the power inserter that the HR44 used...not necessary with the HR54....and said it looked fine....he said the AM21 should work but we did not hook it up as I wanted the HR54 to do all its downloading without interruption...I'll try the AM21 hookup at a later time...it should work right? Don't understand why it confused the HR54 from its initial setup procedure. Anyway Its working this AM and continues to download data...Thanks for all ther info here....