522 hard drive going, going ...

You are exactly right. I lost a PC drive to a virus once, and now I (try to!) religiously back that up. I can get about 1 - 2 hrs of stuff off of the DVR per day. I have to keep rebooting it or power cycling it to temporarily get rid of the freezing/pausing. It is getting worse though.

I'm still waiting to hear back from one drive recovery place I asked if they could do anything for me.

Dish said they couldn't do anything but replace it. Some customer service right there.

When I get the new one, I'll try not to let so much stuff build up on it.

Doesn't matter. All I want is a cloned drive that's working properly to pop back in there. I don't want to copy the files or watch them on my PC. I just want a working drive.

I'll check that place out, thanks. Different than the one I'm talking to now.

Yeah, I was wondering if there might be some kind of hardware key between the drive and the box ... Thanks!