[Greggbb]

My HR21-100 is dying and I'm receiving an HR24; there is a one year old external Iomega MDHD-DVR 1TB drive on the HR21, and I know I will lose the recordings, however the drive I believe is fine.

If I plug it into my new HR24 will it automatically reformat (other, very old threads are saying no)? If not, what do I need to do in order to have my external drive cleaned off for the new DVR? Do I really need to go through the very slow process on my dying HR21 and delete every single recording before plugging it into the new DVR?

Thanks,
Gregg

 

[RunnerFL]

You can re-use the drive, sure, but none of your recordings will work. The recordings are tied to the receiver they were made on. The new device won't be formatted, you'll need to delete the recordings or choose to "reset everything".

 

[P Smith]

If you want to save you scheduled recordings, that's the way - slow, but with a result.

If you don't need to keep anything on that drive - connect it to PC and just delete all partitions (Windows Disk Management could do that regardless if it native Linux EXT3).

Same time if you concern about current health of the drive, use MHDD [bootable CD] and take SMART data before and after Scan with Remap=ON. Post results here for further discussion.

 

[RunnerFL]

If you want to save you scheduled recordings, that's the way - slow, but with a result.

If you don't need to keep anything on that drive - connect it to PC and just delete all partitions (Windows Disk Management could do that regardless if it native Linux EXT3).

Same time if you concern about current health of the drive, use MHDD [bootable CD] and take SMART data before and after Scan with Remap=ON. Post results here for further discussion.

There's no need for him to hook up the drive to a PC. The DVR will do what he wants for him.

 

[P Smith]

Gregg, if you concern about current health of the drive, use MHDD [bootable CD] and take SMART data before and after Scan with Remap=ON. Post results here for further discussion.

 

[CCarncross]

Unless you really want to check the health of the drive, you can follow Smith's advice. If you have had zero issues and the drive is only about a year old with no issues currently, just connect it up, and you get to retain all settings, including your SL's. YOu can also bring up the playlist and use the mark and delete function available from yellow button in list screen, and delete all recordings on drive. If you have an AM21 connected and recorded from OTA on the failing dvr, those recordings will still be playable, just none of the recordings from the sat channels.

 

[Chuck W]

My HR21-100 is dying and I'm receiving an HR24; there is a one year old external Iomega MDHD-DVR 1TB drive on the HR21, and I know I will lose the recordings, however the drive I believe is fine.

If I plug it into my new HR24 will it automatically reformat (other, very old threads are saying no)? If not, what do I need to do in order to have my external drive cleaned off for the new DVR? Do I really need to go through the very slow process on my dying HR21 and delete every single recording before plugging it into the new DVR?

Thanks,
Gregg

I just went through this on Monday. I had an HR20-100 that had a 1tb drive on it and was replaced with an HR24-500. I also took a 2tb drive off my other HR24-500 and connected it to my new HR34 that was also installed.

If you are connecting the drive to another HR2x, it will not reformat it. It will show up on the system and you will see all your recordings from the prior receiver, like nothing is wrong. However, you CANNOT play them. When you try to play them, you will get a message about it not being fully recorded and then will search for a fully recorded version(which it will never find of course). You can delete them with the red button but I found it to be a bit flakey. The first time I deleted them, they reappeared. I deleted them again and they have stayed deleted.

If you are taking a drive from an HR2x to an HR34, it DOES reformat the drive. In my case, it screwed it up some how to where the drive wouldn't even boot, even when it was put back on the HR24 from where it came. The HR24 did an 8 hr surface scan with no errors, but it still wouldn't boot. I had to connect it to my PC and clear all the partitions from it(as per what P Smith said). Once I did that, the HR34 then formatted it again and everything has been fine since.

As for the fastest way to clean it, I beleive you can just do a Delet everything and it will reset the drive. If you have an easy way to connect it to windows, P Smith's method of just deleting the partitions works well too.

 

[CCarncross]

If you use the mark and delete method, there is a select all, which just deletes the recordings, none of the settings, much more convenient for most than the reset everything menu choice.

 

[Chuck W]

If you use the mark and delete method, there is a select all, which just deletes the recordings, none of the settings, much more convenient for most than the reset everything menu choice.

Yea, but that's where it was flaky for me. I did exactly that and when it was done, it looked like they were gone. I went back in a few minutes later and they all reappeared. The second time I did it, they seemed to stay gone.

 

[P Smith]

Perhaps you must reboot your DVR after such massive flush.

 

[Greggbb]

Thanks everyone. I had no idea about the "delete all" functionality, or the fact that my series list would survive the move to the new dvr. That's great news. Looking forward to getting my HR24 and not having to wait 45 seconds for the program list to come up.