[Rivergoat]

The present receiver has a bad tuner, D* is sending a replacement. Can I swap the hard drive to save my recorded programs? I've seen inside these boxes before, it's nothing special to change a HDD, but is there anything that would otherwise prevent doing so?

 

[MrMojoJojo]

Yes there is something that prevents you from doing that: your Agreement with Directv regarding the leased unit. You do that and it voids that agrement. So if it doesn't work and you need a new one, be prepared to shell out some cash.

Its kind of like when you open up a video game console and replace or mod any of the parts in it.

 

[Jhon69]

The present receiver has a bad tuner, D* is sending a replacement. Can I swap the hard drive to save my recorded programs? I've seen inside these boxes before, it's nothing special to change a HDD, but is there anything that would otherwise prevent doing so?

Do you own or lease the R15?Do you plan to return it to DirecTV?.If you do when DirecTV sees their seal is broken don't think they will be happy and may send you a bill for the total cost of the R15.

 

[Rivergoat]

The R15 I've seen in the past did not have a seal that I was aware of. The HDD on that unit was seen, but not removed, I don't know if they have any internal seals.

Thanks for your comments, I'll just swap the entire unit and return the one with bad tuner to D*.

 

[ThomasM]

The R15 I've seen in the past did not have a seal that I was aware of. The HDD on that unit was seen, but not removed, I don't know if they have any internal seals.

Thanks for your comments, I'll just swap the entire unit and return the one with bad tuner to D*.

All the BS about breaking seals and violating contracts has nothing to do with swapping HDD's between DVR's. When a HDD is installed in ANY DirecTV DVR and formatted by that DVR, it places an encryption code on the drive. For this reason, a HDD with recorded shows on it can only play those shows back on the DVR that recorded the shows.

You CAN swap HDD's between DirecTV DVR's, but after you do you must tell the DVR to format the drive or it will not be usable (and of course doing this erases all the shows).