Welcome to the DIRECTV Community Forums

New to the Community? Visit the Community How-To and Guidelines to get started.

Tutor

 • 

9 Messages

Saturday, October 17th, 2020 12:40 PM

HR54-700

Hi all,   Our HR54 HDMI port has burned out for the second time.    Att sent me a replacement HR54.   Can I remove the hard drive in the broken HR54 and pull out the hard drive of the new HR54 and replace it with the old hard drive?   I'd like to keep my recorded stuff.

New Member

 • 

30 Messages

4 years ago

I was waiting for someone else to answer this, but as no response has been given I will give you my understanding from my past experience - it will not work.
As I understand it the DVR will not recognize the old drive contents. If you “replace” the drive in your new DVR it will recognize the drive as a new  drive and will re-format it - in other words - you will lose your old recordings. 

note - this is a customer to customer forum - I am not an AT&T employee 

Tutor

 • 

9 Messages

4 years ago

Thanks, I will probably try anyway because either I lose the recordings sending the unit back or I lose the recordings from re-formatting.   

New Member

 • 

9 Messages

4 years ago

I would advise against opening the receiver and trying to swap hard drives. It will void the warranty on the receiver and they may charge you for it if it is opened. 

 

Also, the hard drive will be formatted when installed in the new receiver. 

ACE - Professor

 • 

2.3K Messages

4 years ago

Recordings are non transferable period.

As @Aero49 pointed out,  opening the DVR is not allowed and voids the warranty and it won't work the way you want it to anyway.

ACE - Expert

 • 

23K Messages

4 years ago

@NoAutotune 

 

Recordings are encrypted to the DVR that recorded them.

The internal HDD is paired to the DVR verifying the encrypting.

At best swapping the drive would just reformat, old recordings written over.

At worst you have violated service and warranty by opening the box and tampering with it which you could be charged for.

 

You don't own the box. Don't open it.

 

Also if by your user name you are upset at not having Autotune, you can still get it. Just have an HD non-DVR (i.e. H25) on another TV. It can still watch what your Genie or other DVRs have recorded.

 

Personally, I prefer DVR over Autotune. That way I can watch on my schedule. If I am not there or missed something (making food, answer door, etc.) I can rewind or pull up the recording. So DVR is on my time instead of scheduling myself around the box itself.

(edited)

Community Support

 • 

255.1K Messages

4 years ago

Hi @NoAutotune, we are happy to help.

 

 

As other members have advised, please do not attempt to remove the internal hard drive. This procedure will not work.

 

If you have any additional concerns, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for contacting us on AT&T Community Forums!

 

Lafayette, AT&T Community 

ACE - Expert

 • 

14.1K Messages

4 years ago

by the way, burning out two HDMI interfaces is usually caused by an electrical problem, nothing to do with the directv box, so it could easily happen again.


NEED HELP?