HR-21 and WD dvr expander

[sinaster99]

will the western digital dvr expander work with my direct tv HR-21 dvr?do i hookup via eSATA cable?will my internal drive still work or only the external drive

thanks
craig

[WK-Michael]

The external will work, but only that drive. So you don't get a lot of extra space. We have larger drives here:

http://www.weaknees.com/hr20.php

[gfoulks]

speaking of adding drives. how accurate is the disk space available indicator?

I ask because I recently added a 1TB Western Digital MyBook and have recorded maybe 20 hours of shows and the indicator says that I have 88% available. That figure doesn't seem right to me.

[WK-Jeff]

That seems about right to me. The indicator is very accurate--it's just measuring how much disk space is taken up by existing programs.

[gfoulks]

but 20 hours on a TB drive? that takes 12% of the disk space?

just doesn't feel right...

[gfoulks]

is it possible to daisy chain these external esata drives?

[WK-Michael]

No - you can't daisy-chain these.

But a 1 TB drive does "up to" 145 hours of HD, so that's really right in the right ballpark.

[gfoulks]

Why is it that when the DVR locks up and you reset the DVR by turning off the external drive, unplugging and plugging in the DVR, turning on the external drive... When the DVR starts up all of the previously recorded shows on the external drive are erased.

This has happened three times now! How do you keep the DVR from erasing all of the previous shows when resetting the dvr?

[WK-Jeff]

That is not supposed to happen; you may have a bad DVR or a bad external. We don't use that brand of external drive, but I am not aware of it it being a known problem. Your shows are supposed to be erased only if you plug the external into a DIFFERENT DVR.

[gfoulks]

then today I turn it on and all of my settings are gone.... channel lists, set recordings, etc...

[WK-Michael]

Sounds like your internal drive may also have a problem.

[WK-Jeff]

You've got a problem somewhere...either DVR or external.

[gfoulks]

how do I tell D* that something is wrong with the DVR so they send a replacement? any tips?