Hardware problem on new Weaknees Refurbed TIVO unit

[mylesg]

I had a failed tuner in my Phillips DVR708, it was receiving signals only periodically. However, my recorded programs played fine.

I just purchased a "new" refurbed Phillips DVR704 unit from Weaknees, that did not come with hard drives, but am now having a hardware problem.

The tuners and signals work great. It is the previously recorded video that is the problem. Here is all I did to install.

I received the refurbed Phillips 704 from Weaknees. I moved the two old hard drives from the 708, placed them into the 704. I plugged the hard drive into the mother board, and into the power clip.

That is all I did with the hardware to transfer the drives.

I called Directv and got the new receiver sycned with the old access card.

The live TV came right on- with strong tuner signals.

But when I press the "Now Playing"- it tells me "a hardware problem has been detected, and I will not be able to record programs or watch recordings". It tells me to do a hard reboot- which I have done 3 times.

I get a error message 51.

When I look in the system information, I can tell it is recognizing the hard drives, because it says I have 177 hours of recording capacity. It also lists two hard drive IDs.

Did I not do something or miss a step when I transferred the hard drives to the refurbed unit? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[WK-Jason]

You need to perform a "clear and delete everything" in order to wipe the drives and serialize them to the new unit.

[mylesg]

I unfortunately came to that conclusion after I read some of your old posts. I was really hoping by purchasing the same unit- I could move without loss. I had lots of programming.

But I did the deed last night.

Thanks for your response.

[WK-Michael]

Sorry - but that's one way DirecTV keeps piracy from happening. If they lock the content to the motherboard, you can't fill up the drive and Fedex it to a friend . . .