Dead Unit - Swap Drive?

[XR7Ron]

Long time lurker in these forums, found many an answer. Not sure about this one, so I've finally registered an account.

I have a DirecTivo HR10-250 (HD DirecTV Tivo), anyway, last night when I got home from work, I noticed it was hanging on the "Welcome, Powering up..." screen. After searching the forums here, I've tried everything - Unplugging and letting sit overnight did not help. I thought the hard drive was dead after reading a few posts. I yanked the hard drive out today and ran Western Digital's hard drive diagnostics, full scan, with zero errors. I've even just tried powering up the unit without the hard drive to see if it would help, no luck. I'm a PC Tech by trade, so I have tried the normal/basic computer/electronics troubleshooting.
What the unit does it sit at the "Powering up" screen for about 2-3 minutes, the Record light comes on for about 20 seconds, then the whole unit power cycles and starts the whole process over. So like I said, looks like a dead unit now.
Everyone concur?

The unit is only about 2 months old, and I have yet to call D* yet to get a replacement, will be doing that tonight. So my question is, when I get a replacement, can I just swap the hard drives and retain my recorded programs, passes, etc.? If not, it isn't a huge loss, though I did miss last Monday's episode of 24 which is on this hard drive. I read on another post that on the R10, the hard drive is matched/encrypted to the motherboard. Same thing here?

[PatGmac]

You probably just voided your warranty. You might not want to mention that you took the drive out.

Your programs and passes are on your HD so how would you retain them by swapping the HD?

[beartrap]

You probably just voided your warranty. You might not want to mention that you took the drive out.

Your programs and passes are on your HD so how would you retain them by swapping the HD?

He ran a successful diagnostic on the HD, so he's guessing that something else in his unit is faulty. He's asking about taking the supposedly good HD from the faulty unit and putting it (and the programs and passes on it) in a new unit. That's how he would retain his programs and passes.

[XR7Ron]

Yes, I definatly will not mention that I cracked the case. I do warranty repairs on PC's and servers, I know the do's and do not's. And since there is not a warranty void sticker on the case/chassis, who's the wiser. I guess I'll just try swapping the drives and see if all works as I hope so. I had to put a receiver in it's place until the replacement arrives...how do I live with out Tivo? :-(

[maharg18]

Unfortunately the recordings are keyed to the receiver that they were recorded on, so you're out of luck. You would be forced to run a clear and delete everything which would wipe everything.