R10 question

[catocony]

As I understood it 5 years ago when I got my DSR704, all Series 2 DirecTivo are the same, be it Phillips or private label or whatever.

Is this the case? I can get a unit for cheap that isn't Phillips and put my hard drive in it (do a C&D of course), or is that too simple?

[JimSpence]

Although all units were "the same", the hard drives were still married to the mainboard. So, a simple swap won't work.

[catocony]

When you say "married to the motherboard" do you mean the encryption for playlist? I understand I will have to do a Clear and Delete, but other than that, is there an issue with putting a drive from a Phillips into a private-label or whatnot?

[John T Smith]

I have swapped a drive from one brand to another

After a Clear & Delete Everything, it worked just fine

[catocony]

Thanks man, so just check the serial number with DTV to make sure the unit isn't attached to a bad account or stolen and I'm good to go?

[halfempty]

The R10 is different from the other series 2's, and I don't think that a drive swap to/from a different type of unit will work well. There was another change in the series 2 DTivos, the very first ones were non-RID. I've never tried a RID to/from non-RID image swap, but the units are identical except for the added RID chip.

[catocony]

Ok, another question. I just got a nice DSR708 for $25. My existing unit is a 704. Besides the hard drive size difference, are there any other differences in these units?

I assume my 704 (purchased April 2004) is an RID unit, correct?

I may not even swap hard drives, just keep the 80Gb in the 708 and make it my primary unit - if I can get a CSR to let me re-use the card from my POS R15.

[halfempty]

DSR704/708 are identical RID units except for the hard drive size. You can do it the easy way and pay D* the $20 for a new access card, or you can play CSR roulette to find one that knows how to swap the cards. They will swap the card if you tell them the original unit died and the new unit is just replacing the dead DTivo.

Remember these units haven't been sold in 5 years so most of the front line CSRs aren't all that familiar with them. If the CSR doesn't know how to do it, don't push them into trying. I did that and it took quite a while on the phone with a CSR that did know how to do it trying to fix my account after all the things the other rep did trying to get it to work. If you can't find a CSR that knows how to do it, get transferred to the people that issue the new cards and explain the situation to them. They usually know how to do it.