What you are describing sounds like a dead drive. I would also suspect a bad power supply, but that generally comes with smart card issues. Try running the internal hard drive(s) off an external power supply and see if anything improves.
The "you need to dial out" is an indication of DVR service not being enabled. Go check the system info screen to see if it's seeing the correct settings from the sats. You can have DTV re-hit the unit via:
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/mydirectv/mysystem/mySystemResendAuthorization.jsp
(http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=1300015)
The "you need to dial out" is an indication of DVR service not being enabled. Go check the system info screen to see if it's seeing the correct settings from the sats. You can have DTV re-hit the unit via:
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/mydirectv/mysystem/mySystemResendAuthorization.jsp
(http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=1300015)