Dish VIP211k HDD use

[greenrvgreen]

I have Dish Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) using the Tailgater and the VIP 211k receiver. I have added a 2tb HDD for DVR use and it works well. Here are my questions:

--Does anyone use more than one drive? I know only one drive at a time can function as a DVR, but can you disconnect your drive and switch in a new drive, use it, and then switch in the old drive and view the old content?

--With PAYG, I understand that you can't access the HDD shows when your sat service is shut down. But once you restart, are all the shows there on your HDD same as before? Or does it reformat and start all over?

--I'm starting to like this HDD DVR so much that I want to back up the HDD as an image. This is NOT an attempt to hack into the data, which I understand is in a proprietary format. I'm asking if an image backkup tool like EaseUS can successfully copy the image and then restore it if the original HDD crashes. Anyone done this?

[lryrob9301]

1) Yes you can use multiple hard drives, however they will each be reformatted to work on the DISH system and will not be any good for other uses.

2) Yes material recorded on a hard drive stays on the hard drive. It only formats on the initial installation not each subsequent restart.

3) No you cannot copy a DISH formatted hard drive. No backup software I am familiar with can read the DISH format coding.