Is it always necessary to call Bell when adding an EHD?

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hersch

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I finally took the plunge after doing a lot of research and bought an external hard drive. I have a 6131 receiver and bought a 1T Lacie hard drive at FS for $159 yesterday. I hooked it up straight out of the box to the receiver and turned it on. My receiver recognized the EHD and gave me the 499 message that the external USB hard drive was recognized and now I had to call Bell to activate it.

I was under the impression that I would be asked to format the EHD and then I would be ready to go but that wasn't the case. After a long and frustrating call to Bell they sent a signal to my receiver and then I got the requisite format question and now all is good.

Is this the standard procedure? The reason I ask is because I have a second 6131 receiver that i would like to buy a EHD for and I want to know if I will have to go through the frustration of calling Bell again.
 
i never had that for my 6131 that i bought from the bellstore.
the installer called to activate the 6141 a week earlier. i dont know maybe its just a one time thing.
 
Although I haven't heard of this before, I would suspect the setting is stored in the receiver as many people swap drives around and it would be ridiculous to call every time.
 
Thanks buckinbronco and dosborne for your replies.
Then it sounds like maybe its a one-time thing.
When i add the second EHD to my other receiver in the next couple of weeks i'll post whether i needed to call again.
 
I bought the same lacie EHD from FS and with my 6131 it was plug n play, I didn't have to call Bell ...
 
TheZodiac thanks for replying. Couple of questions for you if I could, did you hook up your Lacie to the 6131 right out of the box or did you hook it up to your computer first? And did you already have a PVR receiver on your Bell account or was this the first attempt at PVR?
 
Thanks TheZodiac. I also hooked mine up right out of the box so that rules out my thoughts about maybe that it was an issue with having to hook up the Lacie to a computer first. More than likely it has to do with the first time an EHD is added to a receiver. Because you were replacing a pvr receiver your account was already set up to allow PVR additions.
 
It seems to be hit and miss. It might depend on whether the CSR activates the EHD during the original receiver activation. Some people need to call to enable the EHD and some don't. When my 6131 was activated, a message came up saying something like, 'USB drive enabled.' I haven't connected a drive to it yet so it's yet to be determined if I will need to call. I never had to call for the 9242 EHD.
 
You shouldn't need to call Bell to activate the EHD. I suspect something else was happening there. Maybe your smart card just needed a re-hit.
 
I just plugged an EHD into my 6131. It was recognized and formatted immediately. I have read a number of reports where other people had to call. Like I said, needing to call for EHD activation on new 6131s appears to be random.
 
Just a follow-up. I finally bought another EHD for my second 6131 receiver and I did not have to call Bell this time. (I hooked up the second EHD to my first reciver and formatted it there before I hooked it up to my second receiver. And when I hooked it up to my second receiver it recognized it no problem.)
 
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