# R15 won't power on - bad hard drive?



## Jacob_ (Dec 27, 2011)

Whenever I turn the receiver on, I just hear the hard drive trying to spin up, and then stopping with a "chirping" sound. This just repeats endlessly and nothing ever shows up on the TV.

I read another thread that said this could be caused by broken capacitors, but I didn't see any that looked bad.

Is there a way to tell if the problem is the hard drive, or another component? A new drive would be a lot cheaper than one of the HD receivers.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

Is this an owned R15 (versus leased)? I'm guessing you don't have the protection plan (or you would have already called for replacement).

If owned: Find yourself a 180GB IDE (not SATA) hard drive and swap out the drives. The unit should format the new drive and make it usable when you fire it up. It's pretty straightforward job to replace the drive (just like doing that in a computer). Nothing tricky about the R15 to disassemble. But there is a limit of something like 250GB on the drive, larger than that and it won't work. Plus, it will only use 180 regardless of what size it is.

Or (also for owned): Get a replacement from DirecTV (it will be leased) and will get you a 2 year comittment.

Or, if you have the protection plan (owned or leased): Call and get a replacement for no cost.

If leased: Call DirecTV and ask for a replacement. You'll have to pay shipping, but that's all.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

carl6 said:


> Is this an owned R15 (versus leased)? I'm guessing you don't have the protection plan (or you would have already called for replacement).
> 
> If owned: Find yourself a 180GB IDE (not SATA) hard drive and swap out the drives. The unit should format the new drive and make it usable when you fire it up. It's pretty straightforward job to replace the drive (just like doing that in a computer). Nothing tricky about the R15 to disassemble. But there is a limit of something like 250GB on the drive, larger than that and it won't work. Plus, it will only use 180 regardless of what size it is.
> 
> ...


Is it a 180GB drive or a 160GB drive? I thought it was the latter size.

- Merg


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

It's a 160 Gb HDD.

What appears on your TV screen when you power up your R-15?

If you get the blue screen and "your DirecTV receiver is starting up" the power supply is probably fine. Generally, if the power supply has failed you get nothing on your TV and the orange RECORD light flashes.

Try opening the thing up and unplugging the HDD (power and data cables). Then power it up again. If you get the opening blue screen and then a screen telling you that the box is trying to reformat the HDD the motherboard and power supply are probably fine.

You can get a replacement PATA (parallel interface) drive easily on the web. If it is a native drive, the R-15 will sense this and automatically format it and then install the proper software automatically. If it sees a drive with incompatible data already on it (DOS, Windows, etc.) it may not. If this is the case, it may need to be "wiped" first on a different machine.

If you decide to replace the drive and the R-15 accepts it and reformats it, you will need to do the satellite configuration over. Then, you will need to call DirecTV customer service and have them "refresh" the receiver. Doing this on the web or using the interactive telephone system won't work after a full reformat (trust me-I know).

Let us know what you decide to do and what you discover!!


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

Memory fade, sorry. Yes 160 Gig is correct. Also correct is you can put in a larger drive (up to 250 Gig I think), but it will only use 160.


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