How to Transfer a DVR to a Hard Drive
DVRs (digital video recorders) have taken the place of VCRs (video cassette recorders) when it comes to recording television shows and movies that come on your cable or satellite television service. However, these DVRs only record programming for as long as you have space in the DVR's hard drive; once that runs out, you have to delete the information to make room, or forgo any future recordings. One solution to this problem is transferring the information to an external hard drive. This option, unfortunately, is only available for some DVRs depending mainly on the provider of your television service.
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Instructions
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Consult your DVR's manual or your television service provider to confirm if you are able to transfer information from your DVR to a hard drive. Some providers allow it, though you may not have a model that can support such a function. For example, as of 2010, Dish Network allows for this feature with their 722, 612 and 622 DVR models, but they charge a onetime fee of $39.99 to "activate" the feature.
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Connect the external hard drive to the DVR using a USB cord. Note that if you have any information stored in that hard drive prior to installing it on the DVR, it will be lost once you allow the DVR to format the external hard drive. You will get a pop-up on your television screen asking you for permission to do so. Select "Yes" to format the hard drive. It may take a few minutes to format the equipment.
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Go into the DVR menu in the same fashion as if you were going to be watching something on your DVR normally and then select the program that you want to transfer to the hard drive.
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Select the transfer option. Note that not all DVRs will allow for this function, even if they allow for the hard drive to be plugged in and formatted. Those that don't let you transfer will allow you to save new recordings directly to the hard drive if you wish. Those that allow for transfer will also allow for the direct storage of new recordings to the hard drive.
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