I've had my 6131 for 2 weeks and I just lost almost all channels. Only channels left are the Bell info channels.

If you've done the obvious stuff, like power cycle the receiver, you should probably phone Bell to find out why you've lost your programming.

-Mike

I have a hard drive that meets all the requirements. It works when plugged into my laptop, however, when plugged into the 6131, nothing happens at all. The receiver doesn't even recognize that something was plugged in. Any ideas? I have rebooted the receiver many times and the firmware is up to date v166.

I phoned Bell and she went through all the stuff but nothing worked. It was on Channel 805 and I couldn't change channels. She then said she would send an activation and 5 minutes later everything was back.

I recently got the 6131 receiver. Today I tried to hook up my EHD and I got the message to format the EHD. So I click on "yes" then the screen goes blank. In less than one minute, the screen comes to back where I was before I hook up the EHD. So I click on PVR but its seems like it didn't work.
I've also try it with a different EHD and same results. Both EHD are functional because they used to be for my backup so I know for a fact they work.
Does anyone have any idea what could I've done wrong?
Thanks

Bought new 6131 last week. Hooked up working fine. Bought brand new comstar Platinum USB 2.0 1T EHD, hooked up, followed the prompts (formatted drive, restarted receiver, etc...). At the end of this cycle, the receiver restarts, finds a signal and starts showing TV no problem. Unfortunately, no PVR functions are recognized. When I push PVR or My Programs, it prompts me to go to the Bell website.

When I turn off the receiver and EHD, restart the receiver, turn back on the hard drive, the receiver sees the hard drive, does not need to re-format but claims that the receiver needs to be restarted. I select yes, it goes through the motions but takes me back to the same spot - satellite working fine but doesn't seem to see the EHD.

Any help? or should I call Bell?

Check out this thread http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=100773&page=3

There is at least one other report of a comstar drive not working with the 61xx.

Sounds to me like an incompatible drive, therefore Bell won't be able to do anything for you.

Bell claims they will be sending me an authorization signal to all access to the PVR functions. Will be going home tonight to see and reply back in the forum on the outcome.

Your new to bell. The CSR tell everyone this to get them off the line. Good Luck ! & Welcome to DHC

Update - Bell had me try two days worth of unplug, plug, download, reset, wait, etc... with my new comstar 1TB EHD and then claimed they would 'send me an authorization signal' within 15 minutes to 2 hours and everything would be good to go but nothing happened.

I called again the next day, was taken through the same exercise as the 'tech' guy put me on hold to talk to their internal 'senior tech guy' for upwards of 45 minutes whom I was eventually put through to directly. In the end the 'senior tech' guy was no help and couldn't offer much in the way of a solution other than them telling me to buy a Lacie brand EHD from their Bell store as this is the one they recommend.

For what it was worth, I explained that the 6131 product is very misleading when it says PVR ready by attaching an external harddrive. I cannot find any literature under the spec's that says 'compatible only with brand X, Y, or Z.

Anyway, instead of being snookered into buying a $200 Lacie from the Bell store, I bought the 1TB Lacie for $40 less at Future Shop, plugged it in and it works perfectly.

Lessons learned:
1. Bell is in the wrong until they explicitly list 'compatible only with' on their 6131 receiver box and in their ad literature. If they want to be less direct, at least a 'may not be compatable with all EHD' or Bell recommends Lacie EHD., etc...

2. If you, as the buyer, buy anything other than a Lacie, you're flipping a coin on compatability. If you want to improve your chances, read the forum to see what works best other than Lacie.

3. Consider buying the $499 Dual Tuner Bell PVR. Yes, it's $150 - $200 more than 6131 with an EHD but it should work right out of the box.

Anyway, 3 trips to future shop and 3 hours or tech support later, I am enjoying the luxuries of PVR. Meh.

All the Bell employees were all very nice but not very helpful. I suspected the end result - go buy a Lacie - and should have figured it out from the start.

haystack, I said that to my wife! - that their shift was probably ending and the 'authorization signal' was code for my shift is over or get off the phone, we can't help you but we will pretend to help you a few times so it looks like we tried. :)

The bell website does state compatability of EHD's

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpTv_DTH_BestHDPVR.page

Tried many things but this HDD worked. Connected it and reset the receiver and it asked to reformat. It was very quick and no power supply. Interesting - not 7200 rpm either.

no power supply

I would be worried in the long run that the USB bus in the receiver is not designed to handle the load of an external hard drive ... thus the requirement for an external power supply. May be worth investing in a power supply for the EHD. As for the speed, I would think you may run into issues when you task the hard drive with a heavy load (recording a program and watching another on that is already recorded). Just a theory on my part. The size of the buffer in the hard drive may help ... WD is a good hard drive, so you may not have an issue.

Thanks kandkt. That's something I will watch for and post if issues arise.

I have a new 6131 bell receiver that was swapped out for my old 6000.
I installed a Simpeltech 500 gig drive, and had about 35 hours of programs recorded on it. Today, a message came up telling me that I had to reformat the drive, and all the files are gone. Anyone else have this trouble. I called bell and they said, sometimes this happens.
Great, all the episodes of Harpurs island I have recorded but not
watched yet are lost. Really disappointed with this piece of garbage. At least my DVD recorder works every time.
I haven't selected YES to the format question yet in hope that someone has the answer to recover these programs.

Before you call something a piece of garbage, did you stop to think that it might be something wrong with the hard drive? EHD's have been known to be bad too.

It's an ongoing issue. Even before I bought the EHD, which is brand new the receiver has issues.
For example, at random, when I hit the guide button, the HDTV blue light goes out and the picture goes blank. About 30 seconds later, the green power light goes out again for about 30 seconds, and then the unit reboots, and goes through the start up screens.

Today, 2 times in a row, it has goen through an extensive diagnostics, which takes about 10 minutes to complete. Since I do have 2 6131's I am about to plug the freshly formatted drive on the other 6131 to rule out a bad drive.(And that is another matter that really ticks me off, as there was about 30 hours of HD shows that I recorded over the past 2 weeks that I have not had a chance to watch because of my shift schedule over the past 3 weeks) that I won't get a chance to see.) I spent over an hour on the phone with the CSR, and the fella in India requested that I call back in the morning to talk to a master tech.
My original post was to see if anyone else has experienced any problems like this?

My understanding is that you can move an EHD from one 6131 to another on the same account. If this is true, you should be able to see your recorded shows on your second unit.

I don't have two of these, only one, so I can't try this myself. I have two 9242's and once you move these more than 3 times between units, it asks you to format the hard drive. This apparently will NOT happen with the 6131/6141 units.

It sounds like you do have a bad unit. I would get them to send you out a replacement. Good luck.

Anyway, instead of being snookered into buying a $200 Lacie from the Bell store, I bought the 1TB Lacie for $40 less at Future Shop, plugged it in and it works perfectly.
If you buy the 6131 and the LaCie at the same time at a Bell World store the EHD is only $99.95 and not $199.95.

A little promotion going on lately. :)