Additional Space on DVR

I got that same message on my voice mail. I came looking for information as well. Only to find no information on the support website like the message directed me here. 

The message customers are receiving is about free upgrades to Motorola DVRs running the "Rovi" guide software. It has been rolling out nationwide since January and launched in Hampton Roads VA on 5/14 and will launch in Kansas/Arkansas on 5/16. The only Cox service areas with Motorola equipment that are still pending to receive the update are Roanoke VA and Omaha NE.

If you received the notification and do not have any Motorola DVRs or only have Cisco DVRs with the "Trio" software, I apologize for the confusion.

Details about the upgrade can be found on this support article.

Kip K.,

I have the Cisco 8742HDC master DVR box and two Cisco 4742HDC client stations. After receiving that phone notification, and not realizing that the external drive feature did not pertain to my Cisco 8742HDC master box, I promptly plugged a new 1 terabyte PC-formatted eSata drive into the eSata port and it immediately recognized that the drive was there. It displayed a message that said the drive needed a complete reformat, and prompted me to press the "A" key to continue.  Pressing A didn't have the desired affect, instead making my Cisco receiver reboot every time I tried to reformat.  When I called Tech Support, they seemed to be unaware that the feature was not extended to the new Cisco boxes, instead, telling me that the software update had not yet been pushed out to enable the feature (yet, the ESata port itself seems to be "live."), and that I needed to "Google and find out which eSata drives the Cisco box accepts." 

After leaving the drive connected overnight, the next day when I removed the drive and then immediately reconnected it to the Cisco, I no longer got the "drive needs formatting" message, nor did the Cisco constantly reboot. Also, when immediately removed and then reconnected to my laptop, the drive appeared to have new partitions and the original PC-formatted volume name was now gone. Apparently, it reformatted to a different format - linux or unix? Yet, Windows 7 still recognized it in the Disk Management panel, but did not assign a drive letter to it or mount it on the Win7 desktop. Last, upon reconnecting the 1T drive to the Cisco box again, I noted that, when pressing the DVR List button, the current capacity (storage percentage used and percentage remaining) numbers are no longer displayed in the top right corner. Yet, my DVR functionality is there, and everything still works great.  Is it possible that the drive is actually online now? That would be very cool.  If not, it would be great if the external drive expansion feature could be enabled for the Cisco 8742HDC, too. Is that going to happen at some point?

bc