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New shots of the Genica 3.5" hard drive rack bay from Computer Geeks on the 7100 in the living room. I've
since replaced the rack bay from the 7200 in the bedroom with the Genica bays. The Genica rack
bays turn on and off with the key lock so be sure to turn the key on to make them work!

Rear of the Dishplayer with the hard drive removed. Original IDE ribbon data cable fits out the back just fine. Power cable is extended.	Another shot of the back a little closer. As you can see the power cable on the left is much longer than the original.	Here you can see how the connections for power and data run from the Dishplayer to the removable drive bay.
	To the left is the drive bay with top cover off showing the drive inside. Above you see the cover on the drive tray. The tray then inserts into the bay in the front and locks with the key.	Here you can see the finished drive bay sitting on top of the Dishplayer unit in my audio rack. I have the fan running on this one pulling cool air through. Quiet and works quite well and looks nice!

As you can see from the pictures I've pulled the drive out of the Dishplayer case and I've put it into the rack bay unit. I used the original data cable (the fat gray cable) which seems to be just long enough. I had to replace the original short power cable (black/yellow/red cable) with a longer one (the original cable is about 3" long). You'll want to get one that's about 10" to 12" long. I ran it out the back of the case at the middle where the lip of the case doesn't hang down too far. For instructions on how to remove your drive from your Dishplayer, click here. All the screws went back into the case except the rear screws which I've saved in a small baggy along with the original power cable. The rack bay pictured in the TOP photos is no longer available from Tiger Direct. Here's a link to the *BETTER* Genica GN120 drive bays that are CHEAPER ($7.15ea were $6.95ea), the fans work and the key-lock turns power on/off to the drive bay so you can HOT-SWAP drives! - Drive Bays Link Note: Even if the fan works, you may want to disconnect power to it if you're using it in your bedroom or some other confined space. It runs constantly and makes more noise than just the drive running. A regular drive doesn't overheat anyway. If you want to keep the fan running while the unit is on but turn it off so it doesn't bug you when you aren't watching TV, you can always turn the key-lock off and it will completely shut the drive/fan down. If you leave it off overnight, this will cause problems with nightly EPG downloads since the drive isn't available. UPDATE May 28, 2005: Because these drives plug directly into the ATA IDE interface, they don't act like typical removable drives. What you can do to make these truely hot-swappable removable drives that Windows will automatcially recognize is put these into a USB or Firewire enclosure. You would have one Genica enclosure setup with your Dishplayer as shown above and the other Genica enclosure would be mounted into this USB or Firewire enclosure. Then all you have to do is remove the drive caddy from the Dishplayer, pop it into the Genica drive bay in the Firewire/USB enclosure and plug the USB/Firewire cable from the enclosure in to your PC's USB or Firewire port and Windows will see it as a removable hard drive. POOF! Here's a link to one such enclosure - USB 1.0/2.0 Enclosure Link ($19.00) Explore that site more if you're interested in a USB/Firewire enclosure or other enclosures. They have a bunch of different ones there. Here's a link to a program to rip shows off your Dishplayer hard drive - DishRip Link Note: The DishRip link also has ripping programs and information available for the newer 501/508 DVR's! Here's a link to another program to explore and rip shows from your Dishplayer - Dishplayer Explorer Link Here's a link to Ben Reser's Dishplayer page that contains information on special codes, lists of hard drives that you can use as well as instructions on how to swap hard drives. - Ben Reser's Dishplayer Link Here's a link to see my other Dishplayer in my Home Theater setup - Home Theater Link

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