# Hydra vs. TE3



## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

I am thinking of removing my existing hard drive running TE3 and replacing it with another drive.
1. Am I correct in understanding that the new drive will be running Hydra (TE4) after the installation process? I'd like to see if I like Hydra or not.
2. If I decide to go back to my original drive will it be overridden by TE4? I seem to recall that the O.S. is stored on the system board and would kill TE3 and all the recordings.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

A J Ricaud said:


> I am thinking of removing my existing hard drive running TE3 and replacing it with another drive.
> 1. Am I correct in understanding that the new drive will be running Hydra (TE4) after the installation process? I'd like to see if I like Hydra or not.
> 2. If I decide to go back to my original drive will it be overridden by TE4? I seem to recall that the O.S. is stored on the system board and would kill TE3 and all the recordings.


If you're on TE4 now then that is what will be instantiated upon first boot of the new drive. There has been some talk that it is better to rollback to TE3 prior to upgrading the drive. Personally, I had no problem rolling back after I upgraded the drive. Yea, it was slightly inconvenient going through setup with TE4 then rolling back, but not the end of the world. Toward that end, I wouldn't re-activate the cablecard until you roll back. The cablecard data-ID will change when you change drives and might change when you change from TE4 to TE3 (although I literally just rolled back last night without a problem).


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## CaseyJ (Apr 26, 2017)

On a Bolt, if you change drives then change back, all recordings and settings are lost. It's treated as a blank drive.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

CaseyJ said:


> On a Bolt, if you change drives then change back, all recordings and settings are lost. It's treated as a blank drive.


Thanks. That confirms what I thought might happen.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

CaseyJ said:


> On a Bolt, if you change drives then change back, all recordings and settings are lost. It's treated as a blank drive.


And this is even if the BOLT is TE3 and stays on TE3.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

A J Ricaud said:


> I am thinking of removing my existing hard drive running TE3 and replacing it with another drive.
> 1. Am I correct in understanding that the new drive will be running Hydra (TE4) after the installation process?


No, you are not correct. If your box is running TE3 when you replace the drive, it will still be running TE3 on a new drive.

And as stated in several posts above, any recordings left on the original drive can never be accessed again once you boot a Bolt with a new drive.

If you want to try TE4, you will need to specifically trigger the update. You can do that with either drive, but I would suggest to first replace the drive and get a clean boot, then try the update on the new drive.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

V7Goose said:


> No, you are not correct. If your box is running TE3 when you replace the drive, it will still be running TE3 on a new drive.
> 
> And as stated in several posts above, any recordings left on the original drive can never be accessed again once you boot a Bolt with a new drive.
> 
> If you want to try TE4, you will need to specifically trigger the update. You can do that with either drive, but I would suggest to first replace the drive and get a clean boot, then try the update on the new drive.


Thanks for that. It sounds like it's not worth the effort. Plus, my "Luddite" wife would banish me to the dog house because I changed the UI.


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