You might as well try the C & D first, in case it helps. It's unlikely to do the trick, but you have nothing to lose if you're going to swap out the drive potentially anyway.

Follow up and some Comcast Cable Card errata...

the unit is connected to Comcast and OTA. The unit uses a pair of multi-mode cable cards configured for single mode. We do not subscribe to any "premium" services but do have the HD package which is configured at the head end and not part of the base package. This allows stuff like Discovery, HDNet, etc., to be received. The replacement drive saw both CCs, and did not require any interaction (thank the eternal forces) with Comcast.

No doubt this is due to the lack of encryption bits but then again, the whole issue of CCs is so oblique to the average user (me) I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the replacement - no need to call Comcast. How much better can it get?

regards,

chmod

Excellent! Glad to hear it.

In the two years (almost) that we've been dealing with CableCARDs, they've gone from very erratic to very solid. We're pretty happy about that!