You can not access your receivers hard drive while you have the sata plugged in.
Its one or the other, not both.
HR20, HR21, HR21 Pro, HR22, HR23, HR24 and HR34 DirecTV HD DVR Upgrades
DIRECTV Increase Recording Capacity on Your DVR or HD DVR
"The hard drive inside your receiver will be disabled."
"
Because the content on the external drive is paired with the HD DVR receiver it's connected to, you will have to reformat the external drive if you want to connect it to a different HD DVR receiver. Reformatting means you will lose the recordings you made with the original HD DVR receiver."
This is not the case with the Vip receivers!
Now we might want to get back on topic!
My H25's still didn't get this update , so maybe tonight.
I want to try a CE with my HR34 but I'm a little scared.