Help! SA 8300HD Firewire TWC Cleveland, OH

I have searched through the forums looking for a more concrete answers and have come up empty.

I currently have an Scientific Altlanta 8300HD box that includes DVR functionality. According to the diagnostic screens, it is running SARA v1.87.23.1.

How can I tell if the IEEE 1394 (firewire) ports on the back are functional, there are two?

My reason for asking is these boxes do not seem to last very long and we end up trading them in every few months for various reasons. Some of those reasons have been, HD output stopped working, would not record shows even though they were scheduled, only recording a few minutes of a program, VOD not working, plus many others over the last few years. Anyway, everytime I trade in a box I obviously lose recorded programs and have to start over. Reading through the forums it sounds like I shoud be able to archive recordings using either a D-VHS, or my PC using the firewire ports if they are enabled which according to my reading TWC is legally obligated to provide per the FCC. The few times I have called TWC support about the firewire ports they say they are disabled because they don't support them and they will not turn them on.

Can anybody offer some suggestions for what my next steps should be?

Thanks,
Eric

Thanks for the response.

I looked through the diagnostic pages again. On the "Component Information" page "Firebus v1.9.11.1" is listed. So supposedly the firewire should work, right? At least well enough that I should have a connection? I am going to move the box over by the computer and see what happens I guess.