Of course not, your recordings are stored on a hard disk. Basically a hard disk stores digital data magnetically, just like recordings made on a VCR, cassette tape etc. Would you expect anything you have on your computer to disappear if you turned it off for a long period ?

I have hard disks that can be read from 40 yrs ago.

In way of explanation, your pvr is a computer.

It basically has 3 ways of storing data.

Volatile memory RAM (Random Access Memory). Very high speed but is lost when power is removed.

NVRAM (Non volatile RAM) Expensive compared to RAM in terms of capacity but can be faster than a hard disk but is not lost when power is lost. Typically on ypur pvr will remember your recording schedule and other stuff like the software that makes it work. These days you can get hard disks that use NVRAM technology to create high speed storage (at the moment of limited size) that can be susbtituted for a conventional magnetic hard disk known as a SSD (Solid State Drive). A USB memory stick is a NVRAM device,

A conventional Hard Disk Drive, basically a storage device recording content magnetically to a number of magnetic spinning platters. This is what your pvr records programmes to. Modern Hard Disks are way faster than any current pvr requires and have increasingly larger and larger long term storage . The data is safe without power arguably without power for probably longer than you will live, provided the way it is actually stored on the hard disk remains supported.

Martin Liddle – 9 hours ago  » 

grahamlthompson – 1 hour ago  » 

I have hard disks that can be read from 40 yrs ago.

To have owned a hard drive forty years ago is impressive; what sort of technology were they? I thought I was a fairly early adopter of hard drives when I fitted a Rodime hard drive to an S100 personal computer in 1985 (had to write my own device driver).

It’s an IDE drive. Could be faulty memory it was used with a desktop PC. I would have been around 30 at the time.

Pollensa1946 – 1 hour ago  » 

The IBM PC, launched on Aug 12 1981, had an IDE drive in it.

It most certainly did not. It had a floppy disk or cassette with twin floppy drives as an option (which I suspect was the most common configuration). The first model with a hard drive as standard was in 1983. The first IDE hard drive was in 1986.

Martin Liddle – 39 minutes ago  » …It most certainly did not. It had a floppy disk or cassette with twin floppy drives as an option (which I suspect was the most common configuration). The first model with a hard drive as standard was in 1983. The first IDE hard drive was in 1986.

I worked in the IBM PC division at the time, but OK, I’m confused as to exact dates. Sometime in 82 I was using an internal only proto which had an IBM drive. In March 83 IBM announced the IBM PC XT, it featured a 10 MB hard drive.