Thread: 622 catastrophic failure - advice?

Dear SatteliteGuys Members:

Last night my 622 froze on a frame of a previously recorded program (I may never forget that image of Zoidberg and his claws!). I waited a few minutes for the machine to wake up but nothing happened. Performed a front panel reset. After a seemingly normal boot period (fan on for about 1 minute) I got the dreaded Error 311, which advised me to unplug unit for 1 minute and then reboot. Did that and this time the fan stayed on for a very long time (6+ minutes). Sensing something was seriously wrong I unplugged the unit again and went to bed. This morning I replugged the unit and, again, the fan stayed on longer than normal. It shut down after about 15 minutes and again returned the error 311 screen.

Pressing "OK" took me to live programming, but as the warning indicated, no pause functions are available, and worse, the DVR functions are dead. Called Dish Technical Support and gave them this info. They enabled external HDD functions and we tried to offload my precious saved programs. The 622 recognized the external drive but upon attempting a "Send to Device" reported that "that feature is not available".

Dish is sending a replacement of course. They'd hate to lose me after almost 10 years as a sub.

All this to ask: what are my chances of recovering the 100 or so recorded events I have stored on the 622's internal drive? Some of that is most precious to me.

I am an IT professional who, apparently, cannot follow his own advise that "there are two kinds of hard drives: one's that have failed and ones that will fail."

Have enjoyed SatteliteGuys for years as a lurker - thanks so very much! Now it's time to me step up to the plate.

Newbie,
zzwerzy

Do you OWN or lease the 622?

If you OWN it you can take it out and mount it...copy the information off put in a new HDD...format it and copy the information onto the new HDD and your back in business.

That is IF the HDD isnt dead...

If you lease it.....you've lost the info for good. :-(

Use MHDD.EXE after connecting the disk by long SATA cable to your PC (details posted here a few times, perhaps Search for the program name will help you ).

I have had pretty much the same problem as zzwerzy sevreral times, only on a 722. Loss of dvr functions and error message saying to unplug for a minute and then plug it back in.

Fortunately for me it has fixed the problem each time by unplugging and re-plugging the receiver.

I have also had a lot of freeze ups, mostly on previously recorded programs, but it has always unfrozen after a little while without rebooting.

I have watched all my recorded programs during the rerun season and I told Dishnetwork that if they are going to send me a replacement that I would appreciate it if they would do it before the new fall season begins. They said they would send me a replacement immediately. Thanks Dishnetwork!

I have read of several people having this sort of problem, mostly on 622s. I am wondering if there is any chance this could be something caused by the latest L622 software. I never had the problem before I got this software download.

Think that the death of 622's is more like age of the HDD's in the unit. As zzwerzy said "there are two kinds of hard drives: one's that have failed and ones that will fail." Major reason for having ext HDD.

Originally Posted by gary s

I have had pretty much the same problem as zzwerzy sevreral times, only on a 722. Loss of dvr functions and error message saying to unplug for a minute and then plug it back in.....

....I have read of several people having this sort of problem, mostly on 622s. I am wondering if there is any chance this could be something caused by the latest L622 software. I never had the problem before I got this software download.

I had this happen on a 722 when it was still on L618. The hard drive's time had just simply come.

Brad

Happened to my 622 last night. I believe this is the second 622 I've had after a previous failure on one.
Interestingly... I'm still using the same 501 receiver with it's same hard drive that I purchased back when the 501 was first released by dish. yeah... it's old and still working.

I was programming some recordings and heard HDD clicking noises - had that oh oh feeling but it seemed to be working okay. I shut it off and a while later an alarm went off on a battery backup/surge protector which has the 622's antenna power insertor plugged in. I powered it off and moved the power insertor's plug then turned on the 622 and got the 311 message. Lucky for me there is nothing too important on the internal HDD. But I have an external HDD and I assume I will need to go through hoops again to save the 400GB of programs when the replacement arrives.

Originally Posted by like2watch

I was programming some recordings and heard HDD clicking noises - had that oh oh feeling but it seemed to be working okay. I shut it off and a while later an alarm went off on a battery backup/surge protector which has the 622's antenna power insertor plugged in. I powered it off and moved the power insertor's plug then turned on the 622 and got the 311 message. Lucky for me there is nothing too important on the internal HDD. But I have an external HDD and I assume I will need to go through hoops again to save the 400GB of programs when the replacement arrives.

You shouldn't have to go thru any hoops once the new unit is placed on your account. Make sure that they send the command to authorized the ext HDD on the new unit.