External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

Did you try cold reboot first ?

Yes we did then unbelievably Dish even sent out a Dish repair tech free of charge to address this EHD problem. He was unsuccessful also so evidently (according to Matt) we must reauthorize our 722's "Home Key" but we are fairly tech ignorant so we must be out off luck unless we can figure out how this is done? Thanks!
 
While I haven't had one of these reformat episodes in a while, I highly recommend not reformatting as you've got relatively little to gain from doing it.

Every go-around I've had has eventually worked itself out.
 
Matt, same issues here. Using the external hard drive on my 722k for a couple months with no issues. Then when I was trying to view a stored movie yesterday got the format message. Tried the cold reboot but it didn't work. Any chance you could get me a authorization hit?
 
I'm having the reformat problem too. I have an external hard drive hooked up to my VIP722 that worked fine for months. Today, I went to watch a program, but the reformat message came up. I tried the cold reboot, but it didn't help. I can't access the contents of the drive, and I just keep getting the reformat message. I have way too much stuff on this hard drive to just watch it all magically disappear. Is there any way to recover this data, or transfer it to a new hard drive somehow? Any help with data recovery would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
I'm having the reformat problem too.
You should call Dish and ask for a "hit". The few-sec procedure plus possible a few minutes to get it from the satellite will take 10-15 minutes of dialogue thru the CSR. Beforehand be sure you have done the reboot and if possible check if another disk or recorder will work. If some will and some won't then the hit is what you need.

It will change the household key in Menu+6+3+PageDown several times. You probably want all recorders powered to standby or fully on when the signal comes. It will not interrupt recording or playing. But try to do it when not recording to be sure.

BTW the household number will be the same (less the last digit or so) on each recorder--you cannot set that number.
Of my 3 (722+722+622), 2 are the same, 1 off a bit.

-Ken
 
Might be worth mentioning if it has not been already, for the latest Seagate Free Agent FLEX drives, the PC software to tweak the sleep time is resident on the drive. For MAC you need to download a MAC version from Seagate. Just go their website and click the 'support' tab of your specific drive to find it.

The software is not available on the website for the latest drives for PCs, only the MAC version. The only other way to get it is if you register your drive on the website.
Once you have it set using a MAC or PC, the drive should work fine with the Dish DVR.
 
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Are you planning to update the contents of the USB hard drive frequently? If so, I would attach it to your MacBook. Be warned, however, that there is a major bug that prevents Boxee from scanning SMB shares (which is what your USB drive will be to Boxee). You will have to go to the Files section of Boxee and select individual files to play instead of browsing for them in Movies and Shows. This bug is scheduled to be fixed in the next software version.

If you attach the USB drive directly to Boxee, the contents will scan properly but once you shut down Boxee, you will lose write permissions and will have to reconnect the drive directly to your MacBook to reestablish permissions. Tedious, yes. This bug is also scheduled to be fixed soon.

This is good to know, Thanks Elrock! I wonder if that is why my Boxee is showing "Disconnected" now after I hooked up my external HDD?? I will load some files on the external HDD and try plugging it right into the Boxee.
 
Help! I am having a problem archiving with the external hard drive function. About one and a half months ago I sent a couple of episodes of my favorite tv program to the external hard drive. The transfer appeared to occur normally but when I tried to access the programming on the external hard drive it was not there. I sluffed it off. I had also recorded the this programming on some other equipment from an antenna so it was not lost. I considered it was an anomoly. Evidently ignoring this problem and assuming everything was working okay was a big mistake because today I tried to access something else recently transferred to my external hard drive and and it was also not there. I have been doing a lot of transfers. I called Dish and I looked more closely at this situation and it appears that everything transferred since I first noticed this issue is not on the external hard drive although the transfers have been appearing to occur normally. I took it all for granted. The Dish representative suggested I try a different hard drive to see if the feature is broken. What about my month and a half of recordings that I thought were secure? Any ideas? What happened? What Am I supposed to do? My mistake. Help. External hard drive is a great feature. I wish I had not had this happen. I do not know if it is a bug or not, but it is a problem. I frequently move the external hard drive amongst my receivers and the first time I have noticed this. I had unplugged the external hard drive very fast immediately after completing a transfer in order to move it when the problem first occurred. I guess it could worse. Any insights? I hope this is clear and someone can understand.
 
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After some difficulty and speaking to three different agents the last one said my equipment was resent the authorization. Is that what is meant by a rehit? All the agents seemed to have difficulty with that term. It did not seem to help the problem I am experiencing if they actually did it. I have some doubt. When it appears that a recording is being transferred to the external it does not go. I am able to still view what was already on the hard drive prior to experiencing this issue. Recordings appear to get transferred and are not showing up on the external drive. I guess if they did the rehit it does not appear to have helped. I did not even know there was a problem because I could not see it until I actually checked on the external hard drive. I think the cause of the problem was when I unplugged the external hard drive a little to fast after making a quick transfer. I can watch what was already on the hard drive prior to the problem but anything that appears to get transferred now does not show up even though the receiver shows it transferred. Therefore I guess everything I have been transferring for the last month and a half is lost. Frustrating to say the least. I guess I need to learn and there are worse things. Very frustrating. Thank you for your help.
 
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Another thing to watch on very large drives is that there is a 999 programs limit on the drive, after that limit is reached shows will appear to move but will not be there when you look for them.
 
Thank you for that information this was a very large drive, but I don't think I have 999 programs on it but then again you never know. This is good to know though. Dish customer service representatives never investigated this possibility. Maybe I should see if the restore feature works. Maybe it is the 999 programs limit on drive but I don't know. I will investigate. Thank you.
 
You should call Dish and ask for a "hit". The few-sec procedure plus possible a few minutes to get it from the satellite will take 10-15 minutes of dialogue thru the CSR. Beforehand be sure you have done the reboot and if possible check if another disk or recorder will work. If some will and some won't then the hit is what you need.

It will change the household key in Menu+6+3+PageDown several times. You probably want all recorders powered to standby or fully on when the signal comes. It will not interrupt recording or playing. But try to do it when not recording to be sure.

BTW the household number will be the same (less the last digit or so) on each recorder--you cannot set that number.
Of my 3 (722+722+622), 2 are the same, 1 off a bit.

-Ken

After using an external hard drive for some time I suddenly started getting error 866 - "The attached USB Storage device is currently configured for use with another Dish reciever" ... blah, blah click yes to reformat, etc. The drive has never been used on any other receiver, I had unplugged it for some periods when it was not in use, didn't want to have it sit there running for no reason, perhaps during the most recent unplugged interval something changed in the receiver.... So we called Dish and of course they had no solution but offered to send a guy out at no charge. So the guy got here the next day, had no idea why it would do that, called in and natch they had no solution. I showed him this post (KKlare) and asked if they could try sending a "hit", he didn't think that would make any difference, but he was wrong. That fixed the issue, he left with a puzzled look on his face.

This has happened enough times by the look of this thread that Dish ought to have this solution in their knowledge base.

Hat tip to KKlare and the others who have made this suggestion.