External Hard Drive Stopped Working

hdrick103

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Nov 29, 2003
59
29
I spent most of my morning on the phone with Dish Technical Support, apparently Dish did a software push to the Hopper on March 7th, the same day my External hard drive became inaccessible. When I upgraded to the Hopper I transferred all my recording from my 922, to my new Hopper. As most of you may be aware Dish stopped supporting the 922 receiver several months ago, that was the reason for the upgraded. The Seagate 500gb was working just fine, when I installed it to the hopper in January. Suddenly on Tuesday I noticed an error message (865) asking me to re-format the drive, of course you know if you answer “yes” to reformat I would will lose all the recorded content on the drive.
After being shuffled from one agent to another, the first thing Dish ask for was $109.00 to activate the hard drive to my account. I let the customer rep know quickly this hard drive was added to my account several years ago for $35.00, which I had already paid, after several minutes on hold and after getting a supervisor involved the charge was waived. The representative thanked me for be a 17 year customer.
My question for the group is this….I have two options, try and retrieve the recorded material on this drive or do I reformat, basically erasing all content and reusing the drive as a new one. The hard drive has not or did not crash from what I can tell the recorded material is just not accessible. The customer rep said something about copyright laws, not sure what she was refereeing to, all content was for personal viewing only. Does Dish have a way of “locking out” a hard drive? I know if I download a PPV movie it expires in 24 hours, is it the same for recorded content on and External drive? Is there an expiration date?
 
I spent most of my morning on the phone with Dish Technical Support, apparently Dish did a software push to the Hopper on March 7th, the same day my External hard drive became inaccessible. When I upgraded to the Hopper I transferred all my recording from my 922, to my new Hopper. As most of you may be aware Dish stopped supporting the 922 receiver several months ago, that was the reason for the upgraded. The Seagate 500gb was working just fine, when I installed it to the hopper in January. Suddenly on Tuesday I noticed an error message (865) asking me to re-format the drive, of course you know if you answer “yes” to reformat I would will lose all the recorded content on the drive.
After being shuffled from one agent to another, the first thing Dish ask for was $109.00 to activate the hard drive to my account. I let the customer rep know quickly this hard drive was added to my account several years ago for $35.00, which I had already paid, after several minutes on hold and after getting a supervisor involved the charge was waived. The representative thanked me for be a 17 year customer.
My question for the group is this….I have two options, try and retrieve the recorded material on this drive or do I reformat, basically erasing all content and reusing the drive as a new one. The hard drive has not or did not crash from what I can tell the recorded material is just not accessible. The customer rep said something about copyright laws, not sure what she was refereeing to, all content was for personal viewing only. Does Dish have a way of “locking out” a hard drive? I know if I download a PPV movie it expires in 24 hours, is it the same for recorded content on and External drive? Is there an expiration date?

There is no such thing as a charge for activating an EHD on the Hopper, let alone has there ever been a fee over $40 for the receivers that do have a fee. (211 series and perhaps the new Wally) Second I would ask for a refresh of your account and see if that gets the Hopper to recognize the programs that are on the EHD. Please don't call the hapless, clueless phone DISH CSR's, use a DIRT CSR member here.
 
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There was a one time fee years ago until DISH did away with it.
I thought that was only for non-DVR receivers that didn't have a hard drive to begin with, not for the Hopper. But then it could be that this fee you speak of was "before my time". I still can't believe them trying to charge over $100 for the end-user to plug in his/her own EHD! What would DISH actually be doing on their end - other than maybe making a notation somewhere on your account? I thought it was totally a "plug-n-play" kind of thing on our end. Geez......

Sorry - I didn't mean to get off on a rabbit-trail - this isn't really answering Hdrick's questions.
 
I thought that was only for non-DVR receivers that didn't have a hard drive to begin with, not for the Hopper. But then it could be that this fee you speak of was "before my time". I still can't believe them trying to charge over $100 for the end-user to plug in his/her own EHD! What would DISH actually be doing on their end - other than maybe making a notation somewhere on your account? I thought it was totally a "plug-n-play" kind of thing on our end. Geez......

Sorry - I didn't mean to get off on a rabbit-trail - this isn't really answering Hdrick's questions.

The fee for EHD's way back when was $39.99 IIRC.

I've got a feeling there was a misunderstanding of some sort with the CSR and they were trying to sell the customer a new EHD or something like that. Anything is possible when on the phone with a DISH CSR. :biggrin
 
Does anyone see a solution to my problem? How do I get the Dirt team involved?
 
I spent most of my morning on the phone with Dish Technical Support, apparently Dish did a software push to the Hopper on March 7th, the same day my External hard drive became inaccessible. When I upgraded to the Hopper I transferred all my recording from my 922, to my new Hopper. As most of you may be aware Dish stopped supporting the 922 receiver several months ago, that was the reason for the upgraded. The Seagate 500gb was working just fine, when I installed it to the hopper in January. Suddenly on Tuesday I noticed an error message (865) asking me to re-format the drive, of course you know if you answer “yes” to reformat I would will lose all the recorded content on the drive.
After being shuffled from one agent to another, the first thing Dish ask for was $109.00 to activate the hard drive to my account. I let the customer rep know quickly this hard drive was added to my account several years ago for $35.00, which I had already paid, after several minutes on hold and after getting a supervisor involved the charge was waived. The representative thanked me for be a 17 year customer.
My question for the group is this….I have two options, try and retrieve the recorded material on this drive or do I reformat, basically erasing all content and reusing the drive as a new one. The hard drive has not or did not crash from what I can tell the recorded material is just not accessible. The customer rep said something about copyright laws, not sure what she was refereeing to, all content was for personal viewing only. Does Dish have a way of “locking out” a hard drive? I know if I download a PPV movie it expires in 24 hours, is it the same for recorded content on and External drive? Is there an expiration date?

Send me a PM with your phone number and 4 digit PIN to better assist.
 
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