510 Hard drive still spinning...

[Dishpro500]

Well my 510 downloaded the new P309 firmware a month ago and worked great for about a week until the hard drive crashed. I got an RA# from Dish and a replacement 510 and downloaded P309 onto it. Now,I can hear the hard drive in the new unit spinning all of the time. It never shuts off. I don't think my original receiver did this. Is anyone else experiencing this problem and is this normal? I'm worried this new or should I say previously enjoyed receiver has a problem. When P309 first came out I got the first release so maybe it didn't enable the hard drive to spin all the time and now that the full release is out and the replacement receiver has the newer final firmware it is suppose to do this. Any ideas?

 

[Purogamer]

Well 3.09 enabled dish VOD, so your new drive sees this and realizes it's WAY behind on downloading this stuff and it's probably using every available second to download the movies for you whileyou're not watching tv.

BTW, how did you get 3.09 a month ago, and how did it crash your hard drive? I'm curious...

 

[Frostwolf]

Both my 508's have been busy, busy, busy since 309. I think the living room one caught up earlier in the week, but now its downloading again.

Dish is going to wear out my owned boxes with this VOD junk I will never use.

 

[Van]

Nothing like that on my 508.

 

[David_Levin]

Yea, the HDD rarely spins down.

So, how many movies are your boxs storing (508 or 510)?

I have a 510 and have 2 available.

I'm wondering if it's effected by how much room is on the HDD (mine is basically full - less then 4 hours available).

My 622 has a ton of crap I'll NEVER pay for - probably on the order of 10-15 movies.

 

[Smith P.]

It well known from ppl who support servers - always spinning disks lasts longer.
Sure, if it originally came from good batch or manufactur.

 

[Dishpro500]

Well 3.09 enabled dish VOD, so your new drive sees this and realizes it's WAY behind on downloading this stuff and it's probably using every available second to download the movies for you whileyou're not watching tv.

BTW, how did you get 3.09 a month ago, and how did it crash your hard drive? I'm curious...

Well, I think your correct in regards to the new drive being way behind downloading the VOD stuff, because this afternoon the drive finally stopped spinning and now the movies that downloaded are available for rent.

I received P309 about a month ago and if you look at some of my other post recently I was having a problem with P308 firmware and the dreaded 110 check switch problem. Once my 510 downloaded the update P309 that problem went away and the receiver worked real well. I posted my findings and at the time was one of the first to get the download or at least one of the first to post that I did get the update and that it repaired the check switch error.

Then one night I decided to view a program recorded earlier in the day and when I pressed the DVR button the system locked up. All of my recorded movies and shows were now erased and a hard drive error code would appear every time I went into the DVR menu. Then after several soft and hard resets with Tech support the receiver just started to cycle on and off and never finishing the acquiring satellite signal screen. The box would also click real loud when trying to turn back on again. I will see how this replacement 510 works and decide if I will keep it or upgrade to a 622.

 

[Purogamer]

Then after several soft and hard resets with Tech support the receiver just started to cycle on and off and never finishing the acquiring satellite signal screen. The box would also click real loud when trying to turn back on again. I will see how this replacement 510 works and decide if I will keep it or upgrade to a 622.

Typical CSR misdiagnose. Mine has done that a few times. I refused the replacement because I had fixed it myself by time it arrived. There's a remote code you enter to erase the hard drive, and it's back to new. You lose everything, but you do that anyways when you send back your "broken" unit to dish.

All that happened is the DVR wrote over a bad section and it screws it all up. It's fine until you turn it off and it can't download it's guide. If it doesn't have the guide, it won't give you a picture, and it won't let you download the guide. Junk, but the remote code makes it factory-fresh again. I wish that information was more readily available here...

 

[Dishpro500]

Typical CSR misdiagnose. Mine has done that a few times. I refused the replacement because I had fixed it myself by time it arrived. There's a remote code you enter to erase the hard drive, and it's back to new. You lose everything, but you do that anyways when you send back your "broken" unit to dish.

All that happened is the DVR wrote over a bad section and it screws it all up. It's fine until you turn it off and it can't download it's guide. If it doesn't have the guide, it won't give you a picture, and it won't let you download the guide. Junk, but the remote code makes it factory-fresh again. I wish that information was more readily available here...

Now I wish I had posted my problem here regarding my hard drive. I did read here about the code but never gave it a thought because I was busy and figured if they send me another box I would be happy. Well, the new receiver works well but does look like it has been around awhile. There are some scratches and marks on the unit that doesn't make me happy and the box it arrived in was mangled. I reported this to Dish just in case! The receiver I sent back to Dish is in mint condition and I'm sorry I sent it back now after talking to you. I'm now kicking myself. Thanks for your input...this forum is a valuable asset to us all.

 

[Smith P.]

be aware !

<...>All that happened is the DVR wrote over a bad section and it screws it all up. It's fine until you turn it off and it can't download it's guide. If it doesn't have the guide, it won't give you a picture, and it won't let you download the guide. Junk, but the remote code makes it factory-fresh again. I wish that information was more readily available here...

Just a bit of clarification - the procedure will NOT remap bad cluster(s).

 

[Purogamer]

No, but in my case (and others from what i've read), the bad sectors are not in areas you write to until the drive is nearly full. It COULD be a bug in the software but they had to have tested these things by filling them so it can't be.

Every time I had this happen, I had well over 350 events saved with space left over. There's only so many places it can spread data too before it says "no more...". Actually it may not be a bad sector issue, it may be a "everything is spread so far that I can't save anything big anymore", so it says it's got 20 hours left but can't save more than 20 minute segments and isn't programmed to tell me that. The drive access time DOES slow down with every event you add, so it's an interesting theory.

Regardless, the remote code works and if Dish used it, they could cut down on RA'ed 510's by probably 90%...

 

[Smith P.]

If they will be litlle smarter, it possible to include into the routine new algos for scan/remap bad sectors .