522 losing dvr list

[robv]

Hello.. I have a 522 and love it. Question is. I had about 30 hours of shows recorded on the dvr and I was done watching one of them and stopped it and then deleted it. All was normal. I went back a few hours later to watch something else and then dvd list was blank. The amount of time left on the dvr was there and it was about right with what I had recorded. Can I get the programs back? I cant see them. Called Dish. They had me reboot the 522 and still nothing? Any ideas?

 

[SimpleSimon]

What kind of reboot? Front panel or pull-the-plug.

Definitely try a power-plug reboot. Nothing to lose.

 

[robv]

Power plug

Tried that too No luck. Any other hints? Thanks for the advice

 

[boba]

Kiss them good bye, a DVR is for short term recording if you want to save programming put it on tape or DVDs.

 

[GoHogsAR]

Kiss them good bye, a DVR is for short term recording if you want to save programming put it on tape or DVDs.

That's just not right. There is not "rule" as to how to use a DVR - I may choose to save the entire season of shows to watch during the summer re-run months. If your theory were correct, why on earth would you need 100 hours of recording space?

Now, more on topic, has this happened to any others? I just got my 522 yesterday and I need to know how reliable the storage is.

 

[Mark_AR]

That's just not right. There is not "rule" as to how to use a DVR - I may choose to save the entire season of shows to watch during the summer re-run months. If your theory were correct, why on earth would you need 100 hours of recording space?

Well it is right. Sorta. The weakest part of any DVR is the hard drive which is spinning at 7200 RPM constantly with heads that move back and forth across a metal disk covered with microscopic magnetic partcles.

Someday its gonna go south. Its all a question of when. Even if the electronics inside the 522 fail, when you send Dish the unit, they aren't going to transfer any programming to a new unit.

At least with DVD and tape, you can archive and hopefully save programming to something that is less likely to fail. DVD's get scratches and tape stretches and breaks. There is no 100% solution.

Rule of thumb: If you record it, make sure it is something that you don't care about losing at some point in the future. If you want long term storage, consider DVD/tape.

Eventually even 100 hours of storage will fill up and you will have to delete programming anyway.

 

[GoHogsAR]

Well it is right. Sorta. The weakest part of any DVR is the hard drive which is spinning at 7200 RPM constantly with heads that move back and forth across a metal disk covered with microscopic magnetic partcles.

Someday its gonna go south. Its all a question of when. Even if the electronics inside the 522 fail, when you send Dish the unit, they aren't going to transfer any programming to a new unit.

At least with DVD and tape, you can archive and hopefully save programming to something that is less likely to fail. DVD's get scratches and tape stretches and breaks. There is no 100% solution.

Rule of thumb: If you record it, make sure it is something that you don't care about losing at some point in the future. If you want long term storage, consider DVD/tape.

Eventually even 100 hours of storage will fill up and you will have to delete programming anyway.

I used an UltimateTV box for over two years upgraded with a 7200 RPM 120 GB HDD and never had any drive issues. That was my first experience with a DVR so maybe it has me spoiled, as well as lulled into a false sense of security.

I have a standalone DVD recorder but archiving to it is kind of a pain. Since I have to play the show from the DVR to record it in real-time, that means that I have to give up the Dish for however long the recording is. I also have to keep up with multiple DVD's as opposed to having all my shows store conveniently in one location, on the DVR.

Since I'm new to the 522, I'd like to know how common the drive failure is. How many of you have had a drive fail, and at what age (the DVR, not you )?

 

[Mark_AR]

I err'ed when I said it was a 7200 RPM drive. It is actually a 5400 RPM Maxtor Quickview.

http://www.weaknees.com/quickview_404g.pdf

Maxtor suggests a less than 1% return rate. They just reached the 8 million mark in consumer device drives. That is still 80,000 bad drives. I guess that makes your odds 1 in 80,000.

My 522 is the second one I've had in 4 months. The first had problems with the tuner(I think).

 

[fastfed]

Remember, its a hard drive....if your banks relied on their hard drives they would eventually lose all of their records....that's why they back up their hard drives every day onto tapes or dvd disks.