721 Your Disk Has Failed!

[rsebolt]

Turned on my relatively new 721 yesterday.
Was tuned to channel 101 (the Dish Channel) and when I went to press the change channel button or guide button, an error message came up saying the HARD DISK HAS FAILED. :shocked
So I called Dish support.
Turned off the pvr using the front button and the green power light went off, but the channel was still showing up on the screen (wierd!).
Then had to unplug it to get it to reset.
Then it took about an hour for it to initalize again and reset and download the guide data again.
What a pain! And I lost ALL MY RECORDED PROGRAMS!
What a pisser.
SO I asked the advanced tech support guy and he said it is a known issue and shouldn't happen more than once/month. WHAT!?!?! This is considered acceptable by quality control to have the 721 crash monthly and for us to lose all our recorded programs?
That is ridiculous.
He said if it happens again to call and they may ship me out a new unit.
But what good is that if it's a known issue, it'll happen on the new one also.
Also, are they going to ship me a new 721 or a refurb?
Oh well...the worst part, is trying to remember all my timers!
I am sure I am going to miss a show I wanted to watch because I have forgotten the timer.
Any comments?

 

[ken]

DISH pulled this on me too. I love the 721 when it works but that is not always the case. I don't know any other company that can get away with crap like they pull.

 

[DVDDAD]

If it happens a second time, the odds are that it will crash for good soon. Immediately call Dish and ask for a replacement. I've gone through two 721's in a litle over a year now. It's a great receiver with a not so great hard drive. Good luck!

 

[Stargazer]

I would also suggest you to call for a replacement right now before it happens again. If it happened once it happened one time too many and it is inevitable to happen once again. I had a 721 replaced due to second tuner failure and they sent me a new replacement but that was when they were not out for very long. I imagine that they now only send out refurb replacements.

 

[Larry]

Turned on my relatively new 721 yesterday.
Was tuned to channel 101 (the Dish Channel) and when I went to press the change channel button or guide button, an error message came up saying the HARD DISK HAS FAILED. :shocked
<snip>
Any comments?

I also got the failed hard disk message on Monday evening. The record light was on when I got home from work and I knew nothing was scheduled to be recorded at that time. When I tried to turn it on....nothing. A card pull reset brought up the "Hard Disk has Failed" message. (Is this what happens when you reset during the recording process?) It was able to rebuild the info on the hard drive and everything seems to work fine at this time. I suppose I should have called Dish, but the 721 is only a few months old and needless to say I wasn't in the proper frame of mind to be polite to a csr. Rest assured, if it happens again I'll be on the phone before you can say Dishnetwork.

 

[rsebolt]

well, now I am trying to watch my pvr events and they pause every 15 seconds for a few seconds and it is very frustrating. The hard disk also makes a loud sound when it has paused on its own.
So i called dish and they are sending me a refurb unit to repalce it.
I asked for the manager and he said the refurb units are better than new since they are put through more thorough testing.
I have had my 721 for one month one week. The hard disk failed within 30 days of new.
I am going to email Michael at the exec offices who sold it to me and let him know it failed within 30 days, so now I have paid $250 for a used unit. I don't think that's right.
Or am i being unreasonable?

 

[MikeD-C05]

Had a brand new 921 replaced with a refurbished unit after a week of use. But how old could a 921 refurb be? They have only been out since Dec of 2003.

 

[GaryPen]

Also, I understand that many 721's had a faulty Tuner 2 card and/or hdd. The refurb unit might have those items replaced already.

Personally, I think heat is the big culprit with these models. The ventilation is terrible, and the fan is too small. I removed the cover completely on mine. At some point, I think I'll add another fan, and reattach the cover.

 

[aperry]

I had a failed hard drive early on with my 721. Reset it like you did, rebooted, waited, and it came back up (without my recordings of course), and it has been operating for over a year without further incident.

So, it is not necessarily the end of the world to get this message, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

 

[GaryPen]

If his hdd is making those weird noises, it's on its way out. That's a sure sign of a bad hdd in a pc. It probably already has some bad sectors.

 

[Stargazer]

Just because you get a refurb does not mean they have corrected the problem with the receiver. I had 3 501's that failed (1 HD failure and 2 which was a tuner failure).

 

[rsebolt]

Ok
Got my replacement 721 today.
Will be installing it.

I am going to hang on from returning my old one for a week to make sure this 'new' one is better, and doesn't have the issues that have been discussed on here.

Is there a way to tell how old this 'new' unit is?

 

[Stargazer]

It should indicate on the box that it is a refurb but Dish no longer has new receivers the only thing they have are refurbs.