Called tech support, and they ERASED ALL MY RECORDINGS!

[Shervinator]

So I've had my Dish Network ViP722 DVR for several months now, and it never gave me a problem before. I recorded rare one-time showings of shows like the last week of The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, the XXI Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Funny Or Die Presents, 60 Minutes, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and many more. These tapings will NEVER be shown again on television.

Tonight, I was recording the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmys on NBC, and I started watching from the beginning as it was recording (nothing new). Throughout the taping, I began noticing that it kept freezing. I would try to fast-forward through commercials, and play it, and there would be no sound, or there was some sort of delay. I turned off the unit itself, and the same thing happened. I even tried the other recording from earlier of the same program, but no luck.

Desperate, I called up tech support and a lady picked up. I told her my problem, and she told me to unplug my unit and wait ten seconds. I asked her if this would affect my recordings, and she said it wouldn't. So I did, and plugged it back in after waiting ten seconds. Low and behold, ERROR 311 shows up, saying something about my hard drive. So the lady says, "I'm sorry, sir, but it appears that your unit needs to be replaced," blah blah blah. I asked her where my recordings went, and she rambled on about them and the hard drive being "corrupt" and how there was no way for me to access them. Regardless, I was left with all my recordings taken away from me.

I called back and asked to talk to the supervisor. He basically ran me through another resetting procedure, and the same results came up. The DVR button on my remote is basically useless, as are the record/pause/play/rewind/fast-forward buttons. I can't believe it. I would rather watch the Emmys through thick and thin than through nothing at all. Calling them actually did more harm than good.

What I want to know now is if there is any way to rip my recordings from their current state and put them in some sort of storage unit. I don't care if it requires a third-party software or anything. All I know is that there's a USB port there for a reason.

HELP! I don't know what to do here. I need these recordings for preservation purposes, and I won't just let them go without a fight. Advice, anyone???

 

[catnap1972]

Hard drive is toast....sounds like you were living on borrowed time to begin with. Even if you hadn't called, no guarantee the 311 error wouldn't come up for you the next morning (in which case you'd still be in same boat). Others have posted there's a slim chance you can get it working temporarily by orienting the receiver on it's side, just long enough to extract whatever you need to onto a DVD or onto an external hard drive if you paid the $ to have that function enabled, but even that's a longshot at best.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi, you might be able to recover at least some of your programs by pulling the hard drive out of the receiver and use a second hand PC to recover data.

Go to grc.com and check out SpinRite.

Also check out cloanzilla, it's a neat little Linux based backup program that is burned onto a CD then the computer is booted from the CD. I recently used it to back up a XP computer but it supports lots of different file systems and is free.

Hope this helps, DC

 

[SaltiDawg]

...

Tonight, I was recording the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmys on NBC, and I started watching from the beginning as it was recording (nothing new). Throughout the taping, I began noticing that it kept freezing. I would try to fast-forward through commercials, and play it, and there would be no sound, or there was some sort of delay. I turned off the unit itself, and the same thing happened. I even tried the other recording from earlier of the same program, but no luck. ...

They didn't "erase" your Hard Drive, your hard drive failed.... and you failed to back up what you considered important data..Sorry for you loss. It is a computer after all.

 

[EatMyVolts]

Go to grc.com and check out SpinRite.

AMEN! Although I've never used in on a Dish disk, I've used Spin-Rite to resurrect failing disks before. It's not free, it takes a while to run, and some drive damage is beyond it, but it's been a miracle worker for me. As long as the disk spins and can be recognized, it's worth a try.

And if it does fix it, start burning those shows to DVD immediately.

Good luck!

 

[whatchel1]

Yes & No

Spin Rite might work Clonezilla won't. Once the DVR goes to 311 it is basically saying the HDD is belly up. Spin Rite might be able to get it running long enough for it to transfer recordings to ext HDD. Clonezilla only copies what is on the HDD so it would copy the whole thing and then you would have 2 corrupt HDD's. I'm betting your recordings are toast though, Sorry. You might try freezing the unit which will also give you a chance to get the a transfer to another HDD. The "on the side" start up while tapping the HDD might work another once you get it running transfer to an ext HDD ASAP. Those are pretty much your only choices. A E* DVR is let us face it just a lynix PC and as w/ any PC it's back up, back up, back up as a rule of thumb.

 

[Hall]

Just to repeat what's been posted already, your hard drive was dying. It would have happened soon and calling tech support didn't cause it to finally happen. It is just a coincidence that it failed to reboot at that point.

As you said, the box has USB. You had options...

 

[navychop]

I now use a RAID EHD for my most important programs, and several other EHDs also. I don't trust the internal HDDs in Dish equipment.

Welcome to the "we got burned" club.

 

[navychop]

I must agree with whatchel1. Sometimes I've gotten a drive to work with the tap method, and even freezing. But they won't last long. It would be good if you had another ViP722 or similar on the account to verify that EHD was working, and then you try to get that HDD going.

I think in your circumstances, a side tap is the way to go. Removal to freeze might break a seal and cause Dish to become "upset" with you.

 

[Shervinator]

Thanks for all the helpful replies, everyone. I regret to say that I'm not at all familiar with "putting it on its side" or "tapping it" or "freezing it." Would this need to involve a program like SpinRite? How would I go about doing either of these things?

Thanks again!

 

[navychop]

Open the outer case of the DVR. Do not break any seals you see inside. Take a screwdriver or SMALL hammer or some such, and tap the side of the hard disk. You'll have to judge how hard. Hard enough to possibly loosen something, not hard enough to damage it. A tiny tap does nothing. Too hard totals it.

 

[bhawley]

I now use a RAID EHD for my most important programs

Please more info, what brand or homebrew?

 

[frankpjr]

I have had two 622 in the past have issue with hard drive and what I did was carefully open the outer case (with receiver unplugged). Look for the hard drive power connector and unplug power connector. I then used and external hard drive power and USB kit (for computer) and only used the power 1/2 of unit to power up the hard drive. When it was spinning I then plugged in the unit and it recognized the drive long enough to send them too and external drive (I did have to unplug receiver once tho as it gave hard drive error again ) and I saved them all. I do not know if the power supply is weak or what but the combination of external power supply-reboot got my programs back!

 

[Shervinator]

This is all very terrific. So once I open up the case, tap it around, etc., what do I do? Do I need a Dish Network-recognized and activated external hard drive, or can I just use my own (I have a gigantic Seagate one that I use with my PC)? And, do I need SpinRite?

 

[delta_charlie]

This is all very terrific. So once I open up the case, tap it around, etc., what do I do? Do I need a Dish Network-recognized and activated external hard drive, or can I just use my own (I have a gigantic Seagate one that I use with my PC)? And, do I need SpinRite?

Hi, there are some things I'm not sure of. First is what type of file system is on the hard drive that's in the DVR now. If the DVR uses the Linux OS then the hard drive may be EXT 2 or 3 or maybe JFS. The gigantic Seagate if it was used with a windows based computer should be FAT32 or NTFS. Not sure if you can try to recover one type of file system and save to another.

I think the way to proceed that give the best chance of success would be to remove the hard drive from the DVR and either hook it up in a second hand computer or you might try an external hard drive case. Perhaps you could buy a new one if needed that is as big or bigger then the one from the DVR. The hard drive from the new external drive could be removed and the one from the DVR installed. Or you could leave the external with the original hard drive in it and reformat it (if needed) to the same file system as the one from the DVR.

What you are trying to do is come up with a way to have two large hard drives available from a PC. One would be the target drive that you will try to save any recovered data to and the other would be the sick hard drive from the DVR.

If I was trying to do this I would open the case on a second hand PC and install both hard drives in it and give SpinRite a go.

Hope this helps, DC

 

[Lord_Vader]

Please more info, what brand or homebrew?

He has a different one, but something like this would work.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=466


The 2 TB would have 1 TB of storage when mirrored. ( raid 1 )

The 1 TB would have 500 GB of storage when mirrored ( raid 1 )

I don't think the 722 supports more than 1 TB, but as long as it is in raid 1, you would be ok. ( 2 tb total mirrored to 1 tb presented to the VIP DVR )

 

[navychop]

Please more info, what brand or homebrew?

The case is Vantec NexStar MX dual 3.5" with eSATA & USB 2.0 interfaces.

I used two WD BLACK 1 TB. Do not use Green. I view this RAID setup as highly reliable. I could have spent more, but I believe this will more than suffice. I think I got it all from Amazon.

Yes, the 2TB, one per HDD, yields 1TB of RAID-1 storage.

I also have other non-RAID EHDs for some less important programming.


Let us know what route you take.

 

[teh_duke]

To clarify...

Any data on the hard drive is going to be encrypted and cannot be used outside the dish network receiver.

To the OP:
The steps they are suggesting are in regards to the idea that the hard drive may physically be damaged and "Tapping" it would jar it into working. If there is hard drive damage on a logical part (i.e. dead blocks or damaged data) then nothing you can do is going to recover the data.

And please don't blame tech support because of something that no one could have stopped. A hard drive dies, it's no one's fault, especially if someone advised you to reset the box. You are not entitled the world just because you followed orders that no one could have known would cause your recordings to be erased.

It's like saying you are owed a new yaht after someone on the dock sneezes and causes you to get distracted and crash the boat....