changing hard drive on a 510

ecarl4100

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Apr 18, 2006
31
0
Tennessee
Just got home last night, turned on reciever and hard drive made all kinds of loud (really loud) noise. The screen just kepy going through default checks, but never a picture, then the screen goes blue, then black. I'm fairly sure the hard drive died. Gave up with csr after a millenia of hold time. Can anyone tell me how to confirm it it is dead (alredy tried the power button hold reboot and unplugged it for a few hours too)? Thanks. Also, If the drive is dead, has anyone ever changed one, or would that not be economical? Thanks again guys
 
as long as you have service with dish and warranty just return it and have them send ya a new one or checkout a yahoo group called dishmod, any modifications done will void the warranty unless really careful
good luck
imho its easier to get a replacement
 
I've always wondered how a hard drive that still powers on and does things is considered "dead"...doesn't it have to do nothing before it's dead?

When I recorded a lot of stuff on my DVR, even though I still had time left, it started flaking out and not working. CSR declared it dead and shipped a new unit. I punched in the code to erase the hard drive, lost all my programs but my DVR started right up and acted like it did the day it arrived. Had all 100 hours free too, super fast.

Dish is losing money sending out new boxes instead of telling CSR's the remote code to erase the HDD. Whole process takes less than a minute, but they'd rather send you a refurbished box which all they did to it was power it up, punch in the code, and package it back up.

Imagine how much less your bill could be if they had any sense over there...
 
Try calling tech support vs. a CSR. The mechanical noise is probably a good indicator of a fatal failure - bad bearing or a r/w head has come into actual contact with a disk. Neither can be repaired through software...
 
Yes. You lose everything, but your DVR is back to factory-default condition, and works like a dream. Well, not factory default since it has all your timers and software version and everything, it's just super fast because it's got nothing stored to sort through...

Hard drives have bad sectors sometimes, mine obviously has it. There is no reason to send me a new DVR when they can just give me a code to fix the problem.
 
I don't relish the thought of losing all my recordings, but I would like to get this code, if anyone can PM it to me.

My 522 was making a really awful noise two nights ago. A soft reset didn't do anything, only pulling the plug got it to stop. (It was as if the hard drive was stuck repeatedly reading the same spot pretty hard.)

Plugging it back in, along with a few soft resets and a check switch seems to have cleared things up, though it was still sluggish that night. I have not had a chance to check the unit since then though.

I do not have a warranty now, so I would prefer to be able to run the check switch myself. I own the equipment outright.

BTW, has anyone seen any problem adding the warranty and then having a problem shortly thereafter, possibly the same day?

Brad
 
There is a group on yahoo groups called DishMod.

Read there to learn how to replace your HD is it is not covered by warranty.

Dish may just replace the entire unit for a small fee.
 
I've had them offer me the warranty when the reciever died. They gave me the option of paying the full repair cost or signing up for the warranty program. Honesty may actually work...
 
I don't want to mod my machine. I just want to be able to reformat the hard drive. :)

Brad
 
Purogamer said:
Yes. You lose everything, but your DVR is back to factory-default condition, and works like a dream. Well, not factory default since it has all your timers and software version and everything, it's just super fast because it's got nothing stored to sort through...

Hard drives have bad sectors sometimes, mine obviously has it. There is no reason to send me a new DVR when they can just give me a code to fix the problem.

Unfortunately, a routine invoked by the 'code' will not remap bad sectors. :(
Just making new file system.
 
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