Corrupt Ext hard Drive

[Riker]

I have noticed that my banked recordings will not play or will play for 4-7 min and then return to the info screen. Sometimes it craps the entire receiver to reboot. Dish is no help they blame the ext hard drive mfg, when it is clearly a software issue. I can't even restore stuff to the main drive. And forget about tx to a pc. Can't Directtv transfer to pc? Does anyone know if there is a way to check for errors on the drive? I don't have a linux based pc, but I would consider setting up one if there is a chance of restoring my video. I just don't think Dish's Ext hard drive thing is up to what they brag about. Anyone have success at transferring to another ext hard drive and playing from there or no go.
Any help would be appreciated. If all is lost then at least I wont be in a holding pattern.
Thanks
Don

 

[DishSubLA]

Please provide more information such as the brand of your Ext HDD and if it is a single drive unit or a high capacity drive that really uses 2 separate drives along with information about error screen or text. Copying to the PC would be in violation of Dish's agreement with the content providers (Hollywood studios, et al) who didn't want this feature to be made available in the first place for precisely the reason you want to use it: to copy to a PC.

Well, along with a great many other users, I personally have experienced NO problems what so ever since I started using the external HDD feature back in January of this year. The current Ext HDD's I have hooked and/or have on rotating use are an old Maxtor 120GB, another old Maxtor 160GB that I actually knocked off of a table with a big BANG before using it for Dish, yet it still works (a different class from the first Maxtor), and 2 new Western Digital My Book Home Edition 750GB, and all have performed with no problems at all. Furthermore, I've installed a Western Digital My Book Home Edition 1TB at my uncle's for his recordings, and he reports all is great with his Ext HDD.

I have sent to the Ext HDD, and used the Restore feature and done all sorts of commands, as well as start and stop recording, then returned to recording using resume. I've restored recording, then connected a different drive and sent the restored recordings to that different drive, and it works and plays fine. In other words, I have used all the features and really put the Ext HDD through its paces, and it has always worked perfectly.

Given the great number of Ext HDD reports (yes, there are, as with anything, some negative), it would seem that your problems may have to do more with your Ext HDD unit than with Dish Software. There are some problems noted with some Seagates that Dish is aware of and either have or will fix via software.

 

[Pepper]

Do you have any other drives you can test with? They replaced my receiver for very similar issues. I believe the key was that I had several drives of various types and all of them had exactly the same issues. With the replacement receiver the issues went away and all was normal again.

 

[Riker]

First thanks for responding.
Sorry to mention the drive
It is a Western Digital WD7500C3032-002

It use to work fine went it first came out I signed up that day. It only started acting up the last 3 months. There are no error screens. Just what I mentioned happens. Sometime accessing a a show it will just go black and then after 10 secs or so restart the entire receiver. Or it will only play the 4-7 min of a show and then go back to the info screen. Also it wont even let me delete things. Some shows play without issue.
How do you manage all those ext. hard drives. Some sort of switcher? It would be nice to plug in a usb unit that would allow multiple usb hd and then they show up as Ext HD 1 , 2, 3 and so on.
As far as not being able to tx to a pc? Can't you do this with directtv? Exactly what is the difference with the pocket dish? Its basically a mini pc that plays videos. (I have one). Fair Use?
Again thanks for the help
Don