External drive bit the dust?

[navychop]

I have a WD 500 mybook for my external drive. I tried turning it off the other day by pressing the button. As those that have one know, it may take several tries. Well, this time it never did go off. It now has a slow blink. Light is on a few seconds, briefly off, then back on.

ViP622 says there is no USB device connected. I've tried unplugging from the wall and the USB cable. Do dice.

Does this mean the drive is dead, or is it in some mode I must figure out?

 

[NightRyder]

I have a WD 500 mybook for my external drive. I tried turning it off the other day by pressing the button. As those that have one know, it may take several tries. Well, this time it never did go off. It now has a slow blink. Light is on a few seconds, briefly off, then back on.

ViP622 says there is no USB device connected. I've tried unplugging from the wall and the USB cable. Do dice.

Does this mean the drive is dead, or is it in some mode I must figure out?

Have you tried resetting the 622?

NightRyder

 

[navychop]

I don't see how that would be different than unplugging the external drive, but I'll give it a try, with the external drive powered up and connected. Thank you. I'll try anything right now. That's a LOT of programming for me to lose.

 

[NightRyder]

I don't see how that would be different than unplugging the external drive, but I'll give it a try, with the external drive powered up and connected. Thank you. I'll try anything right now. That's a LOT of programming for me to lose.

My thinking was maybe the USB port had gotten hung up and stopped responding, happens on PC's one in a while. I hope you find a solution, I know I would hate to lose one of my drives. Good luck!

NightRyder

 

[cparker]

My thinking was maybe the USB port had gotten hung up and stopped responding, happens on PC's one in a while. I hope you find a solution, I know I would hate to lose one of my drives. Good luck!

NightRyder

Good thought. If the receiver is using a modified linux, then it's probably using usbfs as I doubt they've hopped up to udev for usb. And the hotplug functions were a little squirrely at one point. I have no idea as to what versions of anything the receiver is running as far as these kernel modules but rebooting the machine is definitely something to try.

(I'm keeping mental notes on all this stuff as I STILL haven't activated the EHD on my 622... )

 

[riffjim4069]

I have a WD 500 mybook for my external drive. I tried turning it off the other day by pressing the button. As those that have one know, it may take several tries. Well, this time it never did go off. It now has a slow blink. Light is on a few seconds, briefly off, then back on.

ViP622 says there is no USB device connected. I've tried unplugging from the wall and the USB cable. Do dice.

Does this mean the drive is dead, or is it in some mode I must figure out?

I have that drive...it only takes a second to power on and around three seconds of button pressing to turn off...it only takes one try.

On a side note, I leave it turned off when not in use (archiving or restore/playback from archive).

 

[navychop]

It's A Miracle!

I popped out of bed this morning and went to turn on the ViP622 and reboot it. I turned on the USB unit- and it had a steady light! I could access my recordings again. So I did not reboot. I have no idea why it came back. It sat overnight the night before and did not return- why last night? Anyway, since trying to turn it off is what got me in this trouble, there's a new rule in the house: Never try to turn off the external hard drive!

And I think I'll look into a RAID array.

I have that drive...it only takes a second to power on and around three seconds of button pressing to turn off...it only takes one try.

On a side note, I leave it turned off when not in use (archiving or restore/playback from archive).

Nope, that's the problem. That 3 seconds works for some, not for all. It used to work for me. I think the power button problem is why it's discontinued.

Thanks to all who posted.

 

[GregE]

Maybe your 622 rebooted during the night on it's own. A while back my kids were watching a show on the EHD and paused it and then turned off the TV. When we came back to it later that night, we couldn't access the EHD. I turned it off and back on and my 722 said there was no USB drive connected. I got that funny feeling of "Oh crap, I lost all my recordings". I decided to unplug the 722 and reboot it and voila, my EHD connected right up. We now have a new rule of not pausing EHD shows if we are turning off the TV.

I think I would just unplug the EHD from the wall to turn it off.

What are you looking at the RAID array for? Can the 622 use one?

 

[navychop]

Actually, I'm not sure. I'd have to read the other threads. I thought it was overkill, but now that I have so many recordings, it might be worth it.

 

[8bitbytes]

This is why I have used a common external case and one kind of drive for the three externals I am running now. If the case goes bad, i can just put the drive in a new case and keep chugging.

Glad to hear it came back though.

 

[navychop]

The Miracle Is Over

Came home this evening to a slow blinking light. Rebooted ViP622 via power switch being held down several seconds. USB light went out. When it came back on, it was blinking again. "No USB device ....."

I'll get another external, maybe with the Venus enclosure or similar. If it ever comes back, I'll transfer programs over via the internal hard drive. Gonna be hard, I'm down to 3 hours of HD space left.

 

[Van]

Check out WD support page for your particular model, mouse over the external drives to match up and see what you can find out about the blink.

Support by Specific Product

 

[8bitbytes]

Came home this evening to a slow blinking light. Rebooted ViP622 via power switch being held down several seconds. USB light went out. When it came back on, it was blinking again. "No USB device ....."

I'll get another external, maybe with the Venus enclosure or similar. If it ever comes back, I'll transfer programs over via the internal hard drive. Gonna be hard, I'm down to 3 hours of HD space left.

I use these:

StarTech.com InfoSafe 3.5 Inch USB 2.0 to SATA Drive Enclosure - SATCASE35U2 - CompUPlus Direct

StarTech.com InfoSafe Mobile 3.5 Inch USB 2.0 One Button IDE Hard Drive Enclosure - IDECASE35U2B - CompUPlus Direct

They have worked great for me!

 

[KAB]

Leave them on all the time...that' the problem!!!
Shut them off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[navychop]

Shutting it off caused my problem! Although I'm tempted to plug the next one into the switched outlet on my Onkyo 805. But that would eliminate transferring lots of files overnight after I'm done watching.

I should have gone with my first impulse- buy a good enclosure and a good HDD, rather than the cheap discounted MyBook.

Thanks to all for the links.

Now I have to check the other threads to see if moving from IDE to SATA really gains anything, and if RAID is even an option. And is a fan really better? I stopped following those threads after I bought, and need to do some catching up.

 

[8bitbytes]

Shutting it off caused my problem! Although I'm tempted to plug the next one into the switched outlet on my Onkyo 805. But that would eliminate transferring lots of files overnight after I'm done watching.

I should have gone with my first impulse- buy a good enclosure and a good HDD, rather than the cheap discounted MyBook.

Thanks to all for the links.

Now I have to check the other threads to see if moving from IDE to SATA really gains anything, and if RAID is even an option. And is a fan really better? I stopped following those threads after I bought, and need to do some catching up.

2 of my 3 drives are IDE, not SATA. However they are all Seagate DB35 drives, designed for AV applications.

 

[navychop]

Buffer size? And they all work just fine, right?

Odd how some enclosures say they work with drives up to 400 GB or some other size.

I'll have to search for DB35s.

 

[8bitbytes]

I have a vendor I use at work called Greenpages and I got the drives through them.

They are specifically 35.3 drives and here is the Seagate link:

Seagate Technology - DB35.3 Series? Hard Drive Family