External drive not recognized

[mcsincnj]

Over the weekend, my 722 said that my WD external drive needed to be formatted. This was strange since it has been working for over a year. DISH had me dance thru the power on/off reset multiple times. After almost an hour of this the TS said, you will have to reformat the drive. I told him, it has a years worth of stuff, no way - OK, more info. If I turn it off, the message says there is no USB device connected - when I turn it back on, the message is "you must reformat the drive.

My computer experience says that if the drive failed, it would not be able to recognize the drive at all. However, since I can't (shouldn't) connect it to a PC, I don't know how to check the drive.
Some other info that no one at DISH will neither confirm or deny - My drive is a 750MB drive that when added, the maximum was 500MB - Now the max is 1T. My drive was DISH formatted to 500MB which I really can't see as a problem but... Then I asked if a software update may have cause the problem.


The lights go on but nobody's home.

If anyone has had a similar melt down, please send your thoughts and remedies.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[whatchel1]

Advanced Tech suppoert

Over the weekend, my 722 said that my WD external drive needed to be formatted. This was strange since it has been working for over a year. DISH had me dance thru the power on/off reset multiple times. After almost an hour of this the TS said, you will have to reformat the drive. I told him, it has a years worth of stuff, no way - OK, more info. If I turn it off, the message says there is no USB device connected - when I turn it back on, the message is "you must reformat the drive.

My computer experience says that if the drive failed, it would not be able to recognize the drive at all. However, since I can't (shouldn't) connect it to a PC, I don't know how to check the drive.
Some other info that no one at DISH will neither confirm or deny - My drive is a 750MB drive that when added, the maximum was 500MB - Now the max is 1T. My drive was DISH formatted to 500MB which I really can't see as a problem but... Then I asked if a software update may have cause the problem.


The lights go on but nobody's home.

If anyone has had a similar melt down, please send your thoughts and remedies.

Thanks,
Mike

Been in your shoes don't format it. Get an advanced tech support to help. It needs a new hit. I got screwed by CSR on a ext HDD and lost 100 hrs of stuff. Won't do it again. Mine was a strange situation in which switch from 622 to a new 722k that didn't play nice. I had hooked it up to it and so it was happy. But when it wouldn't connect to the net had to exchange. I put the old 622 back in and hooked up the ext HDD and it saw it again. Then when I got the replacement 722k thing went to L. It wanted to be rehooked up to the 1st 722k and couldn't be as it was already on it's way back so I lost all on the HDD. So just keep bugging them until you get an advance tech that will send you a new hit to DVR. BTW once you get it hooked up and working x-fer everything off it and format it to get the full 750.

 

[mcsincnj]

Been in your shoes don't format it. Get an advanced tech support to help. It needs a new hit. I got screwed by CSR on a ext HDD and lost 100 hrs of stuff. Won't do it again. Mine was a strange situation in which switch from 622 to a new 722k that didn't play nice. I had hooked it up to it and so it was happy. But when it wouldn't connect to the net had to exchange. I put the old 622 back in and hooked up the ext HDD and it saw it again. Then when I got the replacement 722k thing went to L. It wanted to be rehooked up to the 1st 722k and couldn't be as it was already on it's way back so I lost all on the HDD. So just keep bugging them until you get an advance tech that will send you a new hit to DVR. BTW once you get it hooked up and working x-fer everything off it and format it to get the full 750.

What exactly do you mean by "a new hit"

 

[KKlare]

If you look in menu-6-3, select counters, and page down 6 times you will see the Household Key in hexadecimal. A hit is a signal from Dish to activate the external drive access with a certain code or key. Each drive will have the same key, well, the last digit may differ. How it works, I do not know because as I said the drives may have slightly different numbers but this associates all the receivers with all your drives, thus a household key. The technical CSR will know what is needed and this can even be done by chat. It takes less time than to read this. A hit will change the number but disks will work. There is no reboot required and you can be recording but I wouldn't.

BTW, while you are in counters you may want to check the latest daily Fsck (file system check in Unix) and the Last Connect and Last Status Update to be sure they are current.
-Ken

 

[mcsincnj]

If you look in menu-6-3, select counters, and page down 6 times you will see the Household Key in hexadecimal. A hit is a signal from Dish to activate the external drive access with a certain code or key. Each drive will have the same key, well, the last digit may differ. How it works, I do not know because as I said the drives may have slightly different numbers but this associates all the receivers with all your drives, thus a household key. The technical CSR will know what is needed and this can even be done by chat. It takes less time than to read this. A hit will change the number but disks will work. There is no reboot required and you can be recording but I wouldn't.

BTW, while you are in counters you may want to check the latest daily Fsck (file system check in Unix) and the Last Connect and Last Status Update to be sure they are current.
-Ken

I followed your instructions and the dates are current. No failures - Fsck 0:12-17-09 3:03 AM
There seemed to be only one hard drive listed - yesterday, I got TS to send a signal and told them I got the info from a web site forum even thought I wasn't sure what it was - reluctantly he said he did it -

I guess my next question is, can I check this drive if I connect to a unix based system?

I am building a PC that I can add UBUNTU or a different flavor of Linux to as a side app.

Thanks for your help in advance,
MM

 

[whatchel1]

What?

I followed your instructions and the dates are current. No failures - Fsck 0:12-17-09 3:03 AM
There seemed to be only one hard drive listed - yesterday, I got TS to send a signal and told them I got the info from a web site forum even thought I wasn't sure what it was - reluctantly he said he did it -

I guess my next question is, can I check this drive if I connect to a unix based system?

I am building a PC that I can add UBUNTU or a different flavor of Linux to as a side app.

Thanks for your help in advance,
MM

What are you going to try and check? It's a Linux ext3 HDD that is encrypted. About the only thing you could see is if there are groups of files on it.

 

[mcsincnj]

So I guess I have to reformat the drive as they say? This is just not right.
I guess if I could see anything, I would back it up and then reformat - but that doesn't seem possible.

 

[KAB]

So I guess I have to reformat the drive as they say? This is just not right.
I guess if I could see anything, I would back it up and then reformat - but that doesn't seem possible.

You were given an option to try in post #2. Did you do it?????

 

[mcsincnj]

You were given an option to try in post #2. Did you do it?????

They told me they sent a signal to the DVR, but I didn't see more than one "household" Key - I am not sure if the technician actually did what he said or not. If I was supposed to see a new (another) household key after he did that, then he didn't do anything and I need to get back on them... Your thoughts?

Thanks

 

[Charise]

Before you reformat, I'd unplug the EHD from electricity and unplug the USB, do a soft boot on the receiver, then add the EHD and see if it's recognized.

For many problems, just a reboot will fix them. I usually try that first. If you haven't encountered this yet, just hold in the power button on the receiver for about 10 sec or until you hear the fans. You shouldn't have to do anything else except wait for it to acquire signals again. I think it takes about 3 minutes. Even though I have the receiver "on" when I hold the power button, sometimes it won't come back on by itself, so just power it up and re-connect the EHD.

Good luck!

 

[n4hmb]

Try this:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=39454&d=1247286119

It did the trick for me and saved all my recordings. Apparently its a common problem because when the receiver reboots during the night it does not cleanly unmount the Linux partition and the super-block becomes corrupted. the above guide describes how to find the backup super-block and restores it.

This is courtesy of Codyc who provided the link for me.

good night and good luck,

Bill

 

[mcsincnj]

Try this:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=39454&d=1247286119

It did the trick for me and saved all my recordings. Apparently its a common problem because when the receiver reboots during the night it does not cleanly unmount the Linux partition and the super-block becomes corrupted. the above guide describes how to find the backup super-block and restores it.

This is courtesy of Codyc who provided the link for me.

good night and good luck,

Bill

Thank you Bill :and Codyc : - After dispatching of 22" of snow that was in my driveway, I followed the istructions and it saved my drive - It also told me it was 505 days since it was last checked - This set of utilities should be in everyones tool box. Thank you and have a wonderful holiday. I have always suspected that TS form any of the cable/sat co's was sub par. You proved my thoughts correct. The folks on this forum we more encouraging and helpful than DISH TS.

Thanks again,
Mike :tux::up