External USB Hard Drive vip211k

bfollett

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Apr 21, 2019
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I had a vip211 which I paid the $40 for the external hard drive option and everything has worked fine for a couple years. Unfortunately the over the air tuner died on the 211 and Dish sent me a 211K replacement unit. When I hook the external hard drive to the 211k, it takes about 30 seconds and I can hear the hard drive making a sort of clicking sound and then a message pops up on the screen saying there is a problem using that hard drive to try another. I have 2 other brands of external hard drives that I tried and they both give the same error. I can hook up the old 211 to the original external hard drive and it has no problem with the hard drive and I can see all my old recordings. My question(s) are, my external hard drive does not have a separate power supply but that caused no problems on the original 211 and the 211k is supplying power to the drive because I can hear it clicking but I wonder if the lack of a external power supply might be more problematic on the 211k. I contacted dish and the rep said there was an open issue with external drives with the 211k, and to try it again in a couple days because they should be working on a software update for the 211k. It's now been a few days later and I hooked the 211k up and let it do it's daily system reboot/update but the problem still persists. I've learned not to entirely trust info given to me by Dish support and wondered if anyone here has any insight into my problem.
Bob
 
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My next door neighbor has an external hard drive with separate power supply so I tried it and it is recognized by the 211k. So I do need an external power supply. Does anyone make/sell a replacement USB cord for hard drives that allow you to supply the power to the usb cord from an AC/DC adaptor? Attached is a photo of my current usb cord.

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Would it work to plug the drive into a powered USB hub and plug the powered hub into the 211K?
Powered USB hubs are not expensive.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
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Well, I found the USB cable I needed without having to order a hub. It was only $4 on newegg.com I just have to plug its second usb connector into one of the many AC to USB power adapters I've accumulated over the years.

Thanks to all that helped.
Bob
Image1.jpg
 
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Well, the dual USB to hard drive cable I purchased (like most inexpensive computer accessories), shipped directly from china and took close to month to arrive, but it showed up today and I can now report that it works fine. Just remember you need an A/C to USB adaptor as well.(pictured below). While waiting for the cable to arrive I borrowed a powered USB hub and it worked too, so I can confirm that either option will power an external drive that does not have it's own power supply.
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