Hopper 3 external drives have disappeared

[Almighty1]

I think it's not the drive itself but the USB to SATA converter as if you look at my other threads with the Hopper 3, just changing the USB to SATA converter fixes the problem since I am using bare drives using a USB converter. One of them will not show all recordings on the Hopper 3 while it works with the Hopper 2000.

 

[odbrv]

I have 2 WD EHDs (1.5 T and 2.0 T) connected to the rear USB ports and they work fine. I have a SimpleTech .5T connected to the front USB port which is no longer seen. I tried Dish tech support and they don't have a category to report an EHD problem. I have tried starting a conversation with DIRT an am waiting for a response.

 

[JerryDowning]

I have the same problem with one of my two EHDs. This is just a guess but it looks as if it has something to do with response time. If a drive is too slow to respond, the Hopper gives up. If I try multiple times to use the drive, it will eventually respond and will play the entire recording perfectly until I want to use it again. Then I get the same problem. Like everyone else, I have had no problems with EHDs until this past week.

 

[MattG@DISH]

We do have a known issue about this and have escalated this for review. We do hope this is resolved soon but we will not have any updates

 

[odbrv]

I bought an USB hub and plugged it into the H3 3.0 USB port. I tried all combinations of my EHDs though the hub, 1 at a time , 2 at a time and all 3 at a time. The H3 always recognized the WD EHDs and never recognized my older 500 GB SimpleTech EHD, The H3 always recognized the SimpleTech EHD prior to U331. I think jerryDowning might have something with his response time guess. I hope Dish can fix thjis as the lost EHD holds my collection of war movies I have recorded over many years, If Dish cannot fix this, is there a way to copy these recordings to another drive using a computer?

 

[Almighty1]

I bought an USB hub and plugged it into the H3 3.0 USB port. I tried all combinations of my EHDs though the hub, 1 at a time , 2 at a time and all 3 at a time. The H3 always recognized the WD EHDs and never recognized my older 500 GB SimpleTech EHD, The H3 always recognized the SimpleTech EHD prior to U331. I think jerryDowning might have something with his response time guess. I hope Dish can fix thjis as the lost EHD holds my collection of war movies I have recorded over many years, If Dish cannot fix this, is there a way to copy these recordings to another drive using a computer?

Yes, all you need to do is clone the drive using something like Macrium Reflect. The issue is not the response times but there is a USB to SATA controller that sits between the USB and the Hard drive itself as I have illustrated in the past ever since the Hopper 3 came out.
See this thread and post #27:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/thr...-on-hopper-3-recorded-with-hopper-2000.357861

 

[jr1965]

Four different brand USB controllers go bad all on the same day as the update?

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[mrbrock72]

As others have mentioned the issue is with the Hopper not recognizing the EHD. The drive is still OK. You can test this by connecting it to a computer and it should recognize it. Dish must have changed the software with how it works with EHDs on this latest update. Hopefully they can just revert back that part of the update but I doubt they will fix it very quickly. Hopefully they fix it quick because I would be pissed too!

A few months back I tried 2 different EHD's from Bestbuy. A western digital and a seagate. My H3 would not recognize either. So I purchased a Sabrent hot swappable hard drive enclosure. It is still working fine with this latest update. I use 2 different 3.5" hard drives with it. 1TB WD and a 3TB HGST.
Amazon product ASIN B013WODZH0
For those having this issue you can try removing the hard drive from the enclosure and putting it in a different enclosure such as the Sabrent or other one that has been confirmed to work. I know its a pain but that may be your only option for now other than cloning the drive to another one that is known to work with the Hopper.
Someone should create a sticky thread of known\confirmed EHDs that work with the H3.

 

[Almighty1]

Four different brand USB controllers go bad all on the same day as the update?

No one said the controller went bad and how do you know what brand the controller is since it is specific to the IC's and chipset used on the controller. What I was saying is that the Hopper 3's software might have buggy drivers that has problems with certain controllers.

 

[bookworm370]

I posted in the other topic, but same issue with me and 4 EHD's. I have been away for 3 weeks, come back and the latest update has definitely broke the EHD recognition.

 

[jr1965]

I don't think it's a hardware problem at all. All four are standard USB EHD work on any computer and supposed to work on Dish. They worked good for over a year until locked out by the update on Oct 21st. If it was incompatable drives,buggy drivers,bad controllers or drives they wouldn't have worked for the past year. I gave up one of the inaccessible 2tb drives, reformatted it on my PC and dish H3 saw it right away,reformatted it and it's been working fine for 4 days now. No hardware problem. I don't want to give up the other 3 drives with 6tb of shows. I agree that if dish is such a POS and they never fix this for the many people that have called in after the update I may have to start swapping controllers and drives as a last resort and load it all in the PC as MPEGS as I ride out the end of the contract and cut the cord , can the H3 and go to the cheaper streaming like lots of others.

No one said the controller went bad and how do you know what brand the controller is since it is specific to the IC's and chipset used on the controller. What I was saying is that the Hopper 3's software might have buggy drivers that has problems with certain controllers.

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[Almighty1]

I don't think it's a hardware problem at all. All four are standard USB EHD work on any computer and supposed to work on Dish. They worked good for over a year until locked out by the update on Oct 21st. If it was incompatable drives,buggy drivers,bad controllers or drives they wouldn't have worked for the past year. I gave up one of the inaccessible 2tb drives, reformatted it on my PC and dish H3 saw it right away,reformatted it and it's been working fine for 4 days now. No hardware problem. I don't want to give up the other 3 drives with 6tb of shows. I agree that if dish is such a POS and they never fix this for the many people that have called in after the update I may have to start swapping controllers and drives as a last resort and load it all in the PC as MPEGS as I ride out the end of the contract and cut the cord , can the H3 and go to the cheaper streaming like lots of others.

Well, my drives still work, the ones that work under the Hopper 3. The ones that don't work with the H3 but with the H2K still don't work with the H3 as it doesn't even see the device when it's plugged in and powered on and I am talking about the USB to SATA Adapter cable which works and the USB to SATA Docking Station which doesn't.

Worked good over a year? First of all, that is impossible because unless you had the Hopper 3 before January 28, 2016 which was when it was released, there is no way you could have had the H3 for over a year as it is only October 30, 2016 and the Hopper 3 has been out for a total of 8 months and 2 days. If it worked, it was with a previous DISH Receiver and not the Hopper 3. I don't think a HDD as in the bare drive is incompatible because in all instances as I have tried over a few dozen models of drives, the problem is always the USB to SATA Controller which either allows the Hopper 3 to see it and works or it sees it and doesn't work. The Thermaltake BlacX docking station for example has never worked as initially with the Hopper 3, it would see the drive but it will not show all the recordings and playback will result in a 1221 error but with U331, the Hopper 3 won't even detect it when connected as the Hopper 3 always displays a code 852 notification that says External Device plugged in. With a working USB to SATA Adapter, it will show the code 852 notification. The problem with DISH is that there is no way to see the actual logs to see what the actual problem is and DISH never even after we report the problem ask the users for assistance with tools to troubleshoot the issue and do diagnostics so they know where the problem actually lies. It's almost like saying a car doesn't work but no one actually goes to do a thorough diagnosis of the problem. And until DISH fixes the problem, the drives with whatever it uses between the bare drive to the Hopper 3 will just be nothing more than a door stopper with the data held hostage unless you use one of the workarounds. Even Windows 10 with the November 2015 update had a problem with regedit crashing during a search which was not fixed until the Anniversary update a few months ago but that one is easier because that is only software. It is hardware when you have <insert brand/model controller> and <insert brand/model hard drive> and other different combinations available and just saying something not working or used to work doesn't really help them fix the problem as unless they have 100% of the same identical product we have, they can't just reproduce the issue without requesting information from us which is something they never appear to do. This one still works whether it is with the original drive that fails with the Thermaltake BlacX on the H3 but works with the H2K or any of the cloned drives... Unitek
Y-3322.

 

[jr1965]

OK 10 months instead of 12. I was the 1st to get one around here. 2 or 3 drives worked on the previous H2s and for 10 months on the H3. The newest one was only used on the H3. All were filled up and used every day and worked great until BLACK UPDATE FRIDAY Oct.21st. When I got the U331 infection. Now they don't appear at all-undetected no errors at all Unless I reformat them on PC(I've done 3 now) and then I get the 852 message and they work fine. The only one that won't be seen is a 1tb WD with their Smart ware that the owner doesn't want to reformat.
So they need to reverse what they did in the patch update that made thousands of good working standard usb buy at walmart drives be un-recognizable to their screwed up system.

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[jr1965]

Another way of saying it;
If the usb controller hardware becomes incompatible with the H3 only after the U331 software update why would that controller become compatible and work after just reformatting the software ? That controller hardware would still be un-recognizable and incompatible because formatting wouldn't fix the controller hardware. My previously unrecognizable drive works great now after reformatting.
To me the software on the drive was locked out by the operating system like MS Active Directory permissions for my account that locks out all software transfered before the update. Or the update corrupted the OS on the drive.
Just my guess on this.

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[Almighty1]

I think they should just borrow the code from the H2K and Hopper2 and build it on top of that since it seems the Hopper 3 even when it first came out already broke some that work and basically, it's just breaking more and thankfully, mines is still working. We do not know if DISH actually writes the drivers or if the drivers are actually provided by the vendor or from Linux distributions so anything can happen. Have you looked at how the drives are partitioned on the PC before and after the reformat because the thing may be how the hardware actually sees the specifications for the drive and if it is using some form of translation in the software. I mean if you had another drive that was identical in size but does not need to be the same model, you could have just cloned the drive and see if the cloned drive works or not without losing any data. We are both guessing really since we don't have access to look at how the system actually sees the drives like the dmesg logs for example. I don't think the drives even has a OS as it's just partitioned a certain way and how the sectors are translated which is better explained here:
http://goughlui.com/2013/10/02/experiment-usb-to-sata-bridge-chips-and-2tb-drives/

The software is actually on the Hopper 3, all I think it does is partition the drive and then format the partitions.

The other problem is they will probably only support the drives they recommend and sell and anything else is basically at our own risk.

 

[gdarwin]

I'm discovering that drives that contain recordings on my previous VIP receivers are not being acknowledged. Every time I plug one in it wants to reformat

 

[AIsmail]

Any updates on a fix for this issue? I too cannot get my external hard drive to be recognized anymore. It worked flawlessly until the update.

 

[garywiley]

We do have a known issue about this and have escalated this for review. We do hope this is resolved soon but we will not have any updates

It's been over a month for this issue. When is it going to be fixed? You broke it. Fix it.

Gary

 

[bookworm370]

DItto,
IMHO, no updates since the time they broke it probably means they (I hope) are frantically searching for what they broke. I just hope they broke the USB connectivity and did not corrupt the drives.

My wife is into recording Christmas movies and I had a drive dedicated to movies where I put last years on. Now that the drive is not working she is setting timers to record them. The internal HD is at 45% full and I've deleted everything I have watched!!!

I sure hope that this is a SEV 1 issue at DISH/ECHO

 

[Ray M]

Just upgraded from a 722K and had moved my saved shows to an EHD so I could move the shows to the Hopper 3. The hopper sees the drive but it is empty no recordings. The tech plugged in the 722K and the EHD and the shows are all there. I was told transferring shows from one DVR to another possible as long as they was on the same account.