Hopper USB Ports - all 3 dead?? 0 of 3 HDDs work??

[Wetdream]

Hi All,
Got Hopper and joeys on 1st day available. I used an older WD My Book Essentials 500gb, and 2 WD 500gb Elements on my older 722 and on the Hopper. So for last year or so all three HDD's worked great on Hopper (not at ssame time).
All of a sudden a month ago, none of them worked. I got new usb cable and power supply.
All three HDDs - light up, and spin when plugged in. Than plugged into Hopper lihts blink and seems working but isnt recognized.
I plugged HDD 1, 2, and 3 into USB port 1, 2, and 3. Nothing works or is read.

I can USE the sling tho. I have hard and soft restarted.
I called dish. Talked to level 2 tech support and he said i did much more troubleshooting than most but said at a dead end now..
Any one heard of this? All 3 usbs going dead at once? If it was one, i could get it..
So could this be a software glitch or bad upgrade that made usb ports not read corretly?
If Sling works, but not the HDDs, what does that mean? They are totally different types of connections. Data transfer on HDDs vs "hub" to connect to with a Sling.

Thanks for any support or advice!! We have alot of shows we really wanna bring up for our 3 yr old.

 

[ZachS@DISH]

You said Sling works, does this mean this is a Hopper with a Sling Adapter installed? Have you tried plugging your HDDs into a PC to see if it will recognize it? You should get a message about having to reformat the drive. Also, can you try plugging a cell phone into the USB ports?

 

[Wetdream]

Thanks for the reply!
Yes. This is a Sling adaptor i got a while back..

When i plug in the external hdd to a joey - it did register the device but said something like function not supported.

I plugged all three hdd;s into a laptop. I heard the DING, it self installed "xyz driver" for each HDD and recognized each hdd by actual name (i.e. WD elements blahblah).. i unplugged, and another ding - and it was gone.
It was also recognized in the device manager as a mass media device.

i just got off phone with an advance tech support again. as other two reps just left me guessing.. he said his knowledge was VERY vast and he sounded confident.
I ran thru troubleshooting ive done and he said he was amazed at what i did, and he would have sugested.
He, out of all 3 people, finally acknowledged that there IS a known issue with Hoppers and external HDDs but it was from 722 - hopper upgrades. This could have been a delayed error he said, a software upgrade that booted them, something made them non compatible, a mass hard ware failure of xyz chip that controls parts of usb read/write functions, or something else..

Said if i get a new hopper, no promise it will actually read old hdd's as could be software issue.

I will see if i can find that new hdd i bought a little bit ago for my home network and plug it in. if it reads and formats that, ill know its made the old ones incompat. if it doesnt read the new one- the hopper is just f'd for my externals....

and that leads me SOL because theres no way to grab the recordings off the hdds/

 

[ZachS@DISH]

The members of the DIRT team came from the Advance Technical Support department or the Office of the President (ERT when they were there). With that being said, this does not appear on our known product issues list. This could be a software bug, but there is not a current known issue on our list the refers to EHDs. The issue coming from a 722 to Hopper was that the Hopper did not have the same house holdkey as the 722, so it did recognize it was for the same account and would ask to be reformat. This has since been resolved. What software version do you have? Also, when did you receive this update and when did this issue first start?

 

[Wetdream]

Oh wow. I didnt realize Dish Support was on here! Thank you for taking the time!

Yes.. at first we lost a bunch of recordings on the EHD's as they werent recognized. But that problem went away. And no issues really since that was resolved.

We have software: S428 NACB is what is showing.

The last tech, after me telling him all the advanced trouble shooting i have done, said he wasnt for sure at all. Hard ware, software, or what. It was odd that the sling adaptor would work just fine tho but the hdds werent able to be recognized. And ive tried everything possible to troubleshoot and given my years of experience with laptops, desktops, cell phones, and etc - im about 95% certain its not the EHD's..

For most, - no biggie.. just re record stuff. But alot of these programs we have on the EHD's hold sentimental significance (watched with wife while pregnant, first movie after home from hospital with son.. sons fav cartoons, my ufc recordings i rewatch.. lots of other stuff too).

 

[Tampa8]

Do you have another EHD that has never been attached to the Hopper to try? See if it is recognized and wants to format it? If this isn't an issue with anyone else, doesn't seem like a software problem, more a problem with your specific Hopper.

 

[Wetdream]

That makes sense..

I had discussed that idea with the 3rd tech i talked to. I will look for another HDD i might have in the house and report back if /when i can test it.

All i need to do i beleive.... if its new thats ok. if it has disposable files.. i would reformat thru my laptop.
than hook either new or old but wiped clean HDD to the hopper.
and see if it is recognized. Would either of thse work or HAVE to be new?

If i reformat on my laptop.. i dont think it matters if FAT32 or etc how i reformat, as the hopper will reformat to its own style.

(on a side note, super joey coming on order and gonna get in next few weeks! woohoo!. im an early adopter with new tech..)
thanks everyone for fast prompt friendly replies on here. Alot of forums have some a holes thinking they know it all. i really appreciate everyone trying to help me save these progs i recorded. :0)

 

[KAB]

Who did you order the Super Joey from that it is taking a few weeks to get? Should just be days if in stock, like at Solid Signal.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

The members of the DIRT team came from the Advance Technical Support department or the Office of the President (ERT when they were there). With that being said, this does not appear on our known product issues list. This could be a software bug, but there is not a current known issue on our list the refers to EHDs. The issue coming from a 722 to Hopper was that the Hopper did not have the same house holdkey as the 722, so it did recognize it was for the same account and would ask to be reformat. This has since been resolved. What software version do you have? Also, when did you receive this update and when did this issue first start?

Zach,

Ray C from your team had been working with me on this same exact issue. A drive that was originally on my 722 and then current Hopper stopped working a few weeks ago. It's not recognized by any USB port, including the front one. I have another drive that I used on a 211k I used to have and that one is also not recognized. When I plug these into a laptop they are recognized because it wants to format them.

A recent PM from Ray C said:

"It appears the EHD not recognized by the Hopper is back on the list of known issues. I apologize this issue was not resolved with the last software update. I will add your information to our engineers again. Thanks."

 

[navychop]

The Element, IIRC, is not self powered. It draws power from the USB port. Correct?

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[ZachS@DISH]

Zach,

Ray C from your team had been working with me on this same exact issue. A drive that was originally on my 722 and then current Hopper stopped working a few weeks ago. It's not recognized by any USB port, including the front one. I have another drive that I used on a 211k I used to have and that one is also not recognized. When I plug these into a laptop they are recognized because it wants to format them.

A recent PM from Ray C said:

"It appears the EHD not recognized by the Hopper is back on the list of known issues. I apologize this issue was not resolved with the last software update. I will add your information to our engineers again. Thanks."

When was this conversation? I just scanned the known product issues list again and do not see anything about EHDs.

 

[KAB]

The Element, IIRC, is not self powered. It draws power from the USB port. Correct?

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

Not correct. Got to specifications,
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=260

 

[cosmo_kramer]

When was this conversation? I just scanned the known product issues list again and do not see anything about EHDs.

I have forwarded you the latest PM string, from the end of February....

 

[ZachS@DISH]

That makes sense..

I had discussed that idea with the 3rd tech i talked to. I will look for another HDD i might have in the house and report back if /when i can test it.

All i need to do i beleive.... if its new thats ok. if it has disposable files.. i would reformat thru my laptop.
than hook either new or old but wiped clean HDD to the hopper.
and see if it is recognized. Would either of thse work or HAVE to be new?

If i reformat on my laptop.. i dont think it matters if FAT32 or etc how i reformat, as the hopper will reformat to its own style.

(on a side note, super joey coming on order and gonna get in next few weeks! woohoo!. im an early adopter with new tech..)
thanks everyone for fast prompt friendly replies on here. Alot of forums have some a holes thinking they know it all. i really appreciate everyone trying to help me save these progs i recorded. :0)

Can you please send me a Private Message with your account information? I already have your software version. I'd like to start submitting technical problem reports about this since it is no longer on our known issues list and now that we have multiple reports of this happening.

 

[Bobby]

The Element, IIRC, is not self powered. It draws power from the USB port. Correct?

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

I have 2 Elements external drives. One is on my Hopper and the 722 in front of it. The other is my Time Machine backup on my Mac. They are both self powered....

 

[KAB]

I have 2 Elements external drives. One is on my Hopper and the 722 in front of it. The other is my Time Machine backup on my Mac. They are both self powered....

Navy must have been thinking of Passports.

 

[navychop]

Went and read the model. Yep, you're right.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[Bobby]

You didn't doubt us did you?

 

[KKlare]

This progression is needed, as I see it:
(1) Disk recognized by host.
(2) Disk formatted to host-known format.
(3) Files copied from host to drive.
(4) Files readable from drive.

I have 1 drive that suddenly became unknown to Dish.
Well, my MacBook (early 2009) also says it cannot see and then format the drive.
This leads me to the drive is really bad unlike the other 4 WD drives still working from many years ago.

Assuming you get the drive known, but then have problems in transfers, these are my work-arounds:
Start with the drives out and Hopper rebooted. (Best)
Reboot (power off, then on) the drive. (If using the Hopper and reboot must wait.)
Sent transfer(s) in the reverse direction. (Avoids standing up and you probably need them moved, too.)
Wait some hours. (Sometimes they heal themselves, yeah right.)

I'm doing this with 4 drives transferring at once--full-time work keeping them all going while reading the board.
-Ken

 

[dwarren2]

I'm not sure if my problem is related. Last week I went to move one of my 2 ehd's from the front usb to a hub I have on a rear port. When the system rebooted, I got a message that that drive needed to be reformatted. I tried it back on the front, as the only ehd. Took it to my other HWS and had the same results. I finally did reformat it. It's an older Seagate that I had on my old 722.