As reported in a separate thread, a week ago I turned on the TV and found the "Hopper is starting up" page. It continued forever, with an occasional dip to black and then it was back. Red button resets and pulling the AC plug didn't help. I even left it unplugged for a half hour one time. I called Dish Tech Support and they had no answer, so they sent me a new HWS. It arrived yesterday. (Because of the holiday and the weekend, it took 6 days to get here from Colorado.)
After connecting up the new HWS it came on and went through the satellite check, downloaded software and the guide, and then it needed to reboot. Oh, oh... the same problem occurred as with the older Hopper with the "Hopper is starting up" page. After seeing all of your comments about problems with the EHD, I unplugged mine. Tadaa... up came the screen signaling I could activate the receiver. I clicked on the "Activate" button on the Dish Equipment setup page and the DVR has been working great since then. All of my timers and settings were transferred from my remote to the new unit. Of course I lost all the programs that were saved on the old HWS hard drive.
Today, as a test, I plugged the EHD back in. I got no response whatsoever. I rebooted and got the "Hopper is starting up" screen again... until I pulled the USB connector for the EHD. Looks like the new software doesn't like my hard drive for some reason. It has worked fine for years on my old 622, then 722 and on the HWS... until I got the S328 upgrade. Now I'm wondering if my older HWS is actually okay. I'm not going to bother reconnecting it to find out. It'll be shipped back to Dish tomorrow with a note about the problem.
Sounds like they need to do some quick debugging of the new software where EHDs are involved!!
Larry
SF