Internal Hard Disk Drives in Dish Receivers,

No Joy on the 722 door its different and doesn't fit. Not a major deal, I just thought if one of the vendors that are on the site that might have one laying around. lol

Glad I pulled the drive and ran Hdat2 on it. It found an locked out a bad block at the beginning of the drive. I ran a full test when I was done and it came up perfect, reset the PUIS bit, put the drive back in the unit and were ready to go. It also got a good internal cleaning and some synthetic oil on the fan bearings.

One thing I found interesting, this unit had a Hatachi 1TB drive, I was under the impression they all had Seagate ST1000VM002 drives. I wonder if they are interchangeable. I know where I can buy a new Seagate but the Hatachi will be a little harder to find.
 
Wow. Glad it worked for you. A little foggy. Did you turn off puis to diagnose and fix it and then turn it back on when done before putting it back in the receiver?
Don't bank on that hdd though. Bad blocks sometimes leads to more bad blocks in the near future.
The best thing about Hitachi drives is tearing them down and making wind chimes with the platters.
I was able to turn of PUIS, ran the write/verify test and locked out the bad sector then re-ran the test again and it came back clean. Rebooted then reset the PUIS bit back to its original state, re-installed the drive and bingo, good to go. Thanks for the heads up on that program. All the original Hatachi utilities have disappeared from the web since Hatachi HDD division was picked up by WD. The HDAT2 worked like a charm. I am going to have to come up with a usable replacement for the HDD as like you said Bad blocks usually means its living on borrowed time. I would love to be able to find something else that I could just drop in as a replacement other than another Hatachi.
Thx again.
 
I was able to turn of PUIS, ran the write/verify test and locked out the bad sector then re-ran the test again and it came back clean. Rebooted then reset the PUIS bit back to its original state, re-installed the drive and bingo, good to go. Thanks for the heads up on that program. All the original Hatachi utilities have disappeared from the web since Hatachi HDD division was picked up by WD. The HDAT2 worked like a charm. I am going to have to come up with a usable replacement for the HDD as like you said Bad blocks usually means its living on borrowed time. I would love to be able to find something else that I could just drop in as a replacement other than another Hatachi.
Thx again.
Look at my post right above, for a list that should work. IF you can find any. I've bought some from Ebay before.
 
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell
Yeah, I saw the list but it says for the 722,

I looked at the list are there were 3 1tb drives listed down at the bottom, are those specific to the 922's? Can I assume those will work?
 
Thank you both for the great explanation. I think I might just pick up a spare new Seagate and save it as a spare. Is there any secret installation tips or simply remove, re-install the new drive and power up?
I'd be surprised if an off the shelf drive will work since there is no mechanism to install the proprietary OS on a virgin drive. The drive comes pre-loaded from Dish with that software.

Edit: Others report success though. I'm surprised the OS is in ROM/flash. Maybe it is on the older systems but I'd be surprised if swapping works on a Hopper 3...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell
Edit: Others report success though. I'm surprised the OS is in ROM/flash. Maybe it is on the older systems but I'd be surprised if swapping works on a Hopper 3...
As far as I know, all Dish DVR’s store their OS in flash. The hard drive is only touched for extended EPG (internal flash holds 2 days, HDD extends that to 9 days) and your usual DVR stuff. If this were not the case then when faced with a HDD failure the receiver would become completely inoperable, instead you get a message stating that usage of the DVR and live TV buffer is limited (or something of that nature) and the receiver still works as a standard Non-DVR box.
 
As far as I know, all Dish DVR’s store their OS in flash. The hard drive is only touched for extended EPG (internal flash holds 2 days, HDD extends that to 9 days) and your usual DVR stuff. If this were not the case then when faced with a HDD failure the receiver would become completely inoperable, instead you get a message stating that usage of the DVR and live TV buffer is limited (or something of that nature) and the receiver still works as a standard Non-DVR box.
Thanks for the info. My H3 has got to be 12 or 13 years old (we got it shortly after they came out) so the drive is getting close to its time. In fact I'm surprised it's lived this long.
 
Thanks for the info. My H3 has got to be 12 or 13 years old (we got it shortly after they came out) so the drive is getting close to its time. In fact I'm surprised it's lived this long.
Wasn't the H3 launched circa 2016? Unless you actually have a H1/H2, it shouldn't be more then 7 years old (Which is still a lot for any HDD).
 
Thanks for the info. My H3 has got to be 12 or 13 years old (we got it shortly after they came out) so the drive is getting close to its time. In fact I'm surprised it's lived this long.
The H3 was introduced in January, 2016. I've had one all that time and it is running gangbusters. Unless you are talking an earlier model. The original Hopper 2000 was introduced in January, 2012 and the Hopper with Sling came in January, 2013. So the oldest is 11 years old.
 
Keep in mind that it can't be just any Seagate, it must have specific model numbers. All the rest won't work.
I have a 612, EXACT model number Must Match. My 612 can use a 320 or 500 GB Seagate - That's ALL.
I bought a spare 320 and the 500 (a guess, but same model series) because HD failure is WAY more likely than anything else.
I recm'd get the right drive, swap it (just like a PC) and format it. Now it's a hot spare.
 
I have a 612, EXACT model number Must Match. My 612 can use a 320 or 500 GB Seagate - That's ALL.
I bought a spare 320 and the 500 (a guess, but same model series) because HD failure is WAY more likely than anything else.
I recm'd get the right drive, swap it (just like a PC) and format it. Now it's a hot spare.

Capacitors are a high failure rate as well.