# 721 - Erase hard drive and reset to defaults?



## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

How do you erase all the data on a 721 and reset to the factory defaults?

Is there a way to perform a hard reboot?


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

What you want is the NVRAM reset. Unfortunately I lost the directions. DONT do this unless theres no other way.


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## Big Bob (May 13, 2002)

Tusk said:


> How do you erase all the data on a 721 and reset to the factory defaults?
> 
> Is there a way to perform a hard reboot?


Take it over to Bob Haller's place


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Tusk, if you do a search here, you'll find what you're looking for. I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you have a specific reason that resetting the NVM will accomplish.

As for the hard reboot, unplug for a couple of minutes, and then plug back in.


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## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Tusk, if you do a search here, you'll find what you're looking for. I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you have a specific reason that resetting the NVM will accomplish.
> 
> As for the hard reboot, unplug for a couple of minutes, and then plug back in.


I searched for reboot, reset and erase and didn't get anywhere. Once Bob mentioned NVRAM, I was able to find that procedure.

I am selling the 721, and thought that the best thing to do would be erase the drive and reset the machine. I have some timers set up and a few things on the hard drive that won't delete, I guess because I don't have it hooked to a signal anymore.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If you will erase the drive your 721 become useless !


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## Randy_B (Apr 23, 2002)

P Smith said:


> If you will erase the drive your 721 become useless !


That's BS!!!! As soon as you boot the 721 back up, it will do a systems/hard drive check and then download the system software, reinitialize itself and it's back in business.


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## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

P Smith said:


> If you will erase the drive your 721 become useless !


What Randy said, but what I meant was erase the programs, timers, etc.


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## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

A NVRAM reset does not erase the timers or programs, but it does reset the prefrences and settings back to default.


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## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

Scott Greczkowski said:


> A NVRAM reset does not erase the timers or programs, but it does reset the prefrences and settings back to default.


Then is there a way to erase timers and programs, since I can't manually delete them?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Randy_B said:


> That's BS!!!! As soon as you boot the 721 back up, it will do a systems/hard drive check and then download the system software, reinitialize itself and it's back in business.


Dude ! It's you're BSing ppl !!
You're talking about subject without any knowledge. For start you could read old posts from ppl who lost data on 721 disk. Then try this _method_ on your PVR721 !

You came with nonsense here.


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## thevoice (Sep 24, 2002)

Randy_B said:


> That's BS!!!! As soon as you boot the 721 back up, it will do a systems/hard drive check and then download the system software, reinitialize itself and it's back in business.


Not true, if you erase the drive you will get a system failure and it will never boot again.


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## Randy_B (Apr 23, 2002)

thevoice said:


> Not true, if you erase the drive you will get a system failure and it will never boot again.


There is a sector on the hard drive that you CANNOT erase. It contains the "self-healing" functionality. If the hard drive fails or you manage to erase the HD it will boot in this sector and reload the system software.

If you were to wave a HUGE electromagnet over your 721 then you could completely wipe the HD and yes it would be useless. I doubt that is what Tusk is asking.

Doing an NVM as tusk has asked about will NOT render your 721 useless. Nor will a HD failure necesarily do that. Reinitializing the system software will wipe all recordings, timers and preferences but the unit is NOT rendered dead.

I do know what I am talking about. From experience. The first 721 we owned had 2 instances of a HD failure and in both cases the self-heal function downloaded the system software again and the unit came back up again fine. Dish RMA'd that one, BUT it was NEVER fully inoperable.

Tusk - why can't you manually erase the recordings and timers? If you hit the DVR button as soon as it comes on (ignore searching for signal screen), you should get to the recording event screen and can delete from there, then hit the timer button from the DVR screen and then go in that way.


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## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

Randy_B said:


> Tusk - why can't you manually erase the recordings and timers? If you hit the DVR button as soon as it comes on (ignore searching for signal screen), you should get to the recording event screen and can delete from there, then hit the timer button from the DVR screen and then go in that way.


When I select a timer and hit delete, it doesn't do anything. Also, I have been watching things in the PVR list and some things erase. Others don't. No big deal. I thought there might be an easy way to delete all information.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

It was old thread by kyoo, probably you could do that using his discovery: open cover, disconnect IDE and power cable from the disk, connect your [Linux + XFS] PC using long IDE/power cable to the disk and after mounting last partition ( video ?) erase all files there.


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