# "A serious error has occurred with your hard disk"



## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

Came home and the 622 said "A serious error has occurred with your hard disk call DISH" or something to that effect.

I can't access the DVR, I can't FF/RW or pause tried a hard reset and got the same error.

I already have another 622 on the way but any other suggestions?


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## Jason Whiddon (Aug 17, 2006)

Have you unplugged it? Is it clicking?


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

That usually means that the hard drive is dead. The good news is that it'll still show live TV while you wait for a replacement.

A trick that used to work maybe once every four HD failures is to lift the receiver about 0.75-inch off a hard surface then let it drop. If the HD is stuck, occasionally that'll jar it loose long enough to salvage your data. And if it doesn't work, the HD was dead anyway.


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## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

FTA Michael said:


> A trick that used to work maybe once every four HD failures is to lift the receiver about 0.75-inch off a hard surface then let it drop. If the HD is stuck, occasionally that'll jar it loose long enough to salvage your data. And if it doesn't work, the HD was dead anyway.


lmao :lol:


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## Wildman63 (Dec 23, 2006)

Amon37 said:


> Came home and the 622 said "A serious error has occurred with your hard disk call DISH" or something to that effect.
> 
> I can't access the DVR, I can't FF/RW or pause tried a hard reset and got the same error.
> 
> I already have another 622 on the way but any other suggestions?


My first VIP622 died of the same ailment at the age of four months. Dish replaced it.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

About 6 months back a lot of users were getting this message, though it turned out to be false. Try a power cord reset. If the box does not come back alive and seem find I would expect that this message is real.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

FTA Michael said:


> That usually means that the hard drive is dead. The good news is that it'll still show live TV while you wait for a replacement.
> 
> A trick that used to work maybe once every four HD failures is to lift the receiver about 0.75-inch off a hard surface then let it drop. If the HD is stuck, occasionally that'll jar it loose long enough to salvage your data. And if it doesn't work, the HD was dead anyway.


It will NOT show live TV while the Disk is dead. In fact it not likely to even operate.

Droping the receiver to make the disk work. ROTFL. A good thing most head crashes are a thing of the past, but no reason to abuse the hard drive on purpose.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

I don't know about the drives in the 622 but in the past there were IBM drives that were known to have sticking problems. They were specific 2.5 gig SCSI drives normally used in a RAID-5 array. And ROTFL if you want, but I have had to whack my share of them to get them started. They were hot swap drives so you could pull them out of the machine, give them a whack and put them back in without having to drop the entire computer on the floor. Naturally you did that after they were no longer spinning. You don't ever want to whack one that is moving since the heads may not be retracted. Any way, it is a known solution to get stuck drives started again and like Michael said if they are really dead you are not going to hurt them. However, I would not be likely to want to drop the whole 622 from a great height.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Thanks for sticking up for me, Chuck. I share your emphasis that we're talking about a very short drop - less than an inch. And I'm sorry I didn't mention what you did - make sure the drive isn't moving before you do this.

And since I'm here, I'll restate that this is a very temporary solution, designed to give you enough time to extract (most of) the drive's contents. Or to let your kid see his Spongebob recording one more day while you wait for the UPS truck to deliver the replacement.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

I'll back you up too Michael. While I've never had to do this with a DVR, a couple years ago I had an IBM Deskstar that was prone to sticking. You'd hear a clicking noise when trying to boot. By giving the PC case a good smack next to the hard drive I could usually get it engaged again and it would continue on. I actually got another year or so out of the drive this way before it finally died.


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## Jason Whiddon (Aug 17, 2006)

I agree. Whenever I have had a HDD start clicking and get ready for failure, usually a god whack would get you booted up and enough time to back your files up.


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

OTOH it is going back for warranty, I have seen hard drives report a S.M.A.R.T. Error for Over G force impact.


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## Tulsa1 (Oct 15, 2003)

tnsprin said:


> It will NOT show live TV while the Disk is dead. In fact it not likely to even operate.


My 942 still worked fine when it's hard drive died, just lost all DVR features.
Not sure why they would not include this ability in the 622.
Oh well, in the name of progress.


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## logicalnoise (Mar 23, 2007)

wouldn't have a point for this but if you have a HD that died something that usually works(if it's a read head problem) is throwing the drive in a feezer bag and leaving it in the freezer for about 20 min to an hour. Beileve it or not it can bring back an HD long enough to get backed up or even sometimes fix the HDs completly.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Tulsa1 said:


> My 942 still worked fine when it's hard drive died, just lost all DVR features.
> Not sure why they would not include this ability in the 622.
> Oh well, in the name of progress.


It shouldn't.

First of course you need to load the software off the hard drive to get running. I don't see how, it failed you can got to an operating state.

Second it was my understanding that these systems do not have a data path from the satellite receiver to the mpeg decoders. Instead they are suppose to write to the disk and then read it back. Perhaps they have a backup path to support disk failures, but it was never mentioned.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

tnsprin said:


> It shouldn't.
> 
> First of course you need to load the software off the hard drive to get running. I don't see how, it failed you can got to an operating state.
> 
> Second it was my understanding that these systems do not have a data path from the satellite receiver to the mpeg decoders. Instead they are suppose to write to the disk and then read it back. Perhaps they have a backup path to support disk failures, but it was never mentioned.


Both 942 and 622 [962] doesn't use a disk as a place for system.
No, decoding going as pass-through to AV outputs and then same time to a disk.


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## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

I tried a power cord reset first because I know from reading the forum that is the first troubleshooting step.  I then tried the drop method and that didn't work either.


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## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

tnsprin said:


> It will NOT show live TV while the Disk is dead. In fact it not likely to even operate.


It does show live TV, it's just none of DVR function buttons work.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

One afternoon we came home and had had a power failure that really messed with the 622.

It had that message on the screen.

I rebooted the system three times.

It finally reformatted the drive and hasn't missed a lick since.


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## grog (Jul 3, 2007)

Sounds like great recovery is built in.  
It also seems that the Linux port to the 622 is held in FLASH. That is good too!



Jim5506 said:


> One afternoon we came home and had had a power failure that really messed with the 622.
> 
> It had that message on the screen.
> 
> ...


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Well known fact came from first apperance of 522 model based on Linux a few years ago. Then 942 came, then 622, 211, etc.


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## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

I reset it a couple more times and still nothing. Oh well, the replacement will be here today.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

It took mine nearly 2 hours to reformat and re-initialize.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

logicalnoise said:


> wouldn't have a point for this but if you have a HD that died something that usually works(if it's a read head problem) is throwing the drive in a feezer bag and leaving it in the freezer for about 20 min to an hour. Beileve it or not it can bring back an HD long enough to get backed up or even sometimes fix the HDs completly.


Today's WSJ had an article that mentioned reviving a HD this way. Definitely something to consider!


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

That could work with a computer, I've used it myself. Chilling the drive. No security stickers on a computer drive.

However we are talking about a DVR. Take out the drive to watch part of a show and void the warranty? Not worth it.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Maybe you just need a larger freezer?


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## JustinID (Feb 1, 2006)

I had the same problem about a week ago. Everything worked fine other than no DVR functions (couldn't pause/rewind live TV either of course). I did a hard reboot by holding the power button and it's been working fine since then.


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## richbogrow (Nov 13, 2006)

I have gotten this message, and all I had to do was a reboot. No problems.


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## M5Guy (Jun 24, 2006)

Mine just did the same thing last night. I don't think it was power as I have a UPS hooked to my 622. Live TV worked after I acknowledged the error by clicking "OK", but got error 024 when I tried any hard drive functions. Did a power button hold reset & everything started to work. Is this an indicator that the hd is about to fail completely? I hesitate to call Dish for a replacement just to get a refurbished unit with other unknown issues. Advice, anyone?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

M5Guy said:


> Mine just did the same thing last night. I don't think it was power as I have a UPS hooked to my 622. Live TV worked after I acknowledged the error by clicking "OK", but got error 024 when I tried any hard drive functions. Did a power button hold reset & everything started to work. Is this an indicator that the hd is about to fail completely? I hesitate to call Dish for a replacement just to get a refurbished unit with other unknown issues. Advice, anyone?


A one time failure of the disk to start up is probably not really a serious problem. However repeated failures over time could be and a number of them one after the other definitely is.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

tnsprin said:


> A one time failure of the disk to start up is probably not really a serious problem. However repeated failures over time could be and a number of them one after the other definitely is.


In short, once is a fluke, twice is a trend.


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## churoval (Aug 2, 2005)

I woke up to one of these this morning. Did a power button reset and it's all happy again.


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## Ryan (Apr 24, 2002)

I had this issue with my 622: wouldn't boot, hard drive crunching, etc. Finally got it to boot enough to get the serious hard drive error message yesterday.

Live tv would display but no DVR functions were working. Dish is sending a replacement.

I'm still going to swap the thing out, but this morning, the system seemed frozen on the 'press select' screen saver, so I rebooted again, and what do you know, this time even the DVR works. Do we're going to quick try to watch the couple things we'd been saving, then swap it out.

The hard drive had been making all kinds of noise yesterday, but today it's humming along.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Same here mine bit the dust Sunday afternoon.


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