# Attention 869 - USB storage device is formatting



## JimD

Please forgive possible newbie question...

I just got a 922 the other day, and have been trying various things. I just connected a 2TB EHD, and started a format. There is a big "Attention 869" box obscuring the view and there seems to be no way to get rid of it. Is this normal? Do I really have to stare at this formatting popup until the drive finishes formatting?


----------



## P Smith

Yeah, why not ? You'll be surprised when the box will reboot after ending the format process.


----------



## Stewart Vernon

As P Smith says... the receiver reboots after the formatting process completes so you would be taken by surprise.

If it is going to take a while, I usually play with my iPhone or something until it is done.


----------



## JimD

Well, after an hour or so of "playing with my iPhone" :lol: I gave up and went to bed. I left the 922 formatting the drive and just turned off the TV and the AV receiver.

This morning I turned the TV and AVR back on, and there is no giant formatting alert box anymore! Yay! So I go to the transfer menu, and the DVR sees only the old 750GB EHD, not the new 2TB unit. So realizing I forgot to disable sleep using the Seagate Dashboard utility, I unplugged and replugged the USB cable. The "you must reformat this device" box popped up again!

So it seems it spent hours last night actually doing nothing.

?!?!?!

Aside from the fact that the format seems to have utterly failed and had given no indication it was having difficulty - there should be a "live TV" button at the bottom of the "Attention 869" box. There's no reason to make the user sit there and stare at the scrolling "formatting" display if it is going to take forever to accomplish.


----------



## Stewart Vernon

I haven't tried to use anything other than 500GB and 1TB drives... and it has been a while since I formatted one, so I can't remember how long it took.

Not sure if that is what is happening in your case... but some have needed to reboot their receiver if they left the hard drive connected overnight and the drive went to sleep. It *might* be possible that it formatted but doesn't recognize it unless you reboot again.

I don't leave my drives connected except when actively using them... so I don't run into a lot of those problems myself, though I know they exist.

I wouldn't think the drive would have went into sleep mode while formatting... but I wonder if the Dish receiver went to sleep (standby) and rebooted for the nightly update and didn't finish the process.


----------



## JimD

Stewart Vernon said:


> It *might* be possible that it formatted but doesn't recognize it unless you reboot again.
> 
> I wouldn't think the drive would have went into sleep mode while formatting... but I wonder if the Dish receiver went to sleep (standby) and rebooted for the nightly update and didn't finish the process.


I haven't given up yet, I will try the reboot and also try formatting it again - perhaps on my 722 to see what happens there.

First I will connect it to my laptop and see if the format on the 922 actually did *anything* to the drive. Also run the Seagate dashboard and disable sleep.


----------



## JimD

I connected the drive to my laptop, and the Seagate dashboard did not find it. The Windows disk management administrative utility showed that the drive had been formatted by something other than windows, and now consists of 4 partitions: 1GB, 500GB, 500GB and 867GB. I deleted all of these, created a simple NTFS partition of 1.8xxTB and the Seagate Dashboard found the drive.

I then set the "sleep" mode of the drive to "never".

Now to try formatting again...


----------



## P Smith

Why the hassle with waiting, when you could do that on 722 faster ?


----------



## JimD

P Smith said:


> Why the hassle with waiting, when you could do that on 722 faster ?


I believe that's what I said I would do...

Surprise! It took just 4 minutes for the 722 to format the drive and then it rebooted. When it came back up it saw the 2TB drive just fine.

So Dish - if you're watching this thread - there's a problem with formatting 2TB drives (specifically Seagate GoFlex) on the 922. It takes forever, and then doesn't work. It takes only 4 minutes on the 722.

On the "plus" side (if you can call it that) the program you were watching continues to be displayed and heard while the big ugly "Formatting" box blocks your view - unlike on the 722 where the screen goes grey and silent during the format.

Now if only the format actually worked, and there was a button to dismiss the "formatting" box, and a reboot wasn't necessary at the end then the 922 would be fabulous at formatting the Segate GoFlex 2TB external drive. :grin:

So far I like the 922 very much except for this, oh and also that I can't create more than 5 folders in the "my media", "my recordings", "my 922", "my folders" page.

P.S. - and as I just discovered, transferring from "External Device 2" to "External Device 1" is not possible. So I will have to transfer 547 GB from dev2 to the 922, then transfer it again to dev1. Or leave both attached - but I want to use the smaller one on the 722.


----------



## P Smith

Search here for "DishArc" and you'll done it much faster.


----------



## JeffN9

JimD said:


> I believe that's what I said I would do...
> 
> Surprise! It took just 4 minutes for the 722 to format the drive and then it rebooted. When it came back up it saw the 2TB drive just fine.
> 
> So Dish - if you're watching this thread - there's a problem with formatting 2TB drives (specifically Seagate GoFlex) on the 922. It takes forever, and then doesn't work. It takes only 4 minutes on the 722.
> 
> On the "plus" side (if you can call it that) the program you were watching continues to be displayed and heard while the big ugly "Formatting" box blocks your view - unlike on the 722 where the screen goes grey and silent during the format.
> 
> Now if only the format actually worked, and there was a button to dismiss the "formatting" box, and a reboot wasn't necessary at the end then the 922 would be fabulous at formatting the Segate GoFlex 2TB external drive. :grin:
> 
> So far I like the 922 very much except for this, oh and also that I can't create more than 5 folders in the "my media", "my recordings", "my 922", "my folders" page.
> 
> P.S. - and as I just discovered, transferring from "External Device 2" to "External Device 1" is not possible. So I will have to transfer 547 GB from dev2 to the 922, then transfer it again to dev1. Or leave both attached - but I want to use the smaller one on the 722.


I connected a 2nd EHD(2tb WD Element) with a powered hub to my 922 a couple of weeks ago. It took a few trial and error combinations of what to plug in first and in what order but when the 922 finally did see the new EHD the formatting only took about 5 minutes and then everything worked fine. I now have a 1tb WD Essential and the new 2tb connected.

One thing I have noticed is that the EHD's keep changing positions. What shows as Ext. device 1 today will be Ext. device 2 tomorrow and vice versa. I have no idea why it does that. I have to check each time before I transfer anything so I don't overload the 1tb by mistake.

The one problem I have been having since I got the 922 last March is that occasionally the 922 does not see the EHD at all. When I go into the DVR the My 922/Ext. device tab is completely missing when this occurs. Usually a soft reboot brings it back but it's been somewhat of a pain. I had hoped that having the powered hub with a 2nd EHD that does not have a sleep timer might help maintain the connection but that apparently is not the problem.

I have found that there is no exact science with any of this stuff. Everyone's experience with hooking up EHD's, etc. seems to be different.

P.S. I did notice that you said that you had just gotten the 922. These receivers can take a few days to "settle down" so to speak and start doing what they are supposed to do. That might have been part of your problem.


----------



## P Smith

Ugh, initially it was overnight process, then someone extended it to 24-48 hours, now you inventing the monstrous requirement "*can take a few days*".
Where you got this ? Anyway it's ridiculous to wait for few days to make new DVR works.


----------



## JeffN9

P Smith said:


> Ugh, initially it was overnight process, then someone extended it to 24-48 hours, now you inventing the monstrous requirement "*can take a few days*".
> Where you got this ? Anyway it's ridiculous to wait for few dais to make new DVR works.


I don't know what the exact time frame is, does anybody? I've read anywhere from 1-3 days from various posts. Like everything else each situation might be different.


----------



## Stewart Vernon

In retrospect... I honestly cannot say if I have formatted a hard drive at all with my 922. I have had mine for a while, and when they first were released... they initially added support for read-only of external drives.

This meant you couldn't archive to them OR format them... you had to format them from a 622/722... so I'm pretty sure all the drives I have (and of course I don't have a 2 TB drive if that makes a difference) were formatted on a non-922 anyway.

I'll pass your story along to Dish, though, and see if they know anything more about it in case it is a new bug that hasn't been reported yet.


----------



## JimD

Just a quick update. So far the process of copying from the 750GB to the 922 and then from the 922 out to the 2TB is going slowly and mostly without incident.

I lost one file. There are a number of concert performances in this collection, and one of the Heart shows would not copy back off of the 922 onto the 2TB drive. It said an error had occurred each time I attempted this. So I tried to play the file, and it said it was corrupt (or something like that). So I deleted it.

On a whim I tried to see how many things the 922 might do at once. I started recording shows on two different channels, played back a recorded program on the TV, and connected my iPad via DOL to watch a second recording - all while continuing one of the transfers. It all seemed to work fine. I wonder if adding the dual OTA unit would permit recording 2 OTA shows at the same time?

I'll never use all that capability, but it's nice to know the internal bandwidth is there. It gives me confidence that the things I will be doing don't approach the receiver's resource limit.


----------



## P Smith

I would try add two OTA (1080i !) channels to record, just for test and sharing with other wanderers.


----------



## JeffN9

I wonder if adding the dual OTA unit would permit recording 2 OTA shows at the same time?


Yes this works just fine, I do it all the time. You can actually record four things at once(2 sat & 2 ota) if you want to.


----------



## JimD

P Smith said:


> I would try add two OTA (1080i !) channels to record, just for test and sharing with other wanderers.


So would I - except I have no OTA tuners in my 922, and live in a mountainous area with very poor OTA reception (if any).


----------

