# FRUSTRATED - Hopper 1 and External Hard Drive



## champion6 (Dec 7, 2004)

What is going wrong?

1. I have a 2-3 year old Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1T USB hard drive. Because it's USB-powered, I bought a new powered USB hub.
Problem: When I connect the hub/hard drive to the Hopper 1, I'm told it needs to be formatted. I do that. After formatting, A) It doesn't appear as a Source; B) When I attempt to transfer a recording to it, I'm told a USB device is not connected; C) External Hard Drive doesn't appear under Menu (New UI, if it makes a difference). I have a second Hopper 1 and the problem is the same.
Dish Support could not get it working.

2. I bought a new Western Digital My Book 2T powered USB hard drive. Cable has a tag saying, "USB 3.0 compatible with USB 2.0."
Problem: When I connect the hard dive to the Hopper 1, the problem is the same as above.
Dish Support could not get it working. First Tier 1 Support, then Tier 2 Support, give up and tell me that I must use a USB 2.0 hard drive (They both simply read me the list of specs).

Can anyone offer some advice or help?


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

Have you tried all the USB ports on the Hopper? On my Hopper 2, my external drive is only recognized on 1 USB port on the back and the port in the front. If I plug it into the other back USB port I get the same message you do.


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## champion6 (Dec 7, 2004)

Oh, yes. I've tried all 3 ... repeatedly. After all this time, I have also tried the "leave it plugged in, the EHD will appear in a few days" trick. Still no joy.


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

Various USB hdd interfaces have problems with some systems. I have one that works fine on one notebook, won't connect on another. However, two different drives from two different vendors being incompatible is somewhat unlikely.
The Hopper is obviously recognizing that there is a drive connected, and apparently is formatting it. (you can verify that with a PC)
Try a power-line reset (pull the plug) of your Hopper leaving the external drive connected.
Try reformatting the external drive on a PC, then let the Hopper reformat again.

This is all of course just black magic, but there's a slight chance one of these will work.


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## champion6 (Dec 7, 2004)

champion6 said:


> 1. I have a 2-3 year old Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1T USB hard drive. Because it's USB-powered, I bought a new powered USB hub.
> Problem: When I connect the hub/hard drive to the Hopper 1, I'm told it needs to be formatted. I do that. After formatting, A) It doesn't appear as a Source; B) When I attempt to transfer a recording to it, I'm told a USB device is not connected; C) External Hard Drive doesn't appear under Menu (New UI, if it makes a difference). I have a second Hopper 1 and the problem is the same.
> Dish Support could not get it working.
> 
> ...


I want to circle back and provide some follow-up.

I finally got the Hopper to allow me to transfer to the Western Digital EHD. This is silly and has no logical explanation -- I combined the advice "leave it plugged in, and the EHD will appear in a few days trick" with the "try another USB port trick." I had already done both of these things multiple times before with no success. Even though we live in a digital age, I sometimes comes down to PFM - Pure F***ing Magic.

Subsequently, I upgraded from H1 to H3. I need the EHD to supplement the H2 internal HD.


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## MikeRobertson (Jul 31, 2005)

Glad to hear you were successful. I, however, have given up. I've had the same external drive, a WD 750GB drive, on several Dish receivers over the past 4 years. The latest being my Hopper3. It had worked flawlessly on all those systems up until a month or so ago. It just suddenly disappeared from the DVR menu screen along with its 80+ recorded movies. I figured, okay the drive died, will buy new one. Bought a new 2TB Seagate which didn't work with the Hopper3. Bought a new WD 2TB drive which also didn't work. Called Dish tech support many, many times. They even sent out a tech. Went through 2 replacement Hoppers (figured maybe some got corrupted in the system software). NOTHING worked! Dish tech support's final words were to refer me to the hard drive manufacturer. Wow those guys are good! And just for grins, I took my original 750GB hard drive, connected it to my Mac, and set it up as a bootable hard for Mac OS Sierra. What the hell? That drive still works just fine. As I said, I give up, no more external hard drive for me. If you've got one that works, more power to you. Enjoy it while you can, because you never know when it will go away.
*UPDATE: *New software update (336) and my 5 yr old EHD, that I had given up on, now works just fine. Of course I lost 80 movies that had been previously saved. Spent 10 hours trying to get two replacement hoppers to work with two other new hard drives I had purchased which also didn't work. As noted above Dish had no clue. At least they weren't talking. So time and money wasted on what was a software issue all along. Nice going Dish!


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## Spice Girl (Jan 19, 2018)

champion6 said:


> I want to circle back and provide some follow-up.
> 
> I finally got the Hopper to allow me to transfer to the Western Digital EHD. This is silly and has no logical explanation -- I combined the advice "leave it plugged in, and the EHD will appear in a few days trick" with the "try another USB port trick." I had already done both of these things multiple times before with no success. Even though we live in a digital age, I sometimes comes down to PFM - Pure F***ing Magic.
> 
> Subsequently, I upgraded from H1 to H3. I need the EHD to supplement the H2 internal HD.


How many days would you say this took?

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## 529rvlife (Jan 29, 2018)

champion6 said:


> What is going wrong?
> 
> 1. I have a 2-3 year old Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1T USB hard drive. Because it's USB-powered, I bought a new powered USB hub.
> Problem: When I connect the hub/hard drive to the Hopper 1, I'm told it needs to be formatted. I do that. After formatting, A) It doesn't appear as a Source; B) When I attempt to transfer a recording to it, I'm told a USB device is not connected; C) External Hard Drive doesn't appear under Menu (New UI, if it makes a difference). I have a second Hopper 1 and the problem is the same.
> ...


I have your answer. After LOADS of trial and error of exactly the above.

The answer is---- to date no Hoppers, whether it is the 1,2,or 3(I trialed with all three models when trying to figure this out) can format and use any external drive that is anything but streight 2.0 usb. They cannot see the 3.0 "backwards compatible" external drives.

The only external drives you will find that will work will be pre 2012 2.0 only usb that has its own power supply, that is 2 TB and under.

These can be had on ebay used in 1 and 2TB versions for under 100$.

Now, I dont have the service manual for the Hoppers so I cant say for sure, but i suspect that the usb chipset in all three Hoppers, that are all 2.0 by the way, have all of the same FIRMWARE , which is burned into the chipset itself and IT DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO SEE A 3.0 IN THE FIRST PLACE TO BECOME BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE to a 2.0.

Having said that, now that we know this, we now have moved forward and have plenty of space to use on our EHD setup

However, keep in mind that by the numbers the Hopper software reserves 800GB for PTAT section off of the internal 2 TB Hopper dvr, it leaves 1231GB(1.2Tb) for the user to have for non PTAT shows(thats why PTAT shows are accessed from a different folder). And when it formats A 2TB EHD it reserves 200GB off of the EHD for PTAT leaving 1800GB(1.8TB) for the user.

Every External I bought I stayed within the MyBook Family of western digital, and i bought them all used.

By the way, call any dish rep and ask them if the backwards compatible units will work and they will tell you they should be fine. Which is why so many people just give up on running an external setup. But it can be a wonderful wonderful experience once you figure out what you can and cant use.

Once you get the right drive, you plug it in, the hopper formats and you are up and running in less than 5 minutes, really we counted 2-3 minutes start to finish on all but one drive, which took 5 minutes to be recognized, formatted, and ready to go.
You know it will end up faulted if it takes any longer than this.

once I left an external plugged in on the formatting screen for 10 hours thinking if I just wait a little longer....no dice---- i tried so hard for so long to get the new ones to work before figuring it out.

I have read lots of posts where people have gotten the externals to format and run-FOR A WHILE- or they have formatted and then suddenly are gone from the list, ect... I think these are aborrations, they got through somehow but they wont run correctly or for long because they are missing huge chunks of software that could not be transferred, that data would have been moved to a place on the drive that the software reserves for corrupt/unknown data and it would have efforted to work until it needed those files that could not be found, then it would run afoul.

Second, EHD that do not have their own power supply that people run off the Hopper will fail. They will fail because the Hopper has no reserve power to feed said EHD, which is why it is requireed to have its own power supply, not because it wont work powered by the hopper, but because it will rob from the hoppers designated priority power output, which can and will overheat the hopper(because when voltage goes down current goes up as the unit continues to try to get its rated voltage) and can and will cause the drive itself to dump because it is functioning under a continuous low voltage condition caused by lack of its own power supply. Keep this in mind when you read the posts of the successfull EHD installs of the hybrid no self power models. It can be done, but there will be consequences both to the receiver and the EHD under these installs.

Also, Once your EHD are all in order, no matter if you have hopper 1,2,3 the EHDs will work across all of them provided they are all on the new UI that was issued in OCT 2016 for the entire hopper family. I have a hopper 3, 3 hopper 2's and hopper 1 and the EHDs as they sit are all compatible with all models of the hopper family of the recievers we have. plug and play.

Ebay lists these 2.0 drives all the time, if they arent there when you look, look the next day or week, I picked up my first 4 Hopper 2Tb drives in 2 weeks time, as well as a 4Tb 3.0 for my husbands ps4 to use as an external.

Good luck to all who have run into this. They really should have this info posted on the info page on dish.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

nay, you do not aware how USB negotiation going ... 
USB 3.0 target (if it's true compatible with USB 2.0 host) will respond and set connection's parameters down to that host what doesn't support USB 3.0


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## Spice Girl (Jan 19, 2018)

P Smith said:


> nay, you do not aware how USB negotiation going ...
> USB 3.0 target (if it's true compatible with USB 2.0 host) will respond and set connection's parameters down to that host what doesn't support USB 3.0


Great reply. Much appreciated.

Interesting how the hard rrive was recognized but now isn't. Anyway here is what I had purchased on December 5th of last year.

I will defiantly get a 2.0 USB external hard drive soon.










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## Spice Girl (Jan 19, 2018)

Dish Network sells an 2 TB External hard drive on their web psge for only 149.00. That seems reasonable.


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## 529rvlife (Jan 29, 2018)

P Smith said:


> nay, you do not aware how USB negotiation going ...
> USB 3.0 target (if it's true compatible with USB 2.0 host) will respond and set connection's parameters down to that host what doesn't support USB 3.0


If speaking about how relations of these paramiters go with computing, yes it will neogtiate. But it also has built in software drivers and commands to do so. This is not the same with the Hoppers.

The Hoppers cannot negotiate with backwards compatible usb's. Regardless of how something "should"work, fact of the matter is the majority of people do not experience success with a 3.0 backwards compatible drive when using it with the hopper system.

Again, It may work perfectly fine when used on a computer system, that has more sophisitcated SOFTWARE drivers and input peramiters. But the hoppers have basic in and out only. It is a set chipset that is set from the gate. There will be no software that will fix this. If it was , the new CARBON UI would have accomodated this. Since it is not, it only leaves (like i said before) a Firmware setting.

Now that I have figured this out, I have a 12TB setup on one Hopper 2 and I will be working on building out the next one now. All working as they should without errors. Our 5th 2Tb drive came yesterday, it formatted without issue in under 5 minutes, we now have a 12TB storage system (less the PTAT reserved space on each HDD) for use in our recordings.

Prior to this we sent back 7 or more backwards compatible 3.0 NEW drives, spent hours and hours and hours on phone with tech support, exchanged 3 hoppers(because tech support decided our USB drives were bad), we tried all different models by different makers. We bought them all on amazon/newegg so easy returns. Not one worked. Not one. With any of my hoppers. After the three Hopper exchanges, 1 for my hopper 3 and two exchanges of a hopper 2 I gave up.

I gave up for over a year. then recently had an epiphany and now I am rockin a 12TB storage system. I also thought to search for a forum to help others, because I found no help anywhere to figure out why it just wasnt working.

Anyway, good luck all.


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## 529rvlife (Jan 29, 2018)

Spice Girl said:


> Great reply. Much appreciated.
> 
> Interesting how the hard rrive was recognized but now isn't. Anyway here is what I had purchased on December 5th of last year.
> 
> ...


same thing i bought a 3.0 version 7 X +.

Here is a link. WESTERN DIGITAL MY BOOK FOR MAC 2TB USB 2.0 EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE | eBay

It matters not that its for mac. Its for the hopper and the hopper can use it as long as it is 2.0. 65$ free shipping. I have 2 of these. formatted fine.

Good luck getting your storage up and running. Its so nice not to worry about having to delete.


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## Spice Girl (Jan 19, 2018)

Much appreciated.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

529rvlife said:


> But the hoppers have basic in and out only. It is a set chipset that is set from the gate.


I cannot comment the H's OS&HW issue without deep debugging, but the your shot did miss a target - H does running Linux what have enough drivers and settings to serve USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices.


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## 529rvlife (Jan 29, 2018)

P Smith said:


> I cannot comment the H's OS&HW issue without deep debugging, but the your shot did miss a target - H does running Linux what have enough drivers and settings to serve USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices.


No, the hopper doesnt use any software to run the usb ports, or wifi, or access point, that is all dedicated hardware.

I had thought previously this might have been a firmware issue. its not. all the functions of the hopper occur at a base level, save for for the UI and guide. Every basic function for the hopper occurs on an all in one chip made here in the US. The chip is made by broadwell, I will post their link for this tomorrow. My dad is diggin it up, he said he came across it when we were trying to figure out who makes the guts of the hopper some time back.

For spice girl, here are some pics of my setup. Pictured here are 4 2TB 2.0 drives, I played around with a usb hub setup today, what I found was the hopper can only see one drive per port. usb port 2 is the front port and 1 and 3 are the ports on the back of the unit(mine at least) (odd order) anyway, so in order to use more than 3 EHDs one will need to manually change out the drive to the desired unit when ready to do so. Not to bad of a compromise really.































oh yeah, its pretty neat all the hoppers can see each other on the home network, all the wireless joeys can see all of the EHD's on every connected hopper on the home network as well. its a way cool setup. I am very happy with it. love dish programming, so really, its just a bit of elbow grease on the part of the user to really get it to shine.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Well, you shouldn't take a burden in tech discussion between your dad and ... say me here.
I'm clearly see your missing knowledge starting from simple thing as the company name - it's Broadcom ! Not going into discussion of HW and Linux "guts" any model of H; at least I can say you - I have knowledge of main chip in all H models.

BTW, you did miss other point - H models, in your place are H2 aka HwS, does run Linux and have USB ports as HW part of main Broadcom chip what does negotiating with USB 3.0 targets and does communicate at USB 2.0 level. I would recommend you check logs.


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## 529rvlife (Jan 29, 2018)

regardless. the fact remains, the hoppers will not work with a backwards compatible drive.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

any dish statement about the problem ?


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