# 40+ hours lost on the 522



## JM73 (Aug 3, 2005)

Hello all,

I've looked on this board for a similar thread but I couldn't find one. Pardon me if I missed it.

Last night I hit the "DVR" button and to my shock, the 40+ hours worth of programs I'd recorded were nowhere to be found. The timers were erased as well. I know for a fact no one in the house went through the steps of erasing the programs or timers. I called customer service and within minutes was transferred to tech support.

At first I was told the only way to erase programs on the hard drive is to go through the steps. Well I know that didn't happen but what could I do. After I hung up I scratched my head some more and did a Google search. Being the internet, I found a blog with posts that claimed that same thing had happened to them.

It looked a little suspect so upon further searching I came across DBS Talk. I registered but was not able to post until right now.

So my question: Has this happened to anyone? Have you heard of this happening? DISH tech support told me they would report it to their engineers on some sort of ticket.

All I know is all my stuff is gone. In hindsight I suppose I should have been super careful and taped them on VHS or something but this is just weird. I mean, why would machine erase itself?

Some facts:
* The last time I saw everything was still in place was Aug 1st at 11pm EST because I'd just recorded something.
* There was one timer in place.
* Nothing was "protected"

Thanks everyone.

JM


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

Welcome to Dish's "quality software".

They are flat-out lying (or repeating the lies they were told to repeat).

A few weeks ago I lost all my recordings on my DP - they were there one minute, I surfed a couple of channels, went back to play a program and *poof* all gone.


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## boba (May 23, 2003)

Over the last two years there have been many posts about lost programs on 522 or the software cleaning the hard drive. Remember even on a computer a hard drive is not a permanent storage device, backups are recommended. DISH is much worse than TiVo from Directv at losing stored programs,due to bad software or hard drive failure.


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## JM73 (Aug 3, 2005)

Thanks for your replies. For lack of a better word, it's somehow "comforting" I'm not alone but honestly this is awful.


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## waywoos (Mar 14, 2004)

switch to direct tv
i did and im happy.
had same thing happen to my 501


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

boba said:


> Remember even on a computer a hard drive is not a permanent storage device


Absolutely, but I can't remember the last time my computer wiped a hard drive because of a software error (or a crash). Sure, hard drives can fail, but these types of software bugs are inexcusable.


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

I have yet to lose one recording with Directivo. So it's not a normal thing to have happen.


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## boba (May 23, 2003)

JM73 said:


> Thanks for your replies. For lack of a better word, it's somehow "comforting" I'm not alone but honestly this is awful.


Yes that is why I am now a Directv customer and as a dealer most of my sales are Directv instead of DISH. Some day soon I hope they will learn people want some quality in what they buy.


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## Roger Tee (Feb 22, 2004)

David_Levin said:


> Absolutely, but I can't remember the last time my computer wiped a hard drive because of a software error (or a crash). Sure, hard drives can fail, but these types of software bugs are inexcusable.


Lucky you, I deal with customers that have lost everything due to HD corruption, I can usually get it back, usually not always. But not over the phone and sometimes extra equipment is needed.

Roger


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## Roger Tee (Feb 22, 2004)

mainedish said:


> I have yet to lose one recording with Directivo. So it's not a normal thing to have happen.


Maybe I'm not lucky? But I never lost a recording on a Tivo sometimes they just go funny and are not watchable. I'll explain. My Tivo (SA model) has recorded shows that I watched live and the first part I watched were fine but playing back from the beginning they were unusable... play ok 3 seconds, stutter & skip & Pixelate for several seconds, repeat til end.

Or another time After having to pull the plug to reboot it everytime I tried to watch the recording I just erased it. But yes it still showed up as available so not lost that way. But as slow as Tivo is to reboot (Why I use a UPS) I'd of just as soon it deleted it.

My experiences may not be typical but they are what happened to me. Only time I ever lost programs on a 7100 (Big HD) Dishplayer was when the drive failed, my bad for buying a Maxtor. I lost programs several times with the original release s/w in a 501 and never since.

Anything I really want I burn on a DVD, Pioneer DVD Recorder now previously a Cyberhome or pull the drive and do in the computer.

Pioneer more money but 80Gb HD and easy to edit.

Cheers


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## wwomack (Aug 11, 2005)

I just had this same thing happen to me this morning. I have a 625 DVR that I got last week. I had 53 hours worth of recordings and over 20 timers setup. This morning I turned on the TV and went to start a program and everything was gone. All my programs and all my timers were just wiped out. 

I called Tech support and the lady tried to tell me that it does that from time to time if you don't have them 'protected'. I then asked how to 'protect' all my timers. She then stammered and then mentioned something about locking the system. This wouldn't prevent a system failure (like must have happened). 

Are all of Dish networks tech support people this bad or did I just get a really incompetent one?


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## ColoradoDBS (Jul 5, 2005)

welcome to csr/tsr roulette. there are some very good and very bad support people at dish


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## manicd (Jan 30, 2003)

mainedish said:


> I have yet to lose one recording with Directivo. So it's not a normal thing to have happen.


I have had Dish DVRs (2-501s and 1-510) since the fall of 2001 and have NEVER just lost a program or programs.

Now on the other had, I have had hard disk failures (3 since 2001) for excessive use since I never watch a program with commercials live. I DVR it and then play it back to skip commercials.

My personal experience has been that Dish DVRs are pretty good. I would never go to DirecTV since it is owned by Robert Murdoch's News Corp.


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