# Help with EHD issue



## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

I've had a EHD now for about a year and it's always worked properly on both my receivers....612 and 622. Last night I had to have a "hit" sent to my house to activate some HD channels that I wasn't getting. Anyway not sure if it's related...but today I went to check out some shows on my EHD and it says something to this effect..."the usb device needs to be re-formatted to work with the dvr....." I have a years worth of movies etc! I don't want to re-format!! 
I called Dish at lunch and they told me the "hit" would have no effect on the DVR or EHD but I can't help but wonder...what do ya'll think? Anyway they told me to try soft resets etc....has anyone else experienced this? I really don't want to lose all those programs.....I tried moving the EHD to my other receiver and it says the same re-format error. Thanks.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

ericboutin said:


> I've had a EHD now for about a year and it's always worked properly on both my receivers....612 and 622. Last night I had to have a "hit" sent to my house to activate some HD channels that I wasn't getting. Anyway not sure if it's related...but today I went to check out some shows on my EHD and it says something to this effect..."the usb device needs to be re-formatted to work with the dvr....." I have a years worth of movies etc! I don't want to re-format!!
> I called Dish at lunch and they told me the "hit" would have no effect on the DVR or EHD but I can't help but wonder...what do ya'll think? Anyway they told me to try soft resets etc....has anyone else experienced this? I really don't want to lose all those programs.....I tried moving the EHD to my other receiver and it says the same re-format error. Thanks.


DO NOT Reformat, call back to DISH or better yet try the online chat, the can fix the EHD with a authorization re-hit, while you are online or the phone.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

Thanks Grumpy....unfortunately i just got off the online chat and they were unable to resolve it. We tried resetting...unplugging....reconnecting etc etc. They also sent a new EHD authorization "hit" but to no avail. She agreed that it shouldn't be asking for a re-format but was unable to determine the reason for it. Looks like I'm reformatting unless anyone else has any ideas or experience with this.
Thanks again!


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Do backup of whole folder "DishArc" using PC with Linux; if the request will really reformat EHD and you'll lost recordings, just copy the folder back.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

P Smith said:


> Do backup of whole folder "DishArc" using PC with Linux; if the request will really reformat EHD and you'll lost recordings, just copy the folder back.


I always wanted to know how to move it to different location, for a just in case the EHD failed itself.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

ahh very cool!! I will definately have to see about giving that a try!! Another peculiar thing....I have this dvr connected to my home network. It appears that I can still get to my recordings by using the sling/anywhere feature that dish added to their website. It was originally part of slings website. Anyway i can connect to my dvr online and get to recordings on the ehd. Weird thing is that I can't see all the recordings on the ehd....jjust some of them. Keeps getting weirder....


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

GrumpyBear said:


> I always wanted to know how to move it to different location, for a just in case the EHD failed itself.


It was quickly discovered after EHD came to live. Try to search for the folder name...


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

GrumpyBear said:


> DO NOT Reformat, call back to DISH or better yet try the online chat, the can fix the EHD with a authorization re-hit, while you are online or the phone.


Definitely not necessarily true.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Make sure all your receivers show a household key (not zero). Menu 6,3 counters down a few pages. It should be the same for 2 or less receivers or off by just 4 (hex) for more receivers.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

tnsprin said:


> Make sure all your receivers show a household key (not zero). Menu 6,3 counters down a few pages. It should be the same for 2 or less receivers or off by just 4 (hex) for more receivers.


It's could be true, but if you did clearing of NVRAM, the value will be 0 and EHD still working.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

My EHD (on 722) became unrecognized this morning (or yesterday), I also have had no problems for 1.5 years. I haven't tried anything yet. Not happy that I can't back up drive to a PC, reformat and move data back. Be interesting to see if this happened to others that just haven't noticed yet.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Kent Taylor said:


> Definitely not necessarily true.


No, Do NOT format without working with Dish 1st. DO NOT reformat just becasue the system tells you too.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

P Smith said:


> Do backup of whole folder "DishArc" using PC with Linux; if the request will really reformat EHD and you'll lost recordings, just copy the folder back.





tcatdbs said:


> My EHD (on 722) became unrecognized this morning (or yesterday), I also have had no problems for 1.5 years. I haven't tried anything yet. Not happy that I can't back up drive to a PC, reformat and move data back. Be interesting to see if this happened to others that just haven't noticed yet.


Read P Smith's post about backing up the EHD.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

GrumpyBear said:


> No, Do NOT format without working with Dish 1st. DO NOT reformat just becasue the system tells you too.


I worked with Dish. Still lost 75% of a 1Tb drive.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

OK, tried Dish help... said to try:
1. power HD on/off
2. power 722 on/off with USB disconnected, then connect after reboot.
3. change USB cable

Nothing worked while on the phone, he basically said the HD was screwed.
As a test, I plugged in another 500gb drive (removed a 640gb that was plugged into HD "station"). The 500gb drive reformated, copied a movie, acts normal. So I turned it off, plugged in the 640gb, booted up and got the same message "needs to be reformated". So I unplugged and plugged in the 500gb, and works fine without a reboot and still has the movie. Conclusion: Corrupt 640gb HD.  after only a year. HD temp in 722 129 degrees, so I assume this HD was about the same (or less), shouldn't be too hot to fry it!

Dish sure should come up with a way to save data to computer and move it to a new drive! Even it they somehow came up with a "Cloud" approach, saving data to their servers as a back up. I'd pay an extra $5/mo for a feature like that. Have it back up at night... how hard could that be.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

How'd you save 25%?



Kent Taylor said:


> I worked with Dish. Still lost 75% of a 1Tb drive.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

tcatdbs said:


> How'd you save 25%?


25% of the drive was empty. I managed to save that after the reformat.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

Interesting! Well it looks as though my drive may be screwed also. As I wrote above I worked with Dish to no avail. 
The strange thing like I said is that when I go online I can see my EHD. I can play movies and shows when hitting "play" online. EHD blinks and plays the movies just fine. After I stop a show I can even delete etc shows using the remote. Once I exit though it sends me back to the DVR show list. Anyway I cleaned up a bunch of stuff last night and I can only see approx 500 gb of my 1 tb drive. Hmm interesting....I think what I have here is a 1 tb drive made up of two 500 gb drives. I have a feeling if I reformat I would end up with a 500 gb drive when it's done. I looked inside and it does appear there are two drives side by side. It is a "my book" drive. The real bummer if the above is true is that all the good stuff was on the "other half"! I have access to a laptop with Linux but there isn't enough room on that laptop to save 500 gb on data so I may just reformat and see what happens.......
How much are 1 tb drives going for now? That is always an option too I suppose....


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

Wow, didn't know you could go online and see the EHD, let alone play movies from it. Can you move stuff from EHD to the DVR? If so you (we) may be able to "save" stuff from the EHD. I'm going to go try that right now.

OK, I see the one movie I sent to my EHD, but it's just in the list, doesn't show EHD separately. Doesn't look like you can move shows. Also only has a "watch on TV" mode. Looks like you need a Slingbox for watching on a PC. I'll plug my old EHD in tonight to see if on-line sees it. If it does and let me "play on tv", at least not all is lost. I doubt that will work though.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

Yah I like to mess with my daughters and start movies from downstairs when they are watching upstairs. Freaks em out! 

Anyway I didn't see anywhere where you could move shows. You can only play on TV not on the laptop....true you need sling for that. Like I said I was able to do the normal functions on the EHD as if I had gotten there through MY Media but once you cancel it sends you back to the DVR list.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

Just re-checked online. It lumps the EHD with the DVR hard drive so there is no way to move anything as it just makes one big drive out of the list.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

I just plugged in my HD that wasn't seen by my 722, still isn't seen. Also none of the content is seen on-line. Oh well...

I put my other HD in, and I see the content on it on-line. Guess my old drive (only 1 year old) wrote over the "special" Dish code that allows it to see it. Guess I'll reformat on a PC, don't trust it on the DVR anymore.

Sure wish they made HD DVD recorders to archive this stuff to!


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

tcatdbs said:


> ...
> 
> Sure wish they made HD DVD recorders to archive this stuff to!


The one that you slip an "HD DVD" into?


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## dbrakob (Apr 26, 2006)

ericboutin said:


> Interesting!
> How much are 1 tb drives going for now? That is always an option too I suppose....


Staples is having a great sale (IMO) right now on the Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB. $99! Go to Ebay and for about $2 you can get a $25 coupon. I just picked up one for a total cost of $77.


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

ericboutin said:


> Hmm interesting....I think what I have here is a 1 tb drive made up of two 500 gb drives. I have a feeling if I reformat I would end up with a 500 gb drive when it's done. I looked inside and it does appear there are two drives side by side. It is a "my book" drive. The real bummer if the above is true is that all the good stuff was on the "other half"! I have access to a laptop with Linux but there isn't enough room on that laptop to save 500 gb on data so I may just reformat and see what happens.......
> How much are 1 tb drives going for now? That is always an option too I suppose....


There have been numerous warnings here and other places about trying to use a 'double' hard drive. Only one spindle is allowed or promised to work properly as an external drive for the Dish 622 and 722 DVRs.

The one exception just might be a hardware type RAID drive which could appear to be one spindle but I wouldn't even trust that until someone proved it for me.:grin:


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Don't worry - we had many ppl who POSITIVELY tests HW RAID-0 (span) and HW RAID-1 (mirror) with Dish/DTV DVRs. Some of them goes further and used RAID-5, so far works good for DTV DVR.


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

P Smith said:


> Don't worry - we had many ppl who POSITIVELY tests HW RAID-0 (span) and HW RAID-1 (mirror) with Dish/DTV DVRs. Some of them goes further and used RAID-5, so far works good for DTV DVR.


I can see someone wanting to use HW RAID-1 (mirror) for backup purposes but using span, it would seem to me, might create more danger in losing recordings.:eek2:


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Yes, it could; but using more reliable models like AV or enterprise kind, you could expand usable space while gather better ratio of price/size.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Originally I wondered about the efficacy of getting larger EHD's. The use is to archive TV content, be it movies or programming.

I settled on 750GB MyBook Essential drives to archive about 120 movies at somewhat less than $1 per movie.

The contents can't be backed up routinely (yeah, I know there are "work arounds" using a Linux machine, but I'm thinking in the context of a simple backup system). And I know that the drives will fail eventually which is what started this thread. I also recognize that I must have Dish Network service to even use these things and that it is possible a time will come when they aren't supported or I will lose access to Dish.

All things considered, I was beginning to think I went too large at 750GB. Or maybe I just need to store less on them in the future.


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## DustoMan (Jul 16, 2005)

Add me to the list guys, my EHD went belly up this morning after I soft reset my 722 because I was getting choppy video playback. EHD had been running just fine since the feature was first activated on the DVR. I got at least two years of stuff on my EHD - I don't want to loose it!

EDIT- Just wasted my time with an online chat CSR, no help there. He said that I needed to reformat my drive.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

P Smith said:


> Do backup of whole folder "DishArc" using PC with Linux; if the request will really reformat EHD and you'll lost recordings, just copy the folder back.


For those that are having a problem, have you tried this tip from P Smith? 
I installed a Linux Partion the other day, and backed up all my EHD's as a just incase crap happens moment.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

GrumpyBear said:


> For those that are having a problem, have you tried this tip from P Smith?
> I installed a Linux Partion the other day, and backed up all my EHD's as a just incase crap happens moment.


You might want to give us some information as to how you accomplished that.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Kent Taylor said:


> You might want to give us some information as to how you accomplished that.


On the House computer, I already have a Linux Volume. Not hard to create one if you don't have it, and Linux is easy to get. 
I Don't keep my EHD, connected to the DVR unless I am Archiving or restoring, so I picked up the EHD, off of the computer shelf, pluged it into the House computer, into the USB port and, using Volume Manager, I mounted the EHD, found the only Folder on the EHD, and used cp to copy the folder to the Linux Partion. Looks like I can even copy the EHD folder to my Sun box if I needed too. May try that over the weekend as I prefer my Ultra40 for this kind of stuff.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

GrumpyBear said:


> On the House computer, I already have a Linux Volume. Not hard to create one if you don't have it, and Linux is easy to get.
> I Don't keep my EHD, connected to the DVR unless I am Archiving or restoring, so I picked up the EHD, off of the computer shelf, pluged it into the House computer, into the USB port and, using Volume Manager, I mounted the EHD, found the only Folder on the EHD, and used cp to copy the folder to the Linux Partion. Looks like I can even copy the EHD folder to my Sun box if I needed too. May try that over the weekend as I prefer my Ultra40 for this kind of stuff.


Thanks. You and P Smith have a lot in common.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Sure, especially regarding to my Sun's Ultra10 farm .


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

And have you all copied a volume to a newly formatted (by your ViP) EHD? And used it to watch content?


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

P Smith said:


> Sure, especially regarding to my Sun's Ultra10 farm .


Actually, I was referring to the sarcasm.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

I didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I would place my question here. I just activated the external hard drive feature yesterday, not because I usually save shows or even because I record tons of material, but because the 722 is not as stable as the 622 IMHO. I've already moved a few shows to the external hard drive and watched the rest of them in the DVR listing. I noticed that the DVR listing doesn't display the shows on the hard drive once the non-hard drive shows have been deleted. I'm replacing my 722 today and wondered if there's anything else I need to do?

Will the shows on the EHD automatically be available once I replace the 722 and hook up the EHD?

Thanks for any replies.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

Yes, you should be fine. I noticed once that when there are no recordings on the internal HDD, the EHD folder is not listed either. I reported it to Dish as a problem but they wound up saying that was by design and not a problem. It seems a strange design to me, but whatever. If you make another recording on the internal HDD, the EHD folder should appear again.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

Thanks Chuck!

Edit: Everything seems to have worked out like a charm. I'm keeping the old 722 for a week or so to make sure the new one doesn't have any issues like the old one did. With my luck, the issues won't start until after I ship the old one back.


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## ericboutin (Nov 11, 2007)

Finally success!!  Well I resisted the urge to reformat and I continued trying to find a solution to my problem....well I found this....

http://www.satelliteguys.us/1887854-post1143.html

I followed these instructions and yippee my EHD is back in all it's glory with all my programs!!

I think I would definately try the reset and re-hit etc but if nothing else works I can without a doubt recommend this procedure!! Very cool!! :joy::dance07::icon_da:


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