# External hard drive folders?



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Hello,

I finally got an external HD to use on the Hopper. It does not have its own power cord but seems to work.

Does anyone know of a way to organize folders on the EHD? There is no option for transferring folders on to it and it's a bit archaic selecting individual recordings to transfer, but somehow this doesn't surprise me with my Dish experience.

I suppose Dish also hasn't added the option for more folders on the on-board hard drive either&#8230;correct?

More folders sure would be nice. Dish creates a system that allows huge DVR storage yet provides only 5 folders for organizing? Seems a bit short sighted but it's what I'm working with.

Also, it looks like there is no way to use the EHD as a backup is there? You know, duplicating what's on the on-board HD in case the Hopper crashes? From everything I have read if you try to use the EHD on another Hopper it wants to re-format. So that tells me even if I had recordings stashed on an EHD and the Hopper failed and needed to be replaced, I could not watch all those recordings once a new Hopper is working. Correct?

Any feedback is appreciated.


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

First get a drive that uses external power. Dish doesn't support USB powered drives and it is very much hit or miss!

And the stuff you transfer to the external drive will be there if you switch Hoppers, that is the biggest plus for how dish supports EHD's.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Yeah... the USB-powered might work for a time... and then fail and then you will be surprised. Just don't risk it... get a self-powered one and don't look back.

The EHD is archive-only... if you truly want recordings in both places, you can do that semi-manually IF you record something, archive it, then can record it again at another time. This obviously only works for programs that come on multiple times.

Last, but not least, receivers (in this case Hoppers) on the same account will view the external hard drive. Sometimes there are glitches and you might have to reset a receiver or call Dish to have them send something to the receiver to re-authorize it... but as long as your account is active, you should be able to replace a failed Hopper and still access your recordings on the replacement receiver.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

I don't think folders have ever been supported on an EHD so it isn't that you're missing something.


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

You should be able to set up Folders by Title or DVR Date on the EHD. I believe that's all you can do.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks Parsons and Stewart. Do you have a recommendation on an EHD you have had good luck with?

I read a thread on these boards where a guy had two homes and was trying to use the EHD to transport recordings with him as he went back and forth. It would not work for him. I wonder if Dish could enable that type of thing?

I ask these questions here because my experience with Dish customer support has not been good. I avoid contacting them like the plague.

Funny, they always want to know my satisfaction with the customer support personnel, but never ask me my satisfaction level with Dish as a company. They keep trying to get me to rope other people in to going to Dish, but never bothered to ask me if I would even recommend Dish&#8230;and with my experience&#8230;I would not unless satellite service was the only thing available as is my case.

Harsh and Thomas,

From what I see, there is no folder option available in the EHD. Thanks for the feedback.

So, anyone know if Dish will ever provide for more folders in the on-board drive? Having so few seems really silly. It's like everything they do is out there in "beta testing" and we are the lab rats. It's not all bad, but for me it seems archaic.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Keniff said:


> So, anyone know if Dish will ever provide for more folders in the on-board drive?


How many would you reasonably need?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Anyone who has two homes should have two accounts... and the EHD can't be shared between different accounts. IF they permitted that, it would be ripe for abuse by people sharing with their friends on different accounts... so don't expect that to ever happen.

I typically use Western Digital EHDs because they are usually cheap and mostly reliable. Others probably have their own favorite brands.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

harsh said:


> How many would you reasonably need?


I would say double? 10-12 would do it. In order to have folders by show type and folders for individuals in the household.

Mom
pop
child
news
movies
sitcoms
cooking
sports
reality
music video

Right off the top of my head. Given time I could certainly organize more categories. Seems like a simple concept to me. Having massive DVR capability and minimal organizational capability is pretty short sighted. Stunningly stupid as far as I'm concerned. We are in 2015 right? The people at Dish have seen "computers" I'm pretty sure.

I realize Dish has some of it's own sorting features, but allowing for more customization and personalization simply makes sense to me.

Thanks


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Anyone who has two homes should have two accounts... and the EHD can't be shared between different accounts. IF they permitted that, it would be ripe for abuse by people sharing with their friends on different accounts... so don't expect that to ever happen.
> 
> I typically use Western Digital EHDs because they are usually cheap and mostly reliable. Others probably have their own favorite brands.


I get it. But if the account is in the same name one would think there could be a way for someone to use their recordings with an EHD on their own seperate accounts. They allow Dish Anywhere...why couldnt they work an EHD situation specifically identified to an account holder.

Thanks for the advice.Western Digital has been around for a long time.

So far it looks like plugging my brand new 2T toshiba in to the Dish box has ruined it. Since it's not advised for me to use a USB powered one with the Hopper, I plugged it in to my computer for use as a backup and windows explorer cant see it. It loaded drivers and you can see it in the device manager but there is no where to access it. $100 down the drain?


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Keniff said:


> So far it looks like plugging my brand new 2T toshiba in to the Dish box has ruined it.


There's probably nothing wrong with the drive. Connecting it as an EHD reformatted it to a filesystem that Windows doesn't recognize (Windows is painfully limited in its ability to recognize deal with non-Microsoft filesystems). You should be able to delete the partitions using the Disk Management snap-in and repartition it with NTFS.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Using Windows - go to Storage manager. You're probably going to have to setup partitions and format them.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

harsh said:


> There's probably nothing wrong with the drive. Connecting it as an EHD reformatted it to a filesystem that Windows doesn't recognize (Windows is painfully limited in its ability to recognize deal with non-Microsoft filesystems). You should be able to delete the partitions using the Disk Management snap-in and repartition it with NTFS.


Thanks Harsh but you went over my head. I'm using Windows 7 Professional and I'm having a hard time learning how to do this. I've gotten in to disk management but I'm lost at that point and afraid to mess something up other than this drive.

I see the drive, I think..and it appears to be listed as "Basic" like the OEM hard drive not "removable". I've been researching this for a coule hours now and havent found anything I'm comfortable completely understanding.

I found this. Does this look right?
go to : storage > disk management
you will see 3 thing :

Disk 0 basic

Disk 1 basic : 1.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition) || 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)

CD-ROM

now go where it say Disk 1 basic ,right click { 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)} than click delete volume

a warning message appear;
the selected partition was not created by windows and might contain data recognized by other operation system.
do you want to delete this partition ?

click yes
now it change the name from primary partition to Unallocated
right click to unallocated click : new simple volume click next >than next > than next > than finish > wait formatting .

unplug you hard drive and try it >than have nice day

>>>>>So when I look at that drive, it appears to have 4 partitions, a 1GB, a 500GB, another 500GB and an 862.02GB. All say "Healthy(primary partition)

Do I need to "delete volume" "and then new simple volume" on all 4?


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

scooper said:


> Using Windows - go to Storage manager. You're probably going to have to setup partitions and format them.


Thanks scooper, any ideas on what I posted above?

All help is much appreciated.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks all. I posted my resolution for saving the EHD from Hopper Formatting in a new topic:

http://www.dbstalk.com/topic/216003-rescue-external-drive-from-hopper-formatting-windows-7/

That's a relief.

It is still disappointing that you cannot have/organize folders on the EHD or use it as a "backup" of the content on the Hopper's on-board drive in case it crashes. But hey, it's better than nothing I guess.

It really kills the main reason I wanted the EHD. I usually maintain only about 50% capacity on the on-board drive so I don't really "need" the extra storage.

What would be awesome is to be able to export stuff to the EHD to take with on a trip and play on a computer or smart TV. Dish allows "Dish Anywhere" but relies on MY internet connection to send the data. I cannot "stream" or use that much data because where I am, cell phone tech is all we have for internet.

I know, I know&#8230;copyright&#8230;piracy&#8230;blah, blah. But I would not do that, so my tech is restricted because other people are criminals. I pay for this service, I want all the flexibility I can squeeze out of it!

I still want more folders on my Hopper though. 5 personalized folders is still shortsighted IMO.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Keniff said:


> It is still disappointing that you cannot have/organize folders on the EHD or use it as a "backup" of the content on the Hopper's on-board drive in case it crashes. But hey, it's better than nothing I guess.


This is one of the side effects of the EHD being portable across all HD DVRs. You can only do what the least of the HD DVRs is capable of.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

Talking folders, I think 10 would be a good number on the internal and external drive. How difficult can that be? It would also be very nice to lock folders so kids couldn't see or play. While some features on Dish hardware are great, the lack of features seems to put Dish in the 8 track era. 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

When you'll be the boss of sw/fw dept and will manage its budget, you'll have the opportunity to implement any of your fantasy. Duh!


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

tcatdbs said:


> Talking folders, I think 10 would be a good number on the internal and external drive. How difficult can that be?


As I said, it could be done just as soon as all DVRs with EHD capability implemented the feature. Moving an EHD to a DVR that didn't have folder capability could cause some undesirable consequences.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Nice. Yep, shut up and deal with the product as packaged. No need to discuss what a customer would like to see for the product and service they are paying for. Customer's opinion doesn’t matter...climb back in to my little box and shut up.

DUH! I realize I have no control over what Dish does except to drop the service as soon as there is something better available. Dish would serve its future well to pay attention to what its customers are saying. I'm sure they do to some point and even read many topic boards like this to see what people are saying.

Any company that takes that attitude is doomed to failure or simply shun its customers like Comcast and not care what its customer service ratings are.

On a positive note Dish did just give me a free pay per view. That’s usually comes right before the letter explaining they will be raising their rates! Problem is I use Netflix. I get as much as I want from them (and I really don’t watch a lot of movies, etc.)...so the pay per view, while a decent gesture to butter me up for the shaft of more price hikes, I really don’t need it. If they could provide their Blockbuster service as pay-per-view instead of gobbling up MY internet data they would have my business there as well...but, they don’t because they have "limitations"...so that’s a box I will stay out of. Their snail mail service was terrible, that’s why I use Netflix…they are spot on, all the time every time, now THAT’S an example of customer service companies should emulate.

Thanks for all the replies,

Cheers


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

It is OK to make suggestions, but you must be realistic.

These EHDs are capable of being used on anything from a Hopper to a 612, so the limiting factor for facilities on the EHD is the capabilities of the 612, which is now 7-8 years old and has been out of production for probably 5 years maybe more.

The problem might be if folders are added to the Hopper EHD, they loose compatibility with older receivers and Dish is not willing to do that.

I use separate hard drives to catalog my saved recordings.

I have a stack of 250/320 and 500GB internal hard drives that I use with hard drive docks on my receivers, the label on the drive is my file folder, and one drive failure (which will and has happened) does not lose me my entire library.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Little patience and any linux distro (on USB bootable stick), after reading posts here how-to, you will organize your EHDs and recordings as books on your shelves. 
Just search for DishArc.


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Jim5506 said:


> It is OK to make suggestions, but you must be realistic.
> 
> These EHDs are capable of being used on anything from a Hopper to a 612, so the limiting factor for facilities on the EHD is the capabilities of the 612, which is now 7-8 years old and has been out of production for probably 5 years maybe more.
> 
> ...


Smart thinking and a simple solution, I also use up my surplus hard drives that way. If DISH keeps obsoleting old DVRs I will get more hard drives.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Jim, what a great achievement in overcoming what I see is oversight with the Hopper. I never considered "other" receivers and I suppose you are saying that a person could revert back to an older receiver and use recordings on an EHD from a newer receiver with the older one?

My ignorance abounds, clearly.

That sounds like a great way to have an organized backup by simply using multiple EHDs as your primary location and each EHD IS the folder or category. I like it. Seems like a heck of a loop to jump for what should be more easily possible but as I said "my ignorance abounds".
Speaking of which&#8230;I have never seen a hard drive dock and can't tell from reading the info on the one you linked to&#8230;how many EHDs can you gang up for use with one hopper receiver?

P Smith&#8230;man you are way over my head. Cheers to you though.

Hey, I was right about that free dish movie they gave me. Just the other day the (what seems annual) notice came they are jacking my bill up $5.

I never use on demand or pay per view, Netflix solves that. I don't have big internet and I'm not paying $5 to rent a movie so being used to NOT using their system, the complimentary movie is nearly worthless to me&#8230;as is the free movie viewings and other junk they try to salve the wound with. I have already seen the vast majority of any of the movies I have any interest in on all those channels.
So, Dish's attempt to make me feel better about regularly jacking my rates up doesn't work. How about NOT jacking my rates up since I've been a customer for over 13 years&#8230;now that would get my attention. "Dear Mr. Keniff, as a longtime customer, we value your business, so instead of giving you a bunch of crap you don't want and won't use, we're going to waive the rate hikes we are jacking up for less loyal customers".

Yea, you're right Jim, I'm "unrealistic". He, he&#8230;

There will come a time when the cost of my service will again be a serious consideration in my budget. When there is a reasonable alternative, they may lose a long time customer. I don't watch the majority of the junk in my package anyway&#8230;when they offer ala carte everything, I will be impressed and probably not mind paying more. Again&#8230; "unrealistic".

In addition they STILL are not providing HD locals for me. A continuing epic fail. And some of my locals are not solid with aerial.

The system IS cool. It's a good thing because it's the only thing that "keeps me hangin' on".


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