# Weird EHD issue.



## Spike375 (Dec 4, 2005)

I just tried plugging my EHD into my receiver and tried to access it and it said that it was configured for another receiver. It asked to update it for the new receiver. 

The problem is this is the same receiver that I first activated the EHD capability on. 

Any idea why it would be saying this? Is it possible that the receiver's number changed and that's why it thinks its a new receiver? I don't really want to waste 1 of the 3 moves to the same receiver.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Spike375 said:


> I just tried plugging my EHD into my receiver and tried to access it and it said that it was configured for another receiver. It asked to update it for the new receiver.
> 
> The problem is this is the same receiver that I first activated the EHD capability on.
> 
> Any idea why it would be saying this? Is it possible that the receiver's number changed and that's why it thinks its a new receiver? I don't really want to waste 1 of the 3 moves to the same receiver.


If you have a ViP622, all sorts of weird things happen with the EHD. If you don't plan on swapping the EHD between receivers, I would go ahead and accept the update. But, as I stated, the ViP622's are a little unpredictable when it comes to the EHD.


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## Spike375 (Dec 4, 2005)

TulsaOK said:


> If you have a ViP622, all sorts of weird things happen with the EHD. If you don't plan on swapping the EHD between receivers, I would go ahead and accept the update. But, as I stated, the ViP622's are a little unpredictable when it comes to the EHD.


Yes I do have a ViP622, I forgot to mention that. I may try reseting the receiver first, but i may have to accept the update.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

If you still get that and are still concerned with using up one of your moves and want to 'reset' then you could do the following ... Transfer everything back to your 622 (assuming you have the room), reformat the hard drive (I would plug it into a computer and repartition it for that OS and then move it back to the 622), and then transfer the content back to the 622.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Rob Glasser said:


> If you still get that and are still concerned with using up one of your moves and want to 'reset' then you could do the following ... Transfer everything back to your 622 (assuming you have the room), reformat the hard drive (I would plug it into a computer and repartition it for that OS and then move it back to the 622), and then transfer the content back to the 622.


I believe once you reach three swaps, there's an automatic reformat. I thought my drive was corrupt and wanted the receiver to reformat it, but it never offered. I must have swapped five or six times (it was not empty). My computer wouldn't recognize the drive either.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

TulsaOK said:


> I believe once you reach three swaps, there's an automatic reformat.


Correct, but Spike375 was concerned about using up one of his 3 'swaps' when in reality he was not moving to a new receiver. I was explaining the only way, I'm aware of, to reset that counter, which is to reformat the drive.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Rob Glasser said:


> Correct, but Spike375 was concerned about using up one of his 3 'swaps' when in reality he was not moving to a new receiver. I was explaining the only way, I'm aware of, to reset that counter, which is to reformat the drive.


As I stated earlier, if there is only one receiver in the equation, it shouldn't hurt to use up one of the three swaps. Hopefully, Dish will make good on their intent to give us an "account key" so we can swap as many times as we want.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

TulsaOK said:


> As I stated earlier, if there is only one receiver in the equation, it shouldn't hurt to use up one of the three swaps. Hopefully, Dish will make good on their intent to give us an "account key" so we can swap as many times as we want.


Right, it shouldn't, but again I was giving him an option if he is concerned with that 1 swap being recorded.

i.e. if it was me and my hard drive was mostly empty and I had the room I would do this process now, to make sure I still had my 3 swaps available. Minimizing the risk of getting burned potentially down the road when you may get a replacement receiver or 2 or upgrade or who knows. If my 622 internal drive was full or my external drive was too full to move back to my 622 then I probably wouldn't bother at this point.


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## Spike375 (Dec 4, 2005)

I ended up trying to do both a soft and hard reset, but neither worked. I had to accept the update because it's too much too move back to the internal.

Still seem to be having problems with it though. I seem to be having the same problem that was posted in another thread where If I try to play a movie from the EHD it stops 20 mins in like the movie ended. It also skips every few minutes during playback of a movie. 

It also doesn't see all of the events on the EHD after the first time I access it after plugging it in. Could it have anything to do with the EHD going into automatic sleep mode?

I don't know if I should try to trade it in for a new receiver or wait for a new firmware to possibly fix it.

This is just about the only problem I've had with the receiver since I got it about 2 years ago.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Spike375 said:


> I ended up trying to do both a soft and hard reset, but neither worked. I had to accept the update because it's too much too move back to the internal.
> 
> Still seem to be having problems with it though. I seem to be having the same problem that was posted in another thread where If I try to play a movie from the EHD it stops 20 mins in like the movie ended. It also skips every few minutes during playback of a movie.
> 
> ...


It's firmware version L4.49 that's causing the problem. Many of us here have the same exact problem.


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## RASCAL01 (Aug 2, 2006)

I had the same message come up. I excepted it and went into the EHD then I went back out and tried to go back in and the same message came up again. Stating that the EHD is not configured with this receiver, but the EHD has never been moved or unpluged. This is a problem with 4.49

I also has my recording locked and all of the favorites had all of the chanels in them. It has been a real pain to fix these problem.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Spike375 said:


> I just tried plugging my EHD into my receiver and tried to access it and it said that it was configured for another receiver. It asked to update it for the new receiver.
> 
> The problem is this is the same receiver that I first activated the EHD capability on.
> 
> Any idea why it would be saying this? Is it possible that the receiver's number changed and that's why it thinks its a new receiver? I don't really want to waste 1 of the 3 moves to the same receiver.


The same thing just happened to me today with one of my two EHD's on my 722. I just groaned and accepted the "update." No way I can move the 80+ movies back.

The other hard drive was on the system over night. When I put it back on, it worked fine. But I haven't checked either in terms of playback.

When I'm "annoyed" enough at Dish over the "box advantages that don't work reliably" and the "no-HD" issues, I'll have two nice backup drives for our computers.


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## BrianG (Jul 9, 2006)

phrelin said:


> The same thing just happened to me today with one of my two EHD's on my 722. I just groaned and accepted the "update." No way I can move the 80+ movies back.
> 
> The other hard drive was on the system over night. When I put it back on, it worked fine. But I haven't checked either in terms of playback.
> 
> When I'm "annoyed" enough at Dish over the "box advantages that don't work reliably" and the "no-HD" issues, I'll have two nice backup drives for our computers.


The same thing happened to me. ViP-622 with one, and only one, EHD (Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 GB). If I use up one of my 3, and this happens 2 more times then I lose a lot of saved material. The EHD is the only thing that has kept me from jumping ship over other issues such as the lack of some National HD channels. I am very quickly losing my patience with Dish.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

BrianG said:


> The same thing happened to me. ViP-622 with one, and only one, EHD (Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 GB). If I use up one of my 3, and this happens 2 more times then I lose a lot of saved material. The EHD is the only thing that has kept me from jumping ship over other issues such as the lack of some National HD channels. I am very quickly losing my patience with Dish.


Dish has stated that the Seagate FreeAgent is a problem with the ViP622. What they don't state is that there is a problem with firmware release L4.49 and a few of the model ViP622 receivers with all the external hard drives.


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## SamSony (Mar 19, 2007)

I'm having the same problem with my ViP622, but with 11 external hard drives. Some of them is Maxtor, some are Western Digital and some are Seagate. The total is more than 6 terra bytes. So copying them all back to the internal drive and reformating the EHD's is not going to be a cure for me. Hopefully Dish will a have fix before my three transfers are used up.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

TulsaOK said:


> Dish has stated that the Seagate FreeAgent is a problem with the ViP622. What they don't state is that there is a problem with firmware release L4.49 and a few of the model ViP622 receivers with all the external hard drives.


Sorry, I cut off my signature. As you can see I have a 722 with two Western Digital MyBook Essential 750GB Hard Drives. This is pretty much the WD drive that has been successful with both the 622 and 722. It doesn't surprise me that this problem occurs. The drives are removable, connected via USB to a computer that gets rebooted remotely, and the firmware and software have to guarentee digital rights management. Combine that with the idea that you should be able to use most any drive in a USB case, and you have a recipe for intermittant system gitches. And because it is my option and my hardware, how can I blame Dish?

After all Dish has so much else going for them these days, why worry about the reliability of the little extras their ViP series has to offer. Of course, their competitor had to recall their latest box release.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

phrelin said:


> And because it is my option and my hardware, how can I blame Dish?


You can blame Dish for the "gotcha" in L4.49 that renders the external hard drive option useless on certain hardware configurations on the ViP622. I know they are looking into the problem but it seems to me that they should have isolated it by now. I believe that since it doesn't affect *every* ViP622, they aren't too serious about fixing it. I remember someone posted that they had sent their receiver to tech support so they could analyze it. They should be able to check the production run and tell how many ViP622's are affected and where they are. That is if I'm correct about what's causing the problem. 
IMO, Dish ignores problems that affect a small percentage of the users. I see no solution to the EHD problem anytime soon, if ever. If the users gets frustrated enough, there's an upgrade path. 
:rant:


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## baronsteffan (Jan 13, 2006)

RASCAL01 said:


> I had the same message come up. I excepted it and went into the EHD then I went back out and tried to go back in and the same message came up again. Stating that the EHD is not configured with this receiver, but the EHD has never been moved or unpluged. This is a problem with 4.49
> 
> I also has my recording locked and all of the favorites had all of the chanels in them. It has been a real pain to fix these problem.


I just got bit by this last night. I have two drives (Seagate 500GB Free Agent), and one of them is now doing the "not authorized" message. 5 calls to Dish, 3 dropped calls to Dish accomplished worst than nothing. I only have one receiver, the 622 has not failed (unlike the 3 prior 522's), the drives have only been on this system.

I got the first message - "Not authorized, press OK to continue", so I call Dish Tech Support. After two dropped calls I actually got to somebody which 1/2 a clue, who convinced me to press OK. That got me into the USB menu, so I said OK and hung up.

When I tried to copy files from the DVR to the DISK I got a "Not Authorized, format required, Press OK to continue (msg #866)". Called back, got a complete bozo, after 20 minutes finally got a little info - saying that I had hit my 3 swap limit and the only option was to reformat the drive. And that is where it lies. 400 GB worth of movies trapped on a drive that I can't access.

Another hour on the phone provided no new insights. I would have been better off surfing the net from the beginning, which I did this morning and found this thread. I might have been able to read the programs back on the the DVR and write them to a different external drive.

I'm going to leave the drive alone for a while and see if Dish actually fixes the problem.

Needless to say I'm pissed. And more than a little concerned about the data on my other external drive.


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## SamSony (Mar 19, 2007)

I just got off the phone with a service rep. at dish and he turned in a customer service problem to engineering. He also said that if more customers would call in complaining about the EHD reauthorizing problem, the more likely engineering is to do something about it.


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## Sandman (Sep 23, 2002)

Go to diagnostics, counters, look at the household key, there are numbers there where before it was all zeros, if you have 2 receivers 622/722 check the household key on both, they should be the same, this may be the start of swapping and eliminating the 3 swap limit

Bob


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## SamSony (Mar 19, 2007)

I have only one receiver that I'm using and the household key does have numbers now enstead of all zeros. I got the reauthorization alert again this morning, but this time I did a hard reboot by holding in the power button for about 15 seconds. After it rebooted everything was OK. NO REAUTHORIZATION ALERTS. All EHDs are working fine.


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## Everlast (Apr 14, 2008)

I encountered this problem with my 722 today after having powered on my WD EDD for the first time in a week. Contacted customer service - but they offered that same canned answers.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Everlast said:


> I encountered this problem with my 722 today after having powered on my WD EDD for the first time in a week. Contacted customer service - but they offered that same canned answers.


Do you power down your EHD when you're not using it?


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## amoswr (Apr 9, 2008)

Mine is acting funny too. I got a replacement for my 622 last week, and borrowed a friends EHD to remove my recordings before it shipped out When the new one arrived, I took the EHD and moved my movies over to the new DVR. I then hooked up a new EHD (WD 750gb My Essentials), formatted it, and transferred the movies from the DVR onto it. Tada, no problem.....we have watched three of the old movies over the weekend with no problems! Today, my wife tries to move some weekend recordings onto the EHD, and there is an error message stating that the EHD only works with one receiver, and that if I want to make this EHD work I would need to reformat and lose all data! Thing is, I have not moved it off the receiver since last week when first installed! No swaps have taken place, and since the EHD is connected to the box it has never shut off (except maybe for the reboots that happen at 3 am). Is this a software issue as well, and am I SOL on my recordings?


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

amoswr said:


> Mine is acting funny too. I got a replacement for my 622 last week, and borrowed a friends EHD to remove my recordings before it shipped out When the new one arrived, I took the EHD and moved my movies over to the new DVR. I then hooked up a new EHD (WD 750gb My Essentials), formatted it, and transferred the movies from the DVR onto it. Tada, no problem.....we have watched three of the old movies over the weekend with no problems! Today, my wife tries to move some weekend recordings onto the EHD, and there is an error message stating that the EHD only works with one receiver, and that if I want to make this EHD work I would need to reformat and lose all data! Thing is, I have not moved it off the receiver since last week when first installed! No swaps have taken place, and since the EHD is connected to the box it has never shut off (except maybe for the reboots that happen at 3 am). Is this a software issue as well, and am I SOL on my recordings?


This is apparently a problem that just started happening according to the posts I've read. AFAIK, there have been no updates since L4.49 and that started spooling on February 21st. These EHD problems with the ViP622's just keeps getting stranger and stranger.


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## Everlast (Apr 14, 2008)

TulsaOK said:


> Do you power down your EHD when you're not using it?


Yes. I don't access the drive too frequently. I mainly use it to offload shows / movies I want to save for later viewing. So I simply unplug the power from the drive when not in use. Keeps the heat and electricity consumption down.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Everlast said:


> Yes. I don't access the drive too frequently. I mainly use it to offload shows / movies I want to save for later viewing. So I simply unplug the power from the drive when not in use. Keeps the heat and electricity consumption down.


I'm wondering if powering the EHD up and the receiver discovering it, may be confusing things. Just a thought. I don't really understand all the people just now reporting this particular problem since there haven't been any updates lately.


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## hejohnmeyer3 (Apr 15, 2008)

I've also had the same issue where, out of nowhere, the message #788 has popped up asking if I want to configure my EHD for the new receiver. I've had the EHD plugged in for 5+ months and have NEVER unhooked it from my ViP622. (It is a Seagate, so anytime I've wanted to access it, I've had to reboot my ViP622 in order to wake it up (even since the L4.49 update); but, other than that, it's worked fine.)
My question is: if I hit "Yes", and accept the update, will it reformat my EHD and erase my archived recordings? The answer I received from customer service is "maybe". I was hoping that I could get better clarification than that.
(I checked the Household Key seq num, and it no longer contains all zeros. My guess is that this is the reason that the DVR no longer recognizes the hard drive.)
If anyone can answer my question, (or has an alternate solution), I'd appreciate it.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Sandman said:


> Go to diagnostics, counters, look at the household key, there are numbers there where before it was all zeros, if you have 2 receivers 622/722 check the household key on both, they should be the same, this may be the start of swapping and eliminating the 3 swap limit
> 
> Bob


Thanks for the observation. I don't look at the counters very often, but I did and lo and behold a household key. Since I have two EHDs and I keep one hooked up and on most of the time, it is logical that the hooked up one didn't require reauthorizing but when I reattached the other one I got that message.


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## amoswr (Apr 9, 2008)

hejohnmeyer3 said:


> I've also had the same issue where, out of nowhere, the message #788 has popped up asking if I want to configure my EHD for the new receiver. I've had the EHD plugged in for 5+ months and have NEVER unhooked it from my ViP622. (It is a Seagate, so anytime I've wanted to access it, I've had to reboot my ViP622 in order to wake it up (even since the L4.49 update); but, other than that, it's worked fine.)
> My question is: if I hit "Yes", and accept the update, will it reformat my EHD and erase my archived recordings? The answer I received from customer service is "maybe". I was hoping that I could get better clarification than that.
> (I checked the Household Key seq num, and it no longer contains all zeros. My guess is that this is the reason that the DVR no longer recognizes the hard drive.)
> If anyone can answer my question, (or has an alternate solution), I'd appreciate it.


Same thing is happening to me, but it has only been a week or so since I hooked up my new EHD. I haven't unhooked it, or powered it down, but now I'm getting message #866 that says the EHD is configured to another receiver, and if I want to use it on this receiver I need to reformat and erase all archived events. I tried a soft reboot last night (didn't have much time to troubleshoot much) and it did not fix the problem. I am having a replacement receiver put in today, so I am just going to hold my breath that when I hook my EHD up to it that it will just say I need to allow this receiver access to the EHD......much as it did last week when I received my new POS refurb! Keep in mind that the EHD is used last week was a friends, so once I dumped it's contents back to the DVR, I bought a new EHD....formatted it....and dumped it back onto it.


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## BrianG (Jul 9, 2006)

TulsaOK said:


> This is apparently a problem that just started happening according to the posts I've read. AFAIK, there have been no updates since L4.49 and that started spooling on February 21st. These EHD problems with the ViP622's just keeps getting stranger and stranger.


So maybe the bug is in L4.49 but the trigger is something else that has since been updated in the receiver, such as the household key. Or as someone else suggested, maybe this only affects users who regularly turn their EHDs off. I only use mine once a week to archive programming that I don't have time to watch, so I keep it powered off most of the time.

BTW, both of my 622's (each with their own EHD that have never been swapped between 622's) have this problem. Both have household keys. I will not attempt to recover either EHD until I get more information (or get desperate for material stored on them).


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

BrianG said:


> So maybe the bug is in L4.49 but the trigger is something else that has since been updated in the receiver, such as the household key. Or as someone else suggested, maybe this only affects users who regularly turn their EHDs off. I only use mine once a week to archive programming that I don't have time to watch, so I keep it powered off most of the time.
> 
> BTW, both of my 622's (each with their own EHD that have never been swapped between 622's) have this problem. Both have household keys. I will not attempt to recover either EHD until I get more information (or get desperate for material stored on them).


Are your Household keys the same on each receiver?


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## hejohnmeyer3 (Apr 15, 2008)

hejohnmeyer3 said:


> I've also had the same issue where, out of nowhere, the message #788 has popped up asking if I want to configure my EHD for the new receiver. I've had the EHD plugged in for 5+ months and have NEVER unhooked it from my ViP622. (It is a Seagate, so anytime I've wanted to access it, I've had to reboot my ViP622 in order to wake it up (even since the L4.49 update); but, other than that, it's worked fine.)
> My question is: if I hit "Yes", and accept the update, will it reformat my EHD and erase my archived recordings? The answer I received from customer service is "maybe". I was hoping that I could get better clarification than that.
> (I checked the Household Key seq num, and it no longer contains all zeros. My guess is that this is the reason that the DVR no longer recognizes the hard drive.)
> If anyone can answer my question, (or has an alternate solution), I'd appreciate it.


So, I did go ahead and hit "Yes" for message #788, and it allowed me access again to my EHD; (with nothing having been deleted). So far, so good. I bet this counts toward one of my three swaps, but since I never disconnect the EHD from the ViP622, I'm not real concerned about that. I just hope it doesn't happen again. (As a small bonus, I didn't even have to reboot to wake up the EHD; which has RARELY ever been the case.)


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Can anyone out there with any combination of two 622/722's tell us if the two have the same household key?


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## BrianG (Jul 9, 2006)

phrelin said:


> Can anyone out there with any combination of two 622/722's tell us if the two have the same household key?


Both of my 622's have the same household key.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

BrianG said:


> Both of my 622's have the same household key.


That's good news. Maybe Dish has implemented the unlimited swap feature. I've received no firmware upgrade; still L4.49. I wonder how they did that.


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## SkipperTW (Jan 23, 2008)

I am also haveing this issue... Had a power failure the other day, now my external HDD is requiring a format... would love to see a fix for this so I don't have to lose all my back up programming...


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

SkipperTW said:


> I am also haveing this issue... Had a power failure the other day, now my external HDD is requiring a format... would love to see a fix for this so I don't have to lose all my back up programming...


Does it specifically require a reformat or just that the EHD is assigned to another receiver?


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## SkipperTW (Jan 23, 2008)

Sorry, yes, it says it is "currently configured for use with another DISH network receiver..." In order for me to use it It must delete all archived events... (And oh yes, Tech support was useless in assisting...


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

SkipperTW said:


> Sorry, yes, it says it is "currently configured for use with another DISH network receiver..." In order for me to use it It must delete all archived events... (And oh yes, Tech support was useless in assisting...


I've heard of the message about configured for another receiver but without the threat of deleting all the archived events. Just wondering if you got the dreaded delete message as well. I think some have posted that it doesn't actually delete all the events on the EHD, but it's probably a crap shoot. I know how my luck would go.  
It sounds like they've made an attempt to start supporting the "Household Key" but didn't do a very good job testing it prior to release.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

BrianG said:


> Both of my 622's have the same household key.


Thanks. Sorry I didn't check for a response sooner. I really appreciate the answer- one step closer to replacing my two 508's with a second 722 or 612.


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## AVJohnnie (Jul 27, 2004)

SkipperTW said:


> Sorry, yes, it says it is "currently configured for use with another DISH network receiver..." In order for me to use it It must delete all archived events... (And oh yes, Tech support was useless in assisting...


I'm curious to know if any of the posters in this thread who have received the "EHD content obliteration warning" message have also experienced either of the L4.49 induced "channel lock-out" or "corrupted favorites lists" issues as well?


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

TulsaOK said:


> That's good news. Maybe Dish has implemented the unlimited swap feature. I've received no firmware upgrade; still L4.49. I wonder how they did that.


I asked this question to Dish and got a confirmation. Customers should now be able to move EHD between receivers on the same account and there is no longer a limit to the number of moves one can make as long as the receivers are on the same account. So it appears Tulas that you are correct in your unlimited swap feature analysis.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Ron Barry said:


> I asked this question to Dish and got a confirmation. Customers should now be able to move EHD between receivers on the same account and there is no longer a limit to the number of moves one can make as long as the receivers are on the same account. So it appears Tulas that you are correct in your unlimited swap feature analysis.


Cool! Thanks for the confirmation.
Too bad for the folks who suddenly had to reformat their EHD's even though they had only had it connected to one receiver.


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## SkipperTW (Jan 23, 2008)

I was kind of waiting to see if anyone came up with a fix on this but got sick of waiting (I needed my external hard drive...) SO, I clicked yes and as I feared the format did kill all my programming from the drive. I hope this don't happen again or I am going to lose it... :grin: :eek2: :nono2: :nono:


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## Ray_Schwarz (Jan 22, 2003)

My 722 and 622 have sightly different Household keys (one digit different). Has anyone had any luck getting Dish to make them the same ?


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Ray_Schwarz said:


> My 722 and 622 have sightly different Household keys (one digit different). Has anyone had any luck getting Dish to make them the same ?


I would give Tech Support a call and ask them to "hit" your receivers. Not sure what that means, but others have posted that a "hit" solved their receiver thinking the EHD was assigned to another one.


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## Ray_Schwarz (Jan 22, 2003)

TulsaOK said:


> I would give Tech Support a call and ask them to "hit" your receivers. Not sure what that means, but others have posted that a "hit" solved their receiver thinking the EHD was assigned to another one.


That did it - the CSR had no idea what a Household key was but she knew how
to "hit" my receivers and they now have the same key.

Thanks, Ray


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