# Seagate external HDD problems



## cboylan3 (Jan 26, 2004)

My seagate has that ever annoying problem of falling asleep and not waking up. so I have to unplug from USB and replu and it cames back. The other noght we had a power surge where all light flash off then on. The DVR rebooted itself and everything seemed to be ok. Today I went to "My media" to watch something I stored on the external HDD and everything was gone. No messages of any kind, just nothing in the list and the free space listed was the full amount of the HDD. I've tried all the reboots but nothing seems to work? Is all of my recording really all gone? anyone have any ideas?

thanks in advance

chuck


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

I assume by "all the reboots" that included power cord reset and recycling the EHD. Have you attempted to archive anything to the drive? Beyond that, I can't think of anything else you could try.


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## cboylan3 (Jan 26, 2004)

yes, i've done the hard resets on both. I successfully archived something from the dvr. THe ext HDD is working fine, just everything that was on it prior is gone. strange.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

cboylan3 said:


> yes, i've done the hard resets on both. I successfully archived something from the dvr. THe ext HDD is working fine, just everything that was on it prior is gone. strange.


Are you sure they are gone? Dish and many of the Seagate drives do not work well together unless you first get the Seagate to never sleep(using a PC and seagate tools). When Dish looks at it after that all sorts of strange things can be reported. It may not be able to use the drive, or it may see only some of the files. sometimes it will be able to play the files it sees and still not see the other programs on the drive.

Usually if you disconnect the drive, wait a bit and than reconnect it, you will get access to everything at least for awhile (i.e., until it sleeps again) to all its contents.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

You did not lose anything. The 622 or 722 is just blind to the file list. This happens because the Seagate does not wake up properly on demand from the 622/722.

I can restore my Seagate's file list by unplugging the USB from the back of the 622, wait for the message that the device was unplugged, click OK, plug the USB back in, then wait for the message that a device was plugged in and say yes to "do you want to manage your media device".

I have to do this every time I want to access my Seagate EHD after the 622 was in standby mode. 

In a worse-case scenario I plugged the Seagate into my PC's USB port. This woke it up, I then immediately unplugged it from the PC and connected it to the 622. 

I keep the Seagate plugged in to the 622 all the time now. I tried keeping the EHD off for a time and this only made matters worse (that required the PC intervention to get it recognized).


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

The OP indicated that he had successfully archived to the EHD. That sounds like it's awake to me. I hope you're right.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Kent Taylor said:


> The OP indicated that he had successfully archived to the EHD. That sounds like it's awake to me. I hope you're right.


I have been able to archive after it sleeps and still not able to see other files. Its really flakey to use if you don't get it to wake up completely. So before using I always plug it back in and I unplug it after use. I did try running my seagate with the sleep timer disabled, but the thing gets really hot.


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## Henry (Nov 15, 2007)

My Seagate 750 sometimes does that. I'll select My Media and see nothing on the recorded list. I've always been able to restore the list by re-booting the EHD ... sometimes the EHD _and_ the 622. In all cases, the re-boot was power-related (I've never tried removing the USB cable from the EHD).


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## StandaVlna (May 17, 2006)

I have the Seagate 1T external HD for a couple of month now. Suddenly my 722 does not recognize the connection. A window comes up saying that there is no multimedia device connected to USB port. Tried soft and hard reboot and unplugging cables but nothing seems to work. Does anybody have a remedy for my problem? Thank you.


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## epokopac (Aug 8, 2007)

StandaVlna said:


> I have the Seagate 1T external HD for a couple of month now. Suddenly my 722 does not recognize the connection. A window comes up saying that there is no multimedia device connected to USB port. Tried soft and hard reboot and unplugging cables but nothing seems to work. Does anybody have a remedy for my problem? Thank you.


I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen to me after only 3 months with a 500 GB Showcase. Plug a thumbdrive (flashdrive) with some pictures on it into the USB port (try both ports). If the receiver recognizes the flashdrive, then it's most likely a corrupted EHD. 

My results from my testing:

The thumbdrive WAS detected by my 622! As luck would have it, a neighbor had a new 722k installed on Saturday and was nice enough to let me test my EHD. His NEW box does NOT see the EHD as well. Looks like I'll be calling Seagate on Monday. Sure hope they can preserve the shows that are already on it. I wonder what happened within the EHD after only 3 months use.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

If you have a friend who knows linux, recordings can be copied to the new drive after it's formatted by the receiver (it's a full folder copy).


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## StandaVlna (May 17, 2006)

epokopac said:


> I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen to me after only 3 months with a 500 GB Showcase. Plug a thumbdrive (flashdrive) with some pictures on it into the USB port (try both ports). If the receiver recognizes the flashdrive, then it's most likely a corrupted EHD.
> 
> My results from my testing:
> 
> The thumbdrive WAS detected by my 622! As luck would have it, a neighbor had a new 722k installed on Saturday and was nice enough to let me test my EHD. His NEW box does NOT see the EHD as well. Looks like I'll be calling Seagate on Monday. Sure hope they can preserve the shows that are already on it. I wonder what happened within the EHD after only 3 months use.


epokopac thanks for your suggestion. I tried it but the EHD is still not working. I called Dish tech support and was told they know about the problem and their engineering dpt is working on it. First time I called about it was a couple of month ago. I guess it is not a priority to fix this issue. There is no remedy to it right now. I also called Seagate. I was told that they are getting a lot of calls about it as well. Their point of view is that there is nothing wrong with the hard drive itself. They set that Dish did some kind of upgrade and that is what is causing the problem. The Seagate EHD is the only one Dish is recommending on their web side. That is why I bought it. It works only with Dish receivers. I cannot use it with my computer. Can anyone direct me to how to email Charlie Ergen? My frustration is running high!


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