522 Hard Drive Failure 5 months

[Rlanham]

My hard drive failed today on my 522, after 5 months.
Anyone have one fail this soon? It has never been bumped, moved etc.

Some of the threads on the 501's say it is the way Dish indexes their hard drives, that causes the fail prematurely?

I had a TIVO for 3 years before I switched to dish, never had an issue.

I hope this is not an omen of things to come. Good thing I opted for the digital home plan, I guess.

 

[Hall]

It's just using a standard hard drive. People have them DOA, others die in a week, some in a few months, some could outlive the usefulness of the receiver. It's called the luck of the draw... I wouldn't read anymore into it than that.

 

[Bizzach]

Yep, hall is right. All moving parts will fail at one point or another. Since Dish doesn't have any sort of 'defrag' tool, that could cause it to go out prematurely, but that shouldn't cause it to die after only 5 months.
The first one I got was DOA... like he said, luck of the draw! Just send it back to Dish and get another one...

 

[marko]

yeah, I had a work hard drive fail. Crap like that just happens. Now if the second one fails.....

 

[Stargazer]

This is one advantage of upgrading your receivers every so often to the latest and greatest, you can avoid the expense of repair on down the line although you have the cost of the new receiver compared to the cost of what you get out of your used receiver.

I would hope that the life of the hard drive in these DVR receivers we are using right now would be longer than what we would expect to use them seeing how the advances in technology would make many of us want to upgrade or have to.

 

[Hall]

If you go to Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, and so on websites, you'll find their "MTBF" estimates or service life. I just checked quickly at Seagate and they say 5 years. Now, did they pull that number out of their a** ?? No... They tested and what-not and this is surely an accurate *statistical* number. Are there exceptions ?? Yeap .... some will live shorter lives while others will live longer lives.

 

[Wishbone]

Can you still tune channels when the hard drive is down? The reason why I'm asking is because the 522 is a mini computer that needs to "boot-up" (presumably from the hard drive) before being used...

 

[Rlanham]

Yes, I can still get all Dish channels, but no DVR functions.
When you do a hard reset, you get "hard drive failure" 0408 contact dish network for a replacment. After you hit ok, it goes to the programming. Try and bring up DVR & you get this function is not available at this time.

It is just gets a little disgusting when you are paying $90/month, & have had to work with the bugs of the 811HD also a refurb after having to send it in to be replaced after 2 months, and then have my 522 go out within 5 months. I guess I should just be happy in my case that I opted for the DHP.

 

[boba]

Dish has had a History of Hard Drive failures since the 501. Your problem dosen't sound like a Hard Drive failure seeing the program is written to the HD then read before it is displayed. All hard drive failures I have been associated with on DISH receivers has been a total loss of use of the receiver. But seeing you are on DHA they will replace it free except for any service call needed. Have you tried unplugging from the AC power for a ten count? That worked on my 501 when it displayed the Hard Drive failure message, I've been using it for three months since it displayed that message.

 

[Rlanham]

Yes, I tried that after reading in the DVR forums about 501 HD failures.

 

[Stargazer]

I have had a hard drive failure once (in a 501) and it still allowed me to view the programming but not allow me to use the DVR functionality.

 

[maximum]

Since you're leasing the 522, Dish should replace it even if you don't have DHP.

 

[RBBrittain]

Since you're leasing the 522, Dish should replace it even if you don't have DHP.

DHP (Digital Home Plan) is the *old* leasing plan, before DHA came along; you're confusing it with Dish Protection Plan. (I would reduce that to DPP, but that's the same initials as DishPro Plus. ) You're right; but that's what he was saying too.

My SBC Dish limited warranty (all SBC Dish customers are on DHA) explicitly runs for as long as you're a DHA customer, for both parts and labor. Dish Protection Plan only reduces S&H and service-call costs (which are excluded from the warranty), in addition to the one free DishMover.