defrag DISH EHD

[TheKrell]

Running it in their Raid 5 configuration and it's been rock solid for two years.

I have had two accidents with Raid 5 volumes and lost everything. First, I was confused about the fault indicator lights and pulled out the wrong drive! Then, later on with a different enclosure, I was pulling out the correct (defective) drive, and it jiggled the good disk next to it. Lost everything there as well. Since those two sorry experiences, I now go exclusively with Raid 6. Just sayin'.

 

[navychop]

I understand you can frag it pretty good with a sledge.

 

[n0qcu]

My misinformation comes from DVR's given to me from people who were bilked into telemarketing strategies that turned into bait and switch and a Tony Soprano 'eff you, pay me' after the new wears off and the bills go up.
Yeah!
So in fact tearing them down to salvage drives in them plugged into a PC delivers what the web is flooded with. "Why doesn't the hard drive I took out of my DN DVR work in my pc?" Google that one.
Power Up In Standby, using HDAT2 bootable media to flip the bit, and enable the drive to spin up when powered on.
Been there, done that. Still am. It's good stuff. Stuff that in a pipe and bernz-o-matic it.

You almost get it.
You’re right it won’t spin up in a PC but the DISH receiver gives it the necessary command so it spins up and it stays spinning as long as the receiver has power..

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

Used my Ubuntu 20.04LTS 64bit Linux box and a 256GB NTFS USB3.0 thumb drive to copy everything from the "2.0GB Volume" partition and the "EHD" partition as a backup just in case (the three (3) empty 'software_downloads', 'mm_tmp' and 'echo_conversion' directories couldn't be copied). Deleted a LOT of older SD and HD recordings beforehand to get the copy down to fit. Guess I will just wait for the next step in my VIP211 / USB-EHD lifecycle... and keep on burning movies I want to keep onto DVD+RW's... Gotta HUGE library by now ;-)

Roger on the EHD continuous spin-up - even when the VIP211 has been off all night and had no recording to do, you can see the little lights flickering from time to time still... I started just cutting the power to all of it for a few hours when I have no upcoming recording for it to do - let it cool down.

 

[Jim5506]

It may be that the EHD on a 211 spins continuously because it contains the OS and even in standby it buffers the current station, but the EHD on my H3 does not spin continuously. I just checked it and it is at room temperature because I haven't accessed it recently. It is a WD 1TB drive in a Thermaltake BlacX dock. When I try to access it I get a message that it is spining up the drive - please wait and three or four seconds later it is alive.

 

[JosephB]

Noticing that the only HD Satellite recordings triggering the 're-boots' seem to be only those recorded recently (say, for the last month)...
...older HD Satellite recordings (say, from months ago) play w/no problem - no pixelating, no re-booting, etc.
BTW - When the affected HD Satellite recordings trip, after re-boot the resume location is where it was when the HD Satellite recording was when it was previously started, not where the HD Satellite recording was when it was playing when the re-boot happens... wild?

A lot of us are still wondering why you think this behavior is caused by excessive fragmentation on the hard disk

 

[bookworm370]

It may be that the EHD on a 211 spins continuously because it contains the OS and even in standby it buffers the current station, but the EHD on my H3 does not spin continuously. I just checked it and it is at room temperature because I haven't accessed it recently. It is a WD 1TB drive in a Thermaltake BlacX dock. When I try to access it I get a message that it is spining up the drive - please wait and three or four seconds later it is alive.

The internal Hard Drive (it's not an EHD as it's not external) spins constantly because the Hopper and Joeys (picture sent from the Hopper) do not display the video and channel being received directly. It's first recorded to the internal hard drive then reread to be displayed on the HDMI and Component ports and also sent to down the MOCA network to any Joeys on the network.

Wether or not you have you TV on or off, the Hopper doesn't care. Unless you power it off, it is always receiving some signal from the satellites and recording them. Also it receives 'spooled' data all the time including guide updates, software updates and interrogations. So the internal drive never stops unless you power it off. It's specially made for continuous operations and, in fact, constant powering off and on can cause a premature failure. The grease in the bearings liquefies and acts as a fluid lubricant. If you power it down, if it's older, the grease can congeal and freeze up on startup causing a head crash as they move from their park position if the disk is not up to speed or not spin up at all!

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

Now just powering off the VIP211 EHD for a few hours almost daily... let the dang thing degauss or whatever is messing with it... Noticed the problem seem to have started around the time I had the dish and receiver relocated from my motorhome it had been on since 2010, to an out building on the property a couple of months ago. I mentioned to the CABLE GUY (satellite guy?) who got $150 to move it (overpaid clowns!) that he didn't ground the dish, and was told it was not necessary. The 23' motorhome is aluminum skin and is grounded to a 6' copper coated ground rod pounded into the ground (yep, I'm a HAM... Extra Class - ground rod done for my amateur radio antennas on the motorhome). I'm gonna run a 10 gauge wire from the dish mount to the other ground rod that the out building uses in next few days ;-)

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

Got an 'Error Code 05' on a recording I had deleted, but upon last power-up suddenly the recording was back on the recording list for some reason, but not playable. Deleted it again and it never 'came back'... just weirdness all over the place - probably not fragmentation, but maybe gremlins?

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

Yesterday, watching a live HD satellite video (not recording...) using 'pause live TV', and doing fine until I FF thru the last set of commercials and dropped into live - suddenly the re-boot gets triggered.

Anyway, just got off the ladder running a 10 ga. ground wire from ground screw on bottom of the dish mounting bracket, to a buried 6' copper jacketed ground rod. KG4YUU clear.

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

RECAP:

Probably not bad sectors on the USB EHD HD as OTA HD video/recordings and all SD recording also being wrote in these same sectors w/o any issues - only satellite HD recorded and HD pause live tv seem to trigger re-boots...

Probably not defragging issue, but not totally impossible and still may be the culprit...

Possibly not the VIP211 as I can go days w/no re-boots, watching live and recorded satellite HD, even pause live HD satellite... but will occasionally trigger the re-boot - just not frequently. May be a DISH software problem for the VIP211...

Perhaps the new grounding will help, and shunting power to the VIP211 and EHD for hours at a time occasionally may be helping avoid the stress or whatever is tripping the re-boots ;-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

...Perhaps the new grounding will help,...

NOT going to believe this, but directly after grounding the satellite dish to the 6' copper clad ground rod, all this goofiness just went away!
Now recording HD Satellite, while also recording HD OTA, and watching an HD recording at the same time w/o ANY glitches, reboots, or corruptions.... who knew?!?

 

[bookworm370]

Yeah, and I had a Dish Installer refuse to install a ground rod to my Dish which is on the peak of my enclosed porch! I wouldn't have it so I bought out my own sledge hammer and started pounding while making him run the ground wire. Even though it might have solved your EHD and viewing issue, it would be a whole lot more expensive to get a lightning hit and start the roof on fire!

Glad to hear all is fixed.

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

...start the roof on fire!

Glad to hear all is fixed.

... and me being a retired/disabled deputy State Fire Marshal. too!

Anyway, also as an Extra Class Amateur Radio (HAM) FCC licensed operator, grounding is so important not just for lightening protection (like using a switcher to ground all antennas when not in use), but for dealing with transient currents and other gremlins, heh, heh...

 

[bookworm370]

... and me being a retired/disabled deputy State Fire Marshal. too!

Anyway, also as an Extra Class Amateur Radio (HAM) FCC licensed operator, grounding is so important not just for lightening protection (like using a switcher to ground all antennas when not in use), but for dealing with transient currents and other gremlins, heh, heh...

Not to mention your linear amp that dims the lights in the house as you key the mic and talk!

Ever heard of a Turner +3?

 

[BlackstoneStarShip]

The recording and playback of OTA HD most suggests that it's the 211

UPDATE: Bought a new EHD and hooked it up and it did a bit better, but still had this reboot issue occasionally... just had to redo all my programming schedule stuff and all the search history was gone. So next I bought a 'factory refurbished' VIP211k from ebay, hooked it up and that fixed everything. The old VIP211 probably had heat damage it acquired throughout the decades and was struggling - the specific dynamics is still a mystery.

When I hooked the new VIP211k to the new EHD, it first wanted to format the thing, but I read somewhere I need to just reboot the VIP211k instead of formatting it, and it actually recognized the EHD and I was able to access my recordings - so, did the same thing with the old EHD - ignore the formatting request and just reboot and all my stuff was there.

I can now switch back and forth between EHD's by rebooting after the changeover (use a USB switch to help) - no formatting requests anymore. Each EHD has it's own search history and programming schedules. I was even able to play my old EHD using my old VIP211 w/o being attached to the dish and after switching my account to the new VIP211k ~ can't record or play any satellite stuff, but playing old recordings no problem - WILD!