External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

[blackjackmark]

Sorry about that.

Try this link and install this instead. RUn the Seagate SeaTools app and let it find your drive connected to your pc. The PC does not need to recognize it, just SeaTools.
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsForWindowsSetup.exe

EDIT: scratch that - here is the original link, follow the first instructions after you download:

http://www.seagate.com/support/freeagent/mobile-recovery-efigs.zip

FInally got the tool downloaded, clicked to sleep "never", hit "apply", clicked to "manage light" set to "off" clicked "apply"...ligth went off. Disconnected from PC and reconnected to 6ss and the light is back on? WTF?

REpeated the above procewss, and STILL the light is on.

Anyone successfully shut the light off? If so, am I missing a setting?

 

[RAIDER]

What To Do

I am very interested in the external HD feature and thought I would buy the Seagate since the teck forum was pushing them. However, after browsing the info here it does not seem things are working well. Is anyone having a good experience with this new feature? If so, what hard drive are you using? I do not have time to debug software or get links from Seagate to fix whatever mode needs fixing. Thanks. It seems I should wait until these bugs are worked out.

 

[dfergie]

I am very interested in the external HD feature and thought I would buy the Seagate since the teck forum was pushing them. However, after browsing the info here it does not seem things are working well. Is anyone having a good experience with this new feature? If so, what hard drive are you using? I do not have time to debug software or get links from Seagate to fix whatever mode needs fixing. Thanks. It seems I should wait until these bugs are worked out.

I have the Seagate 320 gig drive, with the spindown still active... all you have to do is a powerboot before use... I have 25 gigs of free space left on mine...I deleted a program this morning from it with no problems.

 

[gdarwin]

I set my Seagate 500g to never and pluged the power supply into the switched outlet on the amp. No problems.

 

[120inna55]

I have the Seagate 320 gig drive, with the spindown still active... all you have to do is a powerboot before use...

He means power cycle the drive, not the receiver. Very simple process.

I, on the other hand, am using the Western Digital My Book Essential Edition (750 GB). Only rare miscommunication between the drive and the receiver that's most likely a result of the drive going to sleep. Again, it is easily resolved by power cycling the drive.

 

[jdr01930]

"I do not have time to debug software or get links from Seagate to fix whatever mode needs fixing. "

So just get a Western Digital My Book instead!

I think there's a thread showing drives that work - it seems to be littered with references to Western Digital. (mine works perfectly)

 

[Paradox-SJ]

I can not play back any HD material from my EHD.....It's a Buffalo Drive station Duo...

SD material works for the most part but HD material is completly unwatchable.

Choppy video
Sound drop outs
Freezing....

All the fast fwd and rewind doesnt fix it. It's even locked up once or twice.

I suspect its the size of the buffer of the HDD is the EHD but nothing on the Buffalo site says what it is. I doubt E* can fix as its not there problem but the problem of the EHD.

Sad but it looks like I am going to have to take it back...other than this it works just fine.

 

[Dirtydan]

I can not play back any HD material from my EHD.....It's a Buffalo Drive station Duo...

SD material works for the most part but HD material is completly unwatchable.

Choppy video
Sound drop outs
Freezing....

All the fast fwd and rewind doesnt fix it. It's even locked up once or twice.

I suspect its the size of the buffer of the HDD is the EHD but nothing on the Buffalo site says what it is. I doubt E* can fix as its not there problem but the problem of the EHD.

Sad but it looks like I am going to have to take it back...other than this it works just fine.

You can send the recorded items back to the DVR and they will be fine.

 

[David_Levin]

I can not play back any HD material from my EHD.....It's a Buffalo Drive station Duo...

SD material works for the most part but HD material is completly unwatchable.

Choppy video
Sound drop outs
Freezing....

You're probably having USB communication problems (HD needs more bandwidth then SD). I have a problem drive that worked fine after moving it to a different box.

Try a different cable (short as possible).
Try pulgging the drive the 622 into the same outlet (ground noise).
Try running the drive through a powered USB hub (don't try plugging multiple devices into the hub).

 

[voripteth]

I left my Seagate FreeAgent 750 on all day yesterday and it appears that all timers fired normally. I was able to connect to the drive and play back content without any problems.

I have a 722 on order since my 622 developed a bad HDMI port so hopefully everything will continue to function correctly.

 

[dfergie]

Heres something strange... yesterday afternoon I unhooked my Seagate and then hooked up a Maxtor 320 gig HDD, let it format, then put about 40 gigs of progamming on it... I had a timer set for LOTR on TNT so it was recording when I unhooked the maxtor (powering down of course) and plugged the Seagate back in and powered up. I then watched TV in another room and this morning discovered the 622 red light on... It wouldn't power up so I had to do a power button boot.
The 622 only recorded 54 minutes of LOTR and apparently had been in a crash mode all night. Moral of story, when recording it may not be a good idea to add or subtract the External HDD....

 

[KAB]

Moral of story, when recording it may not be a good idea to add or subtract the External HDD....

Good advice, indeed.

 

[Tvlman]

All these experiences sound like some Beta Test. Can someone answer some questions about using an external drive? Is there a site that gives instructions on how to use the external drive?

1. What are some recommended external hard drives to consider purchasing?
2. How many HD movies can I put on a 500GB external hard drive?
3. Can I play the movies directly from the hard drive?
4. How long does it take to transfer a movie from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive?
5. Whay can't the 622 receiver simply record and play directly to the external hard drive? Computers work that way.

Will probably think of more but this is a bit like putting out an untested product with no instructions and no guidelines. As I read these comments it seems like people are "slipping and slidding" all over the place trying to use this technology.

Answers Charlie.....or anyone???

 

[hdaddikt]

I left my Seagate FreeAgent 750 on all day yesterday and it appears that all timers fired normally. I was able to connect to the drive and play back content without any problems.

I have a 722 on order since my 622 developed a bad HDMI port so hopefully everything will continue to function correctly.

Well, record timers only reflect recordings done on the DVR (622) drive, not the transfers, deletions, playbacks, etc. done with the ext. drive.

 

[KAB]

All these experiences sound like some Beta Test. Can someone answer some questions about using an external drive? Is there a site that gives instructions on how to use the external drive?

1. What are some recommended external hard drives to consider purchasing?
2. How many HD movies can I put on a 500GB external hard drive?
3. Can I play the movies directly from the hard drive?
4. How long does it take to transfer a movie from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive?
5. Whay can't the 622 receiver simply record and play directly to the external hard drive? Computers work that way.

Will probably think of more but this is a bit like putting out an untested product with no instructions and no guidelines. As I read these comments it seems like people are "slipping and slidding" all over the place trying to use this technology.

Answers Charlie.....or anyone???

First off, most people are not slipping and sliding. You know full well forums are where people discuss their problems, not so much their successes. All your questions have been answered in this and other related threads, but here goes again.

1. Western Digital, Maxtor. Seagate externals have some "sleep" issues waiting to be resolved.
2. Depends: Mpeg2, Mpeg4. On a 500GB drive you should get 70-90 hrs.
3. Yes
4. As with #2, it varies...about 10-20 minutes per hour.

 

[NightRyder]

All these experiences sound like some Beta Test. Can someone answer some questions about using an external drive? Is there a site that gives instructions on how to use the external drive?

SOP for new Dish features.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/103892-official-external-storage-information.html

1. What are some recommended external hard drives to consider purchasing?

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd...ernal-hd-results-drives-working-properly.html

2. How many HD movies can I put on a 500GB external hard drive?

It will vary depending on several factors. A rough guess would be 40 to 60.

3. Can I play the movies directly from the hard drive?

Yes.

4. How long does it take to transfer a movie from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive?

Again it will vary. A MPEG-4 encoded recording of Star Wars IV took me less than 15 min. to transfer.

5. Whay can't the 622 receiver simply record and play directly to the external hard drive? Computers work that way.

The 622 is not a PC. This is the initial software release for this feature, more capability will likely be added in future updates.


NightRyder

 

[flix1]

Heres something strange... yesterday afternoon I unhooked my Seagate and then hooked up a Maxtor 320 gig HDD, let it format, then put about 40 gigs of progamming on it... I had a timer set for LOTR on TNT so it was recording when I unhooked the maxtor (powering down of course) and plugged the Seagate back in and powered up. I then watched TV in another room and this morning discovered the 622 red light on... It wouldn't power up so I had to do a power button boot.
The 622 only recorded 54 minutes of LOTR and apparently had been in a crash mode all night.

Very similar issue happened to me ... I was setup to record a couple of shows simultaneously over a few hours on Sunday night. I knew I was going to run short on space on the DVR, so I reset my Seagate Freeagent and began transferring shows over to the EHD that should have completed about an hour or 2 into the time of the recordings. During the evening, I noticed that both tuners were recording, but I was unable to turn on the DVR to view anything on either the primary or secondary TVs. I waited until after one of the recordings should have stopped, then I performed a reset of the DVR. I noticed it had only recorded 47 minutes of both shows before quitting.

Moral of story, when recording it may not be a good idea to add or subtract the External HDD....

... or to move recordings to/from it.

 

[Bagman]

First off, most people are not slipping and sliding. You know full well forums are where people discuss their problems, not so much their successes. All your questions have been answered in this and other related threads, but here goes again.

1. Western Digital, Maxtor. Seagate externals have some "sleep" issues waiting to be resolved.
2. Depends: Mpeg2, Mpeg4. On a 500GB drive you should get 70-90 hrs.
3. Yes
4. As with #2, it varies...about 10-20 minutes per hour.

Which WD drive has sleep problem. I have the Esentials 500gig and the only time it is off is when the Receiver is off?

 

[120inna55]

First off, most people are not slipping and sliding. You know full well forums are where people discuss their problems, not so much their successes. All your questions have been answered in this and other related threads, but here goes again.

1. Western Digital, Maxtor. Seagate externals have some "sleep" issues waiting to be resolved.
2. Depends: Mpeg2, Mpeg4. On a 500GB drive you should get 70-90 hrs.
3. Yes
4. As with #2, it varies...about 10-20 minutes per hour.

Which WD drive has sleep problem. I have the Esentials 500gig and the only time it is off is when the Receiver is off?

I believe KAB is stating that WD & Maxtor are working out fine. Only Seagate drives seem to have "sleep" issue.

Speaking to my Western Digital MyBook Essential Edition 750 GB drive. I thought, once, that I had a "sleep" issue, but I've been unable to repeat the issue. The drive itself has perfomed flawlessly since day 2. I do rarely get the pop-up message telling me I need to call DISH to activate the drive, but selecting cancel and trying again resolves the issue. I suspect this is a DISH bug as opposed to an issue with the drive. I've not noticed an problems with choppy video when playing from the drive or while watching live TV during an archiving session.

 

[adavis720]

My apologies if this has already been discussed (but with a 32 page and counting thread it most likely has been) but has anyone had issues with the transfer hanging during transfer?

For example I tried to send 3 HD movies to drive all at once. After I while I went to the USB device screen to check the progress and saw the progress bar at 0% and no time display was there. (estimated time = blank)

Upon inspecting the external drive, the first movie transferred no problem and then I guess it just stalled out after that.

I have sent 30 episodes of King of the Hill at once with no problem, but this has happen 2x with sending multiple HD movies at once.

I should also mention that I have been recording on both tuners, watching OTA and transferring all at once with no issues so I don't think it is a buffer issue. In this situation it was watching DVR while transferring. It seems like some sort of bug when the software is dealing with large files.