External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

KAB - thanks alot for your help, is formatting now. Before I did the format I ran a ZERO write test. On a 750gb that is about 1.47 billion sectors, took about 8 hours. I found no errors with the drive, problem was probably one of two things. While archiving a movie, it said completed successfully, deleted the movie from the IHD but was never was found on the EHD. The other thing was that when I had to replace the vip622, I copied the TEMP shows to the EHD first. When I was done watching the shows I deleted them from the EHD. Problem started shortly after that. With about 219gb free space left, it refused to transfer any more. Transferred about 100gb of shows to IHD and worked fine until I hit about 219gb left again. Bought another 750gb and transferred all to new one. Am down to about 170gb on the new one and all is working fine. Well hopefully L449 has fixes for this problem, but who knows. Thanks
 
Well, I am a new EHD user and am having the same problems as some of the others on the board. I have a WD mybook 750GB drive that has USB, Firewire and eSATA. I was able to format and copy shows to the drive but cannot watch for more than a few minutes without a freeze up. The 622 reboots itself after a few minutes and the same cycle repeats. I also cannot restore the shows to the 622 as it fails after a few minutes of attempting to restore. I have tried numerous warm and cold reboots which allow the drive to be seen again but otherwise have no effect. Calls to tech support have been universally unenlightening other than the vague promise of sending to engineering.

I have also tried swapping USB cables and checking the power connection as have been suggested elsewhere in this thread to no avail. Is there any hope that I could successfully connect to my other receiver (a 722) and pull the shows off? Has anyone had more success with a 722 than a 622 despite the same software version? Is my only option losing all my shows and replacing with a USB only drive?

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions.
 
Wow i guess i feel like one of the lucky ones finally. I have a WD 750 GB harddrive usb2.0 only and it works perfect. is it the reason they dont work is because they have firewire and the esata? i dont know that much about them. i just know the one i have only has usb2.0. i guess why would they support the others if they dont use the firewire or esata. I just dont get why some have problems and some dont. or unless the ones with the problems are the bad drives to begin with .
 
With the current problems I was having, I ran accross some interesting information.
From Wikipedia: "There is no online ext3 defragmentation tool working on the filesystem level. An offline ext2 defragmenter, e2defrag, exists but requires that the ext3 filesystem be converted back to ext2 first. But depending on the feature bits turned on the filesystem, e2defrag may destroy data; it does not know how to treat many of the newer ext3 features.[7]
There are userspace defragmentation tools like Shake[8] and defrag [9]. Shake works by allocating space for the whole file bolt upright and hoping that it will make the newly allocated file less fragmented. It also tries to write files used at the same time next to each others. Defrag works by copying each file over itself.
However they only work if the filesystem is reasonably empty. A true defragmentation tool does not exist for ext3.[10]
That being said, as the Linux System Administrator Guide states, "Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system."[11]
Knowing that the EHD uses EXT3 file systems, you may want to consider the following. Deleting files will cause framentation and could be some of the freeze or slow down issues. I did see this prior to reloading the new EHD but NOT seeing it now. Keeping the files contiguous (with no gaps) would be an advantage. While obviously these drives can have problems, I was able to write from front to back with zeros, without a problem, using WD tools. I have since put the cleaned drive back on the EHD. I am an IT professional but not in the LINUX or WINDOWS area.
 
I got a La Cie harddrive yesterday. Set it up with Dish. Now it will freeze sometime on playback and will have to reboot the 622 to fix. This morning after I transferred a movie, the 622 did not even recognize I had a hard rive and I had to reboot again. I have read most of these threads and it seems most people are having more trouble after the last software update.
 
I would like to know how many have had bad usb ports on your 622 and 722. I moved my external to my other 622 and everything work fine. So far.

Dish is no help. They say to get in touch with the hard drive company.
 
I would like to know how many have had bad usb ports on your 622 and 722. I moved my external to my other 622 and everything work fine. So far.

Dish is no help. They say to get in touch with the hard drive company.

I have a La Cie Porsche 500, had same problems, even slow uploads. The cause in my case was the power cable was not seated good enough in the back of the drive. Since yours works when used with another dvr, this is probably not your problem, but worth checking anyway.
Dan
 
I tried swapping my ext hard drive to my 722 and it works flawlessly. The shows that I was able to export from my 622 to the hard drive are restorable to the 722 and can be played directly from the hard drive.
Since both DVRs have the same software version, I have to assume that it is either a hardware compatibility problem or a bad USB port on the 622.
 
I just bought a 1TB WD hard drive. I called dish and they supposedly activated it through my 722. It ain't working. I get an erorr mesage 850 "your connected USB device is not compaible...blah...blah.

I know the 1 TB is not supported but the guy at Staples said he had one connected to his DIsh DVR (wasn't sure of model number, said it was black) and it worked. I went through the DIsh online techsupprot and here is the converasation-






Please wait while we find a representative to assist you. In order to ensure we are providing you with the highest level of customer satisfaction, this conversation will be recorded.
You have been connected to (04EP) Tino B.
(04EP) Tino B: Thank you for choosing Dish Network the leader in HD and DVR. I will be happy to assist you today. Please give me 2-3 minutes to access your account and review the information you have already provided.
(04EP) Tino B: I'm sorry to hear that you're having a problem. I'd be happy to assist you with that.
(04EP) Tino B: What size of hard drive do you have?
lenny hess: ok
lenny hess: 1 terabyte
(04EP) Tino B: Okay.
(04EP) Tino B: It will only work if it is between 40 and 750 GB.
lenny hess: Has my receiver been enabled to work with an external hard drive?
(04EP) Tino B: Yes.
(04EP) Tino B: I show it was activated earlier.
lenny hess: Should I be able to see anything that indicates it was enabled even if there is no exteral hard drive attached?
(04EP) Tino B: It will automatically activate and format your hard drive.
(04EP) Tino B: This will only happen if a compatible hard drive is hooked up of the proper size.
lenny hess: I undertstand the 1 TB hard drive is not yet supported but the man at staples said he has one exactly like this one and it works for him.
(04EP) Tino B: I don't see how that is possible at this time. The maximum allowed by our system is 750 GB.
lenny hess: ok. thank you
(04EP) Tino B: Is there anything else I can do for you?
lenny hess: no thank you
(04EP) Tino B: You're very welcome.
(04EP) Tino B: Thank you for using Dish Network Live Chat. Have a great night,


So is this true? I cna't read all the posts to this thread but somebody must of posted or read something about sucess or not with this drive.
 
So what do they do at DIsh to activate it? How does that work? If I hook it up to my other receiver, a 622, will it automaticallly activate if I have one that is supported? I no comprende the activating part. I don't think it is getting activated.
 
So what do they do at DIsh to activate it? How does that work? If I hook it up to my other receiver, a 622, will it automaticallly activate if I have one that is supported? I no comprende the activating part. I don't think it is getting activated.
Did you pay the activation charge???????
 
My Seagate FreeAgent 500mb no longer plays back AFTER L4.49. Freezes after 1-2 mins. Hopefully there is a L4.50 coming soon.
I knew I was not the only one experiencing this. Further detail, after the freeze, if you press buttons on the remote the box eventually reboots twice, and doesn't recognize the attached device when it's done. If you disconnect the device without pushing buttons on the remote, it will unlock and operate normally.
 
I've had L4.49 for quite a while and both my Seagate 500 GB FreeAgent drives continue to work fine (sleep mode disabled).

NightRyder
 
Sleep mode was off. I checked out the drive with the FreeAgent PC software to make sure there were no hardware issues and took the opportunity to change to 1 hour.
For me, after a freeze the remote does not work at all. Using the front panel I will get one form or another of reboot, after which the drive is not recognized.
Just before the 11th I watched about 4 episodes of The Wire off the Seagate. I archived a movie this weekend and went to view on Sunday. Freeze. Try to view/restore any other saved program, freeze.
Being a software developer, I will put my money on a bug.
Right now the Segate is unplugged, no point in connecting until there is a fix.
 
My Seagate FreeAgent 500mb no longer plays back AFTER L4.49. Freezes after 1-2 mins. Hopefully there is a L4.50 coming soon.

I have 4.49 and 4 Seagate drives and the all function the same as before. I did not disable sleep mode, I just unplug it when not in use. When I plug it in it is recognized everytime without issue.
 
Did you pay the activation charge???????

You might of missed this part when I asked the Tech if my hard drive had been activated.

lenny hess: Has my receiver been enabled to work with an external hard drive?
(04EP) Tino B: Yes.
(04EP) Tino B: I show it was activated earlier.

Long story short. tech was right. WD 1TB HD will not work I exchanged it for a Seagate 750 GB and low and behold it is now archiving events. Sure is taking a long time however. Thanks for all the help.
 
I recently purchased the 500GB LaCie Hard Disk, "Design by Neil Poulton" model.

LaCie - Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton - Hi-Speed USB 2.0

My vip722 arrives next week, so I haven't tried it yet but the HD is nice looking and fanless for quiet operation. I was wondering if anyone has given this one a try yet. It's fairly new.

--thanks


I have a 500GB La Cie hard disk. I don't think it is this model though. If you look a few post up you will see the problem I had and the fix also.:)
 

Multiple Hoppers and timers

OTA module troubles