External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

[harshness]

At any time did you contemplate replacing or bypassing the switch (mechanically or procedurally)?

Even more heartbreaking than the loss of a large collection is the idea that it could have been easily avoided.

 

[long_time_DNC]

My biggest fear! My heart goes out to you. I have 6 external drives and worry about that every day. You might want to think about getting an external hard drive, the enclosures I hear about always seem to break down, especially the switches. Oh, and I probably would have cried. You don't get reruns of Academy Awards/Tony Awards and other specials.

It's the loss of the full HD broadcast of "Open Range" that HDNet Movies aired shortly after Dish Network began carrying that channel and hadn't down-rezzed it yet. It looked almost Blu-ray quality. The loss of the Matrix trilogy, all the Star Trek movies, the first 2 Superman films, all the Star Wars movies, the Back to the Future trilogy, a LOT of Eastwood films (which some are thankfully airing lately on HDNet Movies) and so many other great films and two concerts from Voom that will likely never be replaced *Poof*...gone. I have 6 drives and two more on the shelf in boxes, but the loss of all those films sure hurt.

At any time did you contemplate replacing or bypassing the switch (mechanically or procedurally)?

Even more heartbreaking than the loss of a large collection is the idea that it could have been easily avoided.

Actually, I didn't consider either method of bypassing the switch as I had no idea that putting the drive in another (new) enclosure would cause the receiver to want to reformat the drive. I'd never seen anything in this thread, that I can recall, where anyone had tried/experienced this particular issue/event. Had I read something about it here, I'm sure I would've put an on/off switch in-line on the power cord.

As I said, lesson learned, the hard way. It took years to build that collection that was on that drive and will likely take years to rebuild it. I have it all in a database, so at least I know what I'm looking for...but some of it is lost forever. Just hope that my experience posted here will help others avoid repeating my lesson.

 

[David_Levin]

You could have tried a Linux Recovery

Learned a hard lesson today...lost 182 movies in the process.

Don't ever take an hdd from an enclosure that's not working well (switch wearing out) and put it into a new enclosure. Did that today and my 622 wanted to reformat it (I'm thinking it saw a new controller ID or something)...anyway, the old enclosure was toast and I had no option but to let it reformat it. I damn near cried.

Actually you did have a couple of other options.

I've moved hard drives between enclosures many times without any problems. I guess it's possible that the USB interface chip was formatting the drives differently, but I've never seen this. I try to stick with a minimum number of enclosure types to avoid this. I often open them up to check the type of interface chip in use (there aren't that many).

I think it's more likely that your old (failing) enclosure had dumped power with a write in progress and corrupted the file structure of the HDD.

You might have been able to recover with a Linux recovery. Scan Disk or ScanDisk+Copy.

This has been discussed:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...external-hard-drive-must-formatted-error.html

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...-drive-archive-bug-thread-29.html#post1887854

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...-drive-archive-bug-thread-29.html#post1887894

Copy Files:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...-how-transfer-recordings-one-ehd-another.html

 

[long_time_DNC]

Yep, thought about that too, after the fact...

Thanks though.

 

[bigcarr]

I just bought a Seagate 1.5gb hard drive and can disable the sleep mode using the Seagate manager software in windows. If I unplug the drive, is goes back to default of 15min...anyone know of a way to disable sleep mode permanently? I know I should have gone with a WD, but $70 was too good to pass up.

 

[JimVT]

I bought a Seagate 1TB from Staples a few weeks ago and never connected it to my computer and I haven't seen any problem. My 211K formatted it and it is recording programs at night as well as responding ok when I've watched them.

 

[rocketwils]

VIP622 and iomega 2TB Select Desktop Hard Drive

Successfully attached and formatted. 1861GB available. This is fine until I did the quick math and realized that this is 139GB JUST FOR FORMATTING! That is 7% of the drive "wasted" for file structure, etc. This seems really weird and inefficient to me. What are some other benchmark numbers out there for 2TB on VIP622? I saw one earlier post that was around the same, so I'm not saying this is wrong/bad/erroneous, just that it is massively wasteful and want to know if there's anything I can do to tune this formatting. Seems to me it should be just a few GB consumed by formatting...

update & correction (edited an hour later): doh! I realize now that my math was wrong, and here's some insight (and I'm happier now):
1. 2"TB" is 2,000,000,000,000 physical bytes from memory and drive manufacturers (there may be a few bad bytes allowed in there, but let's use this number)
2. Computing formats 1024 bytes as logical blocks, rather than 1000 physical byte chunks (an ancient debate as to which is "correct")
3. 2TB / 1024^3 is 1862.6 "GB" (computer logical gigabytes, not physical gigabytes)
4. Looks like the overhead is around 1.6GB

If my math is off, somebody correct me... but this math made me feel better about the situation.

 

[harshness]

Successfully attached and formatted. 1861GB available. This is fine until I did the quick math and realized that this is 139GB JUST FOR FORMATTING!

Allow me to learn you on the deception that is hard drive capacity:

1KB= 2^10 = 1,024 butes
1MB = 2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes
1GB = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes
1TB = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes

HOWEVER, in hard drive terms, 1TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes which is approximately 9.95% less that what the rest of the planet knows 1TB to be. The larger the capacity, the worse the deception. Look at the bottom of the data sheet for just about any hard drive and you'll see this explained in the fine print mumblings.

On top of that steaming pile is the file system overhead.

In the era of floppy controller tape drives, the tape drive manufacturers used to fabricate bigger lies by claiming double the actual capacity because, it was rationalized, that computer data was, on average, compressible to 50% of its original size. Never mind that most of what got archived was already compressed.

 

[DefDude]

I just bought a Seagate 1.5gb hard drive and can disable the sleep mode using the Seagate manager software in windows. If I unplug the drive, is goes back to default of 15min...anyone know of a way to disable sleep mode permanently? I know I should have gone with a WD, but $70 was too good to pass up.

If you are using the Drive Manager then,
1 go to adjust power settings
2 set anywhere from 3 minutes to 5 hours or never
3 hit APPLY then OK
that's it. I use it all the time to use my Seagates to make copies. If you want to make copies, click on my past post's about them for the steps that will let you.
Here's a link http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...al-external-hds-very-glitchy.html#post2405096

 

[Babadem]

If you are using the Drive Manager then,
1 go to adjust power settings
2 set anywhere from 3 minutes to 5 hours or never
3 hit APPLY then OK
that's it. I use it all the time to use my Seagates to make copies. If you want to make copies, click on my past post's about them for the steps that will let you.
Here's a link http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...al-external-hds-very-glitchy.html#post2405096

Good tips!

 

[bigcarr]

If you are using the Drive Manager then,
1 go to adjust power settings
2 set anywhere from 3 minutes to 5 hours or never
3 hit APPLY then OK
that's it. I use it all the time to use my Seagates to make copies. If you want to make copies, click on my past post's about them for the steps that will let you.
Here's a link http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...al-external-hds-very-glitchy.html#post2405096

This is how I disabled sleep mode also, but then if I unplug the drive from power, it will revert back to the default sleep mode settings of every 15min. The most annoying thing about this is I would get drive disconnected and then drive reconnected messages on my dish receiver every 15min. Had to use my laptop and then keep the drive plugged into power and it is working fine, but if the power goes out then I would have to do this again. Just thought maybe someone knew of a way to permanently disable the sleep mode. Thanks for the reply!

 

[DefDude]

That's the only way. If it still doesn't work right it 's either the drive or the dvr that's has a problem, maybe software bug. When you connect to your laptop I thought it would not recognize it and ask to format, if already formatted by the dish box.
here's the link for the free agent desktop software that works,
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=2fb0d0249c094210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD
The Seatools pogram does not work for removing the sleep setting.

 

[riderj]

Moving EHD between 722 & 622:

For quite some time (6 months or more) I have been able to
move the EHD (WD 2TB) back and forth at will between DVR’s in the house, but at
the time that 77 went down last week I started getting the 866 error code.

I called Tech Service a couple of times, and today I pressed
the issue to go to level II – they said no. I then got the Supervisor, and
after a couple of times on hold, he came back with: “you shouldn’t have been
able to move between a 622 and 722 in the past, he doesn’t know how that
happened, but as of now, you can not move it unless it is to the same model DVR.
Period.”

Does anyone have any contradictory information?

 

[120inna55]

...Does anyone have any contradictory information?...

Yep. I do it all the time between a 622 and a 722. Just did it last night.

 

[long_time_DNC]

And why shouldn't you be able to move an EHD between a 622 & 722? Since they're both in your home, why should it matter and why should Dish care? For the supervisor to say it shouldn't work makes no logical sense at all...

 

[riderj]

UPDATE!







The EHD that I am using for testing during this issue had a
program put on it from the 622. I plugged it into the 722 and got the 866
error. I took the recording off of it, leaving it blank, and the 722 would
accept it. I put a program from the 722 on it, and then the 622 gave the error.
Apparently there is some sort of code that is interfering with swapping
receivers.

 

[riderj]

I notice that the DISH Reps do not post to this thread. Is there
a reason?

 

[riderj]

I will send a PM directly

 

[TommyF@DISH Network]

I will send a PM directly

Checked in regarding the 722/622 EHD swap. As long_time_DNC said they should work as long as they're both on the same account. Since they're having a problem I would need to fill out a technical report to let tech ops know about the issue. Would just need the software version for the 622 and 722.

 

[gdarwin]

I swap drives between 622, 722 and the 922. No problems.