External hard drive issue.

Sata is not supported either.
I don't understand this. I'm trying to find out specs that are supported on the Hopper. Aren't most external hard drive enclosures just simple USB to SATA converters to begin with?
Yes, without the housing. I have one (housing) that is interchangeable and I've used both.
 
Well just as a bit of an update. I am not sure what happened to my WD 500 gig usb hard drive but it seems to have died. It is no longer recognized by the computer or the hopper. The drive lights up but stays solid and the light on the hub never lights up for it like when i plug in any other device to the hub. Very weird but then again i stopped buying WD years ago and i guess i remember why now.
The sata to usb is weird because when i unplug it the message that a multimedia device was disconnected comes up but when i plug it is no message to format it ( it might be formatted ) but also nothing comes up under external hard drive other than the hopper.
I havent had a signal sent to the box yet. So far only unplugged it for a bit to reboot.
Yes i know these things are all not technically not supported but unless they are doing hardware whitelisting i dont see why they wouldnt work. Course dish also doesnt give any specs about the reciever either like hope much power the usb ports can support ( I assume its less than what the usb2 standard calls for )
 
From what I've read, regarding your comment about WD, USB powered drives have a shorter life expectancy than powered. I have been more than pleased with WD drives for nearly 20 years.
 
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From what I've read, regarding your comment about WD, USB powered drives have a shorter life expectancy than powered. I have been more than pleased with WD drives for nearly 20 years.
Want to fix that? Powered drives have a shorter.. Than powered?
 
From what I've read, regarding your comment about WD, USB powered drives have a shorter life expectancy than powered. I have been more than pleased with WD drives for nearly 20 years.
Maybe... but i bought the drive on october 26th. I wouldn't expect any drive to fail that quickly. I just wont give WD any more of my money. Thankfully since it died so fast i had no issues returning it.
Now i just need to figure out how to get my sata to usb drive / adapter working. I only have a 120 gig drive to use with it and 160 gigs of data to move so its going to take 2 transfers but it would help restore some order to get some of the old movies back.
 
Maybe... but i bought the drive on october 26th. I wouldn't expect any drive to fail that quickly. I just wont give WD any more of my money. Thankfully since it died so fast i had no issues returning it.
Now i just need to figure out how to get my sata to usb drive / adapter working. I only have a 120 gig drive to use with it and 160 gigs of data to move so its going to take 2 transfers but it would help restore some order to get some of the old movies back.

Just like HD's on receivers they are unpredictable.. That's why if you call they will more then likely replace it for you since you bought it so recently without issue. You can have one that lasts 10 years or one that last until tomorrow after lunch. Shoot the last one I bought ended up after lunch! lol
 
SATA to USB adapter stands work fine. I have 2 in use. Be careful the disk's pins are exposed when out of the stand. I have a problems with the transfer/power light on one--sometimes it works. I have 4 "raw" disks to use in them. The only disk I have had fail is in my original purchase of 5 750GB WD disks. It just is inaccessible now and will not work on my computer either. I also have (4) 1, (1) 1.5, and (4) 2 TB drives. A Buffalo 1TB drive got very slow and troublesome. I managed to get its content out, reinitiated it, it works fine now, and is 100% filled with shows beginning with M and N. For quick reference a maker's .75TB=>698MB, 1TB=>931MB, 1.5TB=>1397MB, 2TB=>1863MB. Not a formatting loss but a difference in definition.
-Ken
 
Ok i finally got the drive to work. I ended up wiping the partitions then having the hopper re-format the drive. Now the issue i have is that my external is not big enough to transfer all the files from my old dvr. I get an error saying there was a problem transferring some of the stuff so i wonder if a folder was missing. So hard to know what i am transferring with these wacky folder names.
 
Well this has been a fun journey. I have no clue how this folder naming convention works but it seems like 1 folder does not equal 1 movie. This would have been much more simple if my external had been big enough to copy all the recordings in 1 fell swoop. Maybe with part of my tax return i will buy 2 1tb drives to use as backups. In theory i could transfer everything from the hopper to an external then from external via computer to another external then put everything back on the hopper and have a copy sitting on the other external.
Going to continue using a sata to usb adapter also the mybook drives are way out of whack price wise.
 
Going to continue using a sata to usb adapter also the mybook drives are way out of whack price wise.
Not really. They are pretty much in line with internals and Passports...as well as Seagate counterparts.
 
Where can i get a 1tb mybook for 60$?

I checked on Amazon and didn't see a low priced 1 TB WD MyBook EHD. I did see a 2 TB WD MyBook USB 3.0 EHD for $99 shipped free. I have successfully used one on my HWS for several months. I don't think WD is making a 1TB MyBook EHD anymore. Black Friday and the holiday shopping season may give you a chance to get a lower price on whatever EHD you want to buy.
 
Ok final update on this.
I ended up buying myself a hard drive that will be a nice upgrade for my old ps3 ( yes i know the ps3 is outdated )
I bought a wd black 500 gig 2.5 sata hard drive. Using a sata to usb adapter i formated it with the hopper then connected back up to my computer. I have extforwin ( i think was the name of the program ) that lets my windows vista machine recognise ext2/3 drives and partitions. I then used macrium to restore the image i previously saved from my old external that died.
I think dish uses a very odd method of storing programs. I think 1 program might actually span multiple folders because when i copy just 4 folders it would show 6 shows yet i was only able to transfer 1 without error. This is just speculation on my part though, I did not care enough about it to experiment much.
So after restoring the full image to the larger drive i was able to transfer all my old recordings.
My little munchkins are very happy it took a lot more effort than i originally thought it would but it was so worth it when we played the tigger movie and my autistic son was hoping around the living room to the movie :) Going to move the image to my downstairs computer that has tons of spare room on it.
Now that i know how this works and doesn't work its going to be a lot easier. Lol i just wish it supported usb3. Transferring 120 gigs of movies takes a long dam time over usb2.
 
I use powered WD my book ext hard drives and have never had a problem. They worked on my 211, 722 and HWS. I have 2/ 500gb drives and a 1tb drive. I would not buy any other brand.
 
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