3 times in last week the hopper3 has started a external hard drive test that is suppose to last about 80 mins. It starts at the same time( 11:30 am) .Is the hopper3 checking its internal hard drive or checking my external hard drives? I have two powered external hard drives.
external hard drive test
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When the external hard drive test comes up on the screen, does the message include any type of error code or number as well? That would help us to narrow down what it may be checking when running the test.
I've been having trouble with my 5 external drives that I connect as needed to my VIP722 as well. If I connect them it states something to the effect that the drive has been connected to another receiver and must be reformatted to use with my current 722. The problem is that I've had the same 722 for about 9 years now and the drives were never connected to any other receivers. It's been like this for several weeks now but honestly I haven't had time to contact Dish when I am home and in front of the unit. When I do, if they tell me that my drives are not usable this will be the end of my 20+ year association with Dish since the content of those hard drives is a big reason I still have Dish service.
My Hopper3 gives a 514c and 1599 errors 2-3 times a week usually in the middle of something I want to watch. The 514c something is wrong error there is no way to stop the system from rebooting and running the 1599 system check. This is really starting to make me mad and if its not fixed soon I may be forced to review my relationship with Dish.
Everytime I call in they tell me its the normal daily reboot/system check but my H3 did not do this in the past.
Everytime I call in they tell me its the normal daily reboot/system check but my H3 did not do this in the past.
Sorry I didn't copy the code down, but will reply when it happen again. I just thought it was strange that it happen at same time (11:30 am) .I have the daily reboot/update set for 3:00 am. I couldn't reset the Hopper3 through the remote when is was checking the external HD. I had to use the front panel red button to reboot. My wife's soap was to be recorded at 1:00 PM and the wife's fury would have been unbearable if the soap was not recorded. I still lost 5 mins of recording by rebooting after 90 mins.
Hey dave90000, usually these messages only come up when something is preventing the Hopper from being able to reboot after the update, can you check your timer schedule to see if anything is recording around the time your Hopper is set to update?
all 5 drives have the same issue ??
is the wording that they must be formatted to work with the receiver, or specifically that they have been used with another receiver ?? if just a format message, most likely the superblock got messed up, not a big deal, all data is still there, and the superblock is backed up a few other places on the drives, it just needs to be copied.
i guarantee dish will have no information on this and you will be instructed to reformat the drives.
i had to do this a few times with my 722 and 622 boxes back in the day.
I've tried at least 3 of the drives and all have the same issue. It said it has been formatted to use with a different receiver and must be reformatted. But like I said, I've had this receiver for over 10 years and this has never happened before.
And if I lose all this content, much of which isn't readily available from either streaming sources or Blu Ray (or even DVD) in many cases it will remove the last reason we have to keep Dish. My wife keeps bugging me to get rid of the service since we use it so little. With all the streaming content we have and the Fire DVR the money that goes to Dish every month could be better spent on something else. Hopefully when I get a few minutes to call I will luck out and get some assistance. If not, the decision is easy.
I have changed the times, reduced the standby timer and the receiver reboots in the middle of the night because i sometimes have split recordings. This was not a problem in the past as I have had the H3 since it first came out. This problem started showing up approx 4 updates ago.
Update:
Well this morning at 11:30 am the hopper is checking external HD. The code is 770.
I wanted to give a quick update on the external hard drive issue I posted about earlier in case this could help someone else on this board. Everything is fine now and the fix is almost embarrassingly simple for a tech guy like myself. I finally got a chance to call the Dish tech support line yesterday when I was in front of the 722. While all my drives were doing the same thing as I mentioned above, I simply had to remove the USB connection from the receiver while the drive was powered on and wait 10 seconds. Plugged it back in and all was good. I tried other drives and it's good to go. So I guess we stay with Dish for a while longer.
I found this post from last year and joined SG specifically to be able to contribute to and/or learn about this situation. Someone else posted the exact message:
"770 - Checking External Hard Drive. A routine test is being performed on your external hard drive. This test can take up to 90 minutes to complete. Once the test is completed or stopped , your receiver will reset. The reset process should take no more than 5 minutes to complete."
Lots of people have reported getting the same message. And this seems to be something relatively new. I have had the hopper3 for about 4 years and only started seeing this recently in the past year or so, but often enough that is apparently due to some some ill-considered software upgrade, which we can all only hope that Dish scraps. Because this REALLY sucks.
I changed the number "50 minutes" to "90 minutes" which is how mine reads. This may have to do with the size of the hard drive... Mine are 2TB. It has happened to me a number of times. Mostly I find it when I wake up middle of the night and want to watch something. I flip on the TV connected to Hopper3 and this message is displayed along with a progress bar and can definitely take a full hour and half or more. What is so aggravating is that there is no button you can push to abort the test or watch something else while the test is being performed. You are essentially locked out of your system for up to a couple hours.
I even had this kick in once while I was watching something. I may have looked away, possibly at my laptop for a minute, but when I looked back at the TV this message was on the screen and the show I was watching was no longer there. I do not know if Dish had the decency to prompt with an "OK" or "Continue Watching" but once it began, as I said above, viewing was over.
I should explain my setup. I have 5 Western Digital 2TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0. One is for TV shows I collect... old Gunsmokes, Bonanza, etc. I have the entire series of Cheyenne for example, and semi complete Virginian. I like that Dish retains the "watched" status so I can just work my way thru the seasons and watch every one and eventually start at the beginning again with Season 1 if I want. Dish's internal Harddrive is very convenient as you can sort recordings into folders, so I have folders for Western Films, Non-western films, Unwatched Western Films, & Un-Watched Non-western films. Of course you start to run out of space pretty quickly, and so I turned to external USB connected drives. Unfortunately, despite repeated requests, Dish has not seen fit to allow the same folder organization on external drives. Whatever you put in there only gets sorted A-Z or by order recorded. TV shows are the exception as they ARE sorted by show on the external drive.
So the only solution I came up with is to have 4 additional hard drives for each category of film, both watched and unwatched. I have more than 200 Unwatched Westerns for example, and these still only occupy less than 20% of the 2TB. If Dish would allow folders on the external drives I could combine these... say watched in one folder, and unwatched in the other, as I do on the internal drive before I ultimately transfer them off to the respective USB drives. But alas, no folders on external drives.
So I found a workaround which seems to work fine. It won't save the show from recording if that was interrupted... but if watching a recorded show, it's fine, and for a live show, you only miss a few minutes. So I wanted to share this... and hopefully it helps others. And if anyone has anything to add or caution about, I hope they will do so. The workaround is simple... When I awoke to this confounded message this morning in the wee hours, I drew a deep breath and disconnected both my USB hard drives which were connected. The system did not detect this and end the 770 message. So then I unplugged the machine, the only way to reset the hopper3 at this point, waited 10 seconds, plugged it back in, and after a quick reboot, the system was back up and running. Then I reconnected both USB external HD and waited and after a short time the system reported both drives were once again detected and everything was fine.
Problem solved! Hopper 3 is watchable again within a few minutes instead of a couple hours. NOTE: I would NOT do a reboot if the prompt warned against turning off the machine in the middle of an upgrade or something... but a simple external hard drive check has no impact on the system... and I confirmed this with an Advanced Tech Support Dish Technician.
I also came up with what should be a useful proactive measure. I purchased these items on Amazon:
Sabrent 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub with Individual LED Power Switches
Sabrent 5V 4A 100V-240V to DC Power Adapter
Cheap solution! This way there is no need to plug and unplug hard drives... they can all stay plugged into their respective switch... my 4 movie drives on one (I can deselect one, and select another with the simple push of a button, and my TV show drive in the other. And before bed at night I disconnect the active drive from each switch. Now Dish has no external drives to do their fool 90 minute test on. Then in the morning I just turn them back on.
Long song and dance here but I hope others find it helpful.
