Hopper w/Sling Hard Drive Failure WTF

[DallasBill]

About two weeks ago we woke to the hard drive reformatting which in hence wiped all the recordings, we thought eh maybe was just a burp or something with a recent firmware update or something.
Since then while in playback from recordings the playback would stall/freeze for 5-10 seconds then continue to play,another 60 seconds it does the stall cycle.
This evening we turn the tv on and find the Hard Drive Failure graphic on the screen WTF?

1412 NDEB
S506 NDEB 7/8/2014

 

[Jim S.]

Wow!

A while ago, there was a rash of (what I believe to be) software-caused drive "failures". (My reasons for thinking this are spelled out in another thread here: http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/all-my-recordings-on-my-hopper-disappeared.336844/ ) Sometimes, rebooting the Hopper instead of letting it reformat the drive as it wanted to would fix it. I wonder if Dish has finally conceded that it's a software issue, and decided to avoid annoying users by needlessly wiping out their recordings?

(This still makes no sense though, because the receivers USED TO do a fsck (Unix equivalent of chkdsk) every night when they rebooted themselves, so any filesystem corruption, WHATEVER the source, should've been nipped in the bud. Did they decide to abolish the nightly fsck to considerably speed up the rebooting time? I have no idea really, I'm just guessing -- I haven't been awake to watch the nightly reboot in a long time, and the last time I looked for the last-fsck time in the diagnostics screen, I couldn't even remember how to get to that part of the diagnostics screen.)

 

[charlesrshell]

(This still makes no sense though, because the receivers USED TO do a fsck (Unix equivalent of chkdsk) every night when they rebooted themselves, so any filesystem corruption, WHATEVER the source, should've been nipped in the bud. Did they decide to abolish the nightly fsck to considerably speed up the rebooting time? I have no idea really, I'm just guessing -- I haven't been awake to watch the nightly reboot in a long time, and the last time I looked for the last-fsck time in the diagnostics screen, I couldn't even remember how to get to that part of the diagnostics screen.)

Yellow - Blue - 3 - View Counters - page down about 13 times and there is Fsck time and date.

 

[KKlare]

To get the fsck date: press Yellow (for settings), 8 (Network Setup), 3 (Tests), View Counters, page down about 13 times, read Fsck.
(It is now possible to force a reboot from your chair with a good chance of a fsck by Yellow + 9=Diagnostics + Reset Receiver.)
It may not run if a recording is scheduled or the drive is active.
-Ken

 

[DallasBill]

The HWS reformatted again overnight
Ran the diagnostics,system status and the HDD is Red? I'm not running an EHD.
How do I get this receiver replaced without sitting on the phone with offshore tech support?

 

[thomasjk]

Contact DIRT. listed in red along the right side of the forum pages.

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[JM42]

DIRT. Looks like Zach is online now. Send him a message. Include your account or phone number, Dish PIN, explanation, above photo and shipping address and it will probably be a simple reply the new Hopper is on it's way.

 

[DallasBill]

I shot Zach a message, thank you!!!!

 

[KAB]

The HWS reformatted again overnight
Ran the diagnostics,system status and the HDD is Red? I'm not running an EHD.
How do I get this receiver replaced without sitting on the phone with offshore tech support?View attachment 99038

HDD is Hard Disk Drive...in the Hopper, not EHD.
Has your Hopper been located in a well ventilated area?

 

[foghorn2]

FSCK Hopper!

 

[dvrexpander]

yep it happens, 2nd thread I've seen in a few weeks about it. It is hard to say what the life of this hopper was till it was installed in your home. No tech treats the things like boxes of eggs and you can bet anyone handling them down stream from production doesn't do the same either and HDD's are moving parts - they will fail sooner or later.

 

[stardust3]

yep it happens, 2nd thread I've seen in a few weeks about it. It is hard to say what the life of this hopper was till it was installed in your home. No tech treats the things like boxes of eggs and you can bet anyone handling them down stream from production doesn't do the same either and HDD's are moving parts - they will fail sooner or later.

They should go later rather than sooner. It just don't seem like these things are made for the long haul.

 

[KAB]

They should go later rather than sooner. It just don't seem like these things are made for the long haul.

That fault/cause lies in on of two places. 1. The HD manufacturer or, 2. The customer who places it in an air restricted area/stacked with other equipment. I'd put my money on #2 in 90% of the reported cases. Lot's of newbs to Dish/this forum, who know no better, and unfortunately, not advised previously. Way too easy to blame software.

 

[dvrexpander]

They should go later rather than sooner. It just don't seem like these things are made for the long haul.

most of the reasons I saw for failure of these things within the first few months of operation was air flow or people wanting them in closed spaces that were already hot from other devices. They are not handled like they should, all of the receivers with a DVR should have on the outside (EGGS!! HANDLE WITH CARE!) but they don't so you see techs tossing them in their vans before leaving their shops and who knows how much banging around they did from Mexico or wherever they came from till they reached someones home. lol

 

[garywiley]

Last night one of my HWS crashed and reformatted the hard drive. I lost all my recordings. I called Dish this morning and they are sending me a new Hopper. My drive was 80% full and now empty. When I go to the external hard drive transfer menu, it shows that the Hopper drive about 2/3's of its original size. It would sure be nice to have some warning about this impending failure. I'm pissed.

 

[Scherrman]

Last night one of my HWS crashed and reformatted the hard drive. I lost all my recordings. I called Dish this morning and they are sending me a new Hopper. My drive was 80% full and now empty. When I go to the external hard drive transfer menu, it shows that the Hopper drive about 2/3's of its original size. It would sure be nice to have some warning about this impending failure. I'm pissed.

I know it really sucks but I think that's just the nature of hard drives. Any receiver with a build in hard drive can have the same thing happen. I had it happen to me with my old 622 receiver years ago. Same thing can to computers, that's why they say it's important to back up files.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Dish does not make the hard drives. And the hard drive is a mechanical device. Like any other mechanical device it can die at any time. Unfortunately nothing DISH can do about it. The drives are rated for a long long life, but still some do fail early in their life.

 

[UselessS]

I too had to replace my HWS last week...HD went out while we were out of town for 6 weeks ( which also prevented Anywhere...just black screen remotely...even after reboot ). It was only a year old...but the 2 year old H2k in the other room was still going. I went ahead and upgraded the H2k to HWS while replacing the bad HWS. One might think that SSDs are getting bigger/cheaper in place of a HD, but since Flash memory has limited write cycles, even that doesn't hold much near-term promise...maybe someday...maybe next gen Hoppers <g>

 

[Teehar]

Who manufactures the hopper drives? It's possible that dish could have gotten a bad batch.

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[ChadT41]

When I beta tested for Echostar last year, one of the issues reported via software, was the 311 HDD failure message on H2K and HWS