Is it possible to swap hard drives on two vip722k receivers?

[sattas10]

My VIP 722K receiver died. It powers on but does not boot up. Tech support tells me it can only be backed up if it powers on.

My question is can the hard drive be taken out of the old 722 and put in the replacement 722 once it gets here? Obviously opening up the unit voids the warranty so they wouldn't have told me if this is possible.

Or is the hard drive most likely the reason the thing is not booting up to begin with?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying hack or steal programming or watch the content on some other device. I'm just talking about swapping out a hard drive from a defective unit to a non defective unit.

And I guess it's worth a shot but if I can't do that, I don't suppose there's any way to at least recover the timer schedule or the shows that were in the timer?

 

[SaltiDawg]

... I don't suppose there's any way to at least recover the timer schedule or the shows that were in the timer?

If you had periodically backed up your timer schedule to your remote at least that would not be an issue.

 

[garys]

If either unit is leased, you would void the warrenty and Dish will charge you full price for both receivers. Also, if it is the hard drive that failed, putting it into another unit will not work. You may want to unplug the bad unit for a few hours and see if the receiver would power up and allow you to transfer the recording to an external hard drive which will work with the new unit.

 

[TheKrell]

If you take off the cover of the bad one and unplug the disk, you can see whether it's at fault. Presumably it has nothing to do with the failure and the disk is still good. I would be very tempted to swap drives if I were you. If you can't do this without voiding the warranty, then you might try putting the receivers top to top (without their covers) and plug the old/good drive into the new receiver and use it to back up your recordings. Aren't the timers saved to disk as well? You might be able to save your timers as well via the remote. This is a lame way of doing things, but it would save your stuff without voiding the warranties.

 

[sattas10]

I'm at work at the moment and can't reply with all that I want to reply with but I can tell you that it did spend the night unplugged and still won't boot up. It also spent several hours last night unplugged before it was plugged back in. It seemed to work fine practically immediately before that, even tuned in to record the car show.

If you take off the cover of the bad one and unplug the disk, you can see whether it's at fault.

What's it supposed to do if I unplug the hard drive and reboot it?


BTW, this is a remanufactured unit that I've had for about a year and a half. I don't know how they'd know it had been opened and simply had hard drives unplugged but if they have a problem with that then I suppose I have nothing to lose. I'm not under contract. If they try to bill me for the new one, that will be the end of my account. In the past they've been very accommodating and even upgraded me to this 722 after some problems with 2 or 3 dvrs.

 

[SaltiDawg]

... I'm not under contract. If they try to bill me for the new one, that will be the end of my account ...

Not to mention your Credit Rating ...

 

[RickDee]

I'm at work at the moment and can't reply with all that I want to reply with but I can tell you that it did spend the night unplugged and still won't boot up. It also spent several hours last night unplugged before it was plugged back in. It seemed to work fine practically immediately before that, even tuned in to record the car show.



What's it supposed to do if I unplug the hard drive and reboot it?


BTW, this is a remanufactured unit that I've had for about a year and a half. I don't know how they'd know it had been opened and simply had hard drives unplugged but if they have a problem with that then I suppose I have nothing to lose. I'm not under contract. If they try to bill me for the new one, that will be the end of my account. In the past they've been very accommodating and even upgraded me to this 722 after some problems with 2 or 3 dvrs.

There are tamper-proof seals inside the case to prevent you removing the hard drive without Dish Techs knowing when they open the case.

 

[TheKrell]

What's it supposed to do if I unplug the hard drive and reboot it?

Well, I haven't actually done this with a TV connected, so you may take this with a grain of salt. But it should at least reboot and put up an error message about not being able to record or pause live TV. I understand that it won't boot at all right now with the disk still connected.

If the seal is in the same place as it is on the 722, it's on the side. On the 722, the drive and fan are both mounted in a cage just under the top. The cage has 2 screws in back, 2 screws in front under the black faceplate, and one on the side right next to the seal. The drive connections are accessible through the cage without removing anything but the lid.

 

[sattas10]

I'm very happy to report that I got my programs back.
As some of you may know, the hard drive is encased in a frame on the inside and there's a "do not tamper with" label on the hard drive.
I didn't even need to take the hard drive out though. It was tricky but with some careful maneuvering I just unplugged it from the old box and plugged it in to the new box. Moved everything to an external hard drive then moved it over to the new receiver.

I tried backing the timers up to a remote but didn't have any luck actually restoring them so had to do it manually.

At the time I didn't realize it wasn't making a copy but actually moving all the files. So I ended up moving them back to the hard drive.
Does anyone know if there's either a way to just copy the files as a safety backup on the external hard drive from the menus or can I use a PC to make a separate folder and copy all the files to that folder so everything can be both on the external hard drive and also on the hard drive in the receiver at the same time?

Thanks to everyone for your help.

 

[Tony S]

Does anyone know if there's either a way to just copy the files as a safety backup on the external hard drive from the menus or can I use a PC to make a separate folder and copy all the files to that folder so everything can be both on the external hard drive and also on the hard drive in the receiver at the same time?

Thanks to everyone for your help.

There is no official way to do that. Dish only allows you to move the files; you can not copy them. To keep the program providers happy, there can only be one copy of a show at a time on the hard drive.

 

[TG2]

There is no official way to do that. Dish only allows you to move the files; you can not copy them. To keep the program providers happy, there can only be one copy of a show at a time on the hard drive.

or as the geeky of us might like saying "There can be only one!"

you could take the hard drive out of the external enclosure, and make a backup of that drive with any standard linux boot cd .. I say out of the enclosure, because there's still some issues some times with USB connected devices .. but otherwise you could copy the drive sector by sector and have an exact mirror of the current content.

*unknown* however, is if dish keeps any specific file on the drive to identify last time accessed, or drive identifier on the receiver's hard drive or flash memory, to know that you're not plugging the original drive in. Its not that I would put dish into that league intelligence-wise, but because legally they might have thought of it to appease content providers with a security measure.

 

[randog311]

Yes, The Hard Drive from the VIP722K can be swapped to the replacement receiver...

I have found that when VIP722K Fails to Start-Up / Boot, it is usually the "Receiver" (Capacitor C194 1200uf = Found to be Bulging) that is the "Cause", not the Hard Drive. I have now twice (3-4 years apart) swapped the old Hard Drive (full of Recordings) from the Dead Receiver to the New / Exchange receiver, Booted it up, then Transferred the Recordings to an External Hard Drive, Used remotes "system wizard" advanced function to save the "timers" etc... to the remote, then swapped the old (now Empty of Recordings) back to the Dead Receiver & sent it back to Dish... Re-Installed the New Hard Drive back into the New Receiver, fed timers now saved to the remote to the new receiver.
Back in business for the next 3-4 years...
Note: keep the Hard Drive, The Transformer Assembly attached to the Metal Bracket and Transfer as a Unit (3 electrical connector disconnect points).