Problems with both my 622's and external hard drives

[AdamGott]

I had/have a problem with my two 622's and was wondering if anyone else had this problem - we woke up the other day to find one of them completely shut off and when we powered it back on all of my favorite lists were still present but all of the channels were checked. Additionally my parental controls were set for all channels and I ever have to enter the code for channel 100!

Today I tried to watch a movie from my external hard drive and it tells me that the drive was used on another receiver and that I have to format it!!!! I was in a panic and went to check my two full 500 gig hard drives on my other 622 and those gave me the same message but let me 'change to this receiver' even though they have never been on another receiver.

I called Dish and they said that they can't reset the counter on the hard drives and that I have to reformat...

I don't have a lot that I care about on the drive that I have to format but I am still kind of pissed that Dish seems to not be able to do anything about this. I seem to remember reading here that they can reset the switch?

 

[gdarwin]

It is not asking to format them.... Follow this thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd...-external-hdds-now-movable-between-boxes.html

 

[AdamGott]

Actually one of my receivers IS asking to format them - or, to be more precise, it is asking to remove all programs from the drive. The other receiver is just telling me that I need to re-authorize the hard drive for that receiver.

 

[gdarwin]

Is the household code the same on both receivers?

 

[AdamGott]

Yes, it is. And of course the idiot CSR's are no help and know nothing about the household codes.

 

[KAB]

You should not be talking to CSRs to begin with. Ask for tier 2 tech support.

 

[AdamGott]

Well I did not ask directly for that but I kept asking the guy if someone above him could provide better service and of course he said no.

 

[AdamGott]

Well I guess I am crap out of luck. I called Tech Support today and they say that the only thing I can do is format my hard drive or format my receiver. I am trying to cram everything onto my two 500 gigs and use my 320 as a test drive. First I will empty and format that and if that does not work I will move everything from my poorly operable 622 to my 320 and try formatting that. I have a feeling that somehow I am going to lose my programming that is recorded on the poorly operating 622.

Supposedly I had the top level tech support but this guy swore that I was wrong about the same home activation feature and that he would know about it...

 

[rthomp03]

And of course the idiot CSR's are no help and know nothing about the household codes.

OK I'll ask the dumb question. What are household codes? I haven't heard of them before either.

 

[AdamGott]

It seems that they may have enabled the unlimited swapping of external hard drives within a household last week as confirmed by several users in these forums. Before there was a limit of three swaps before you had to reformat your hard drive and now it seems that the limit may be zero swaps from receivers outside of your household or from receivers with problems.