What happened to my HR20?

[kmj37]

Hi all, long-time lurker, first-time poster.

DirecTV "tech" support was no help, so I hereby submit to your collective wisdom for assistance.

My wife turned on our HR20 tonight and said, "Oh my God, it's all gone!"

Sure enough, all of our saved recordings were gone, and those that were scheduled did not record. At closer examination, I also found that our recording history, to do list, prioritizer list, and all planned recordings were also gone.

The HR20 currently works fine for live TV, and setting up recordings does work, but where did all of the other stuff go? Unfortunately, I had been watching only live sports for the last few days, so I didn't have reason to look at the to-do list. But three or four days ago, when I last did (and got the April 15 pay per view message), everything was fine.

The software happily reports 100% available space.

The DirecTV tech blamed it on magnets or a partial hard drive failure.

I'm a computer guy - I don't buy that for a second. But if anyone has heard about similar occurrences, I'd love to hear about that.

Thanks, all!

 

[charper1]

WELCOME!


At first guess it sounds like a full reset was performed to me. The "magnets" line made me laugh out loud; I will say I am doubting that was actual tech dept and maybe CSR?

 

[kmj37]

WELCOME!


At first guess it sounds like a full reset was performed to me. The "magnets" line made me laugh out loud; I will say I am doubting that was actual tech dept and maybe CSR?

What are all of the methods to perform a "full reset" rather than just rebooting? We commonly have to reboot the darn thing after 1-second power outages and are used to pulling the plug from the back to reboot.

But full reset that's not.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[dodge]

Have you tried the red button under the access card door on the front???
That is a hard reset.

 

[charper1]

What are all of the methods to perform a "full reset" rather than just rebooting? We commonly have to reboot the darn thing after 1-second power outages and are used to pulling the plug from the back to reboot.

But full reset that's not.

Thanks for the welcome!

In the setup menu I think there is a RESET SECTION that leads to a "reset all" option that will wipe everything out like is was fresh out of the box.

 

[kmj37]

In the setup menu I think there is a RESET SECTION that leads to a "reset all" option that will wipe everything out like is was fresh out of the box.

This much is true, but that takes four clicks to get to and would be awfully hard to do by accident. So unless we want to blame my wife (which I am not about to, because she lost the latest episode of Desperate Housewives and is quite unhappy), I don't think anybody performed a reset.

Just for completeness, I also performed a red button boot. No change.

I would also hate to blame this on a bug in software, but it's sounding more like one to me.

 

[charper1]

I have read claims about locks, missing recordings and resets; but never what amounted to a "auto full reset and HDD wipe" and THEN working again; but hey, anything can be possible.

 

[dfergie]

I submitted this to Directv Tech's... will report back, sorry for your loss...And Welcome to SatelliteGuys!

 

[charper1]

DF, have you heard of this scenario before? I guess my friends, family and myself are luck; we have had the occasional reboot after firmware upgrades but NEVER had any serious issues or anything that sounds like this.

 

[dfergie]

I haven't , and do not frequent the regular Direct tech forums enough to have seen either...

 

[Jimbo]

DF, have you heard of this scenario before? I guess my friends, family and myself are luck; we have had the occasional reboot after firmware upgrades but NEVER had any serious issues or anything that sounds like this.

This sounds like way back in the beginning of the HR20's issues.

If the OP is a Computer guy, he should understand the HR20's are simply a computer and weird stuff happens, that doesn't make it any better on his end.
I NEVER record anything that is so important that if it were gone, would cause trouble.
I guess what I'm saying is, record stuff and watch it, move it to another medium if you need to keep it.

If you need to replace a receiver. you cannot move the recordings to the new one.
If you use a External Hard Drive and need to move to a different unit, you can't, so there are alot of reasons why you should watch and or move shows.

I would chaulk it up to a computer glitch.

Jimbo

 

[kmj37]

If the OP is a Computer guy, he should understand the HR20's are simply a computer and weird stuff happens, that doesn't make it any better on his end.

I understand that, believe me. My goal here is more to determine if others have experienced it, or if it really was a glitch. I'm certain there's a command that could be sent from the satellite to cause this, whether it's publicized or not.

But more importantly, if this is the first sign of my HR20's hard drive going bad, I'll be watching more closely, and perhaps even listening. And recording everything on my other DVR.

No one in my family is overly thrilled with DirecTV's DVR products. We had, for a time, one of the original non-HD DVRs, just to play with, and in the beginning, as I'm sure many of you remember, they were awful. We sent it back and stuck with our Series 2 TiVo.

I grant that they are much improved now, but often, that's not good enough for the non-techie members of the household, who expect technology to just work. Add this to the fact that our Blu-Ray player was bad out of the box, and spent nearly three months in repair, and the household is NOT pleased with ths new-fangled stuff, HD or not.

I think I should mention - this HR20 has been in use for six months, almost to the day, and has NOT been hooked to a phone line in that time.

 

[iwc5893]

IIRC, the "Reset All" features does not wipe anything currently stored on the HDD. To do that, it would require a reformat of the drive which can be done in two steps by pressing a total of three buttons.

 

[dfergie]

My understanding is if there is an inability to read a vital sector on the hard drive, the hard drive is reformatted.

from one of the tech guides (not from Direct)

 

[charper1]

Hmm; I have seen the "reset all" set the units back to box fresh. How does one get to the recordings after a reset all; if they no longer show in the recordings list?

 

[kmj37]

from one of the tech guides (not from Direct)

This would make an awful lot of sense (in a non-user friendly sort of way).

In the old days, bad sectors could be blocked off, rendering the rest of the drive still useful. I wish it would notify you when it does this, though. Does the guide mention any notification?

Thanks!

 

[kmj37]

Hmm; I have seen the "reset all" set the units back to box fresh. How does one get to the recordings after a reset all; if they no longer show in the recordings list?

I'd like to know the answer to this, too. If, for some reason, the drive was not actually reformatted as has been suggested, it may provide a means to get our recordings back.

 

[dfergie]

This would make an awful lot of sense (in a non-user friendly sort of way).

In the old days, bad sectors could be blocked off, rendering the rest of the drive still useful. I wish it would notify you when it does this, though. Does the guide mention any notification?

Thanks!

Your Welcome, He didn't say, so I asked the above....

 

[Jimbo]

I'd like to know the answer to this, too. If, for some reason, the drive was not actually reformatted as has been suggested, it may provide a means to get our recordings back.

From my observations, the "Reset All" does NOT delete any recordings.
That said,,there is another sequence to re format, but I do not know what they are.

Jimbo

 

[audioman]

Hi all, long-time lurker, first-time poster.

DirecTV "tech" support was no help, so I hereby submit to your collective wisdom for assistance.

My wife turned on our HR20 tonight and said, "Oh my God, it's all gone!"

Sure enough, all of our saved recordings were gone, and those that were scheduled did not record. At closer examination, I also found that our recording history, to do list, prioritizer list, and all planned recordings were also gone.

The HR20 currently works fine for live TV, and setting up recordings does work, but where did all of the other stuff go? Unfortunately, I had been watching only live sports for the last few days, so I didn't have reason to look at the to-do list. But three or four days ago, when I last did (and got the April 15 pay per view message), everything was fine.

The software happily reports 100% available space.

The DirecTV tech blamed it on magnets or a partial hard drive failure.

I'm a computer guy - I don't buy that for a second. But if anyone has heard about similar occurrences, I'd love to hear about that.

Thanks, all!

I do not claim to be a computer guy, or an expert at much, but I'm kinda knowledgeable about a bunch O' stuff.

I Have seen first hand how goofy receivers can be if they overheat.

It sounds like your receiver did a hard drive reset, but with power problems, you should not expect anything spectacular from a lil' computer that can
make TV from SPACE.........