721 Problem

[hometheaterman]

About a month ago give or take my 721 messed up during a storm. It acted like it had a currupt file. I did a reset using the power button on the front of the receiver as this usually fixes my issues. It restarted but said it was formatting the hard drive. Anyway it got restarted and while I lost everything on there it seemed to work great. Fast forward to last night. We had another storm so this may have helped it along I'm not sure. It is plugged into a surge protector though.

Anyway it worked fine yesterday but I turned it on today and it was at that press select screen saver thing with the dish logo and the press select words floating around. It normally goes here after you let it sit for hours so this was no surprise. Anyway I hit select and it never came on. I hit the power button on the remote and it rebooted the reciever. It goes to the first screen that looks almost like a command prompt. IT has the dish logo then says something under it about starting the receiver then under that it says validating hard drive. Under the validating hard drive it has a blinking rectangle thing. It's taller than wide. It just seems to hang on validating hard drive and never gets past that. The power light on the front of the receiver blinks too. After letting it sit for 30 minutes or so give or take it just goes to a black screen and wont let you do anything. The light still blinks on the receiver. I've tried doing a reset from the button on the front of the receiver and also from unplugging it. Any ideas as to whats up here? I called Dish and they wanted me to wait while they re authorized the receiver but I really don't think it has anything to do with this.


Anyone know whats wrong with this thing? Is it something I can fix or should I just go ahead and get a 722. I've been thinking slightly about upgrading to one but I really don't want to as I like the 721 and I don't watch enough HD that I really care about having it and I don't want to pay an extra $25 a month for the HD and DVR. Even if I did upgrade I'd like to replace the 501 upstairs with this 721 so I'm really hoping I can fix it. Any ideas?

[BNUMM]

Try a factory reset and then start over.

[hometheaterman]

How do you try a factory reset? Anyway I got fed up and just put in a order for a 722 from dishstore.net. I still would like to get this thing working though if possible. Hopefully I will like the 722. I really don't want to pay the DVR fee but the HD will be a plus. I have my spare receiver which is a 211 hooked up right now so the HD is nice but I miss my DVR already and it's only been gone for a day.

[scoobyxj]

A reauthorization only takes a minute or so. If it didn't come back on then I'm going to say it's toast. Good choice on the VIP722. I guarantee you'll love it. Put it in single mode, and rarely ever again deal with not being able to watch live tv when it's recording. Use the swap feature to surf two programs at once with the ability to rewind it if something interesting happens. Oh, and look at the DVR fee this way regardless of what receiver it's replaced with if it has a DVR in it you'll have to pay the DVR fee.

[hometheaterman]

Yeah thats why I figured I minus well get the 722 I wanted since they all have a DVR fee. I am putting it in single mode like you said as I only want to power my 1 tv with it and want to be able to record 2 things at once. The only thing I'm worried about is I've read about some bugs where it's not skipping all over the place when you try to fast foward or rewind and then hit play. That would be really annoying as I like to skip commercials.

[sluggo]

Yeah thats why I figured I minus well get the 722 I wanted since they all have a DVR fee. I am putting it in single mode like you said as I only want to power my 1 tv with it and want to be able to record 2 things at once. The only thing I'm worried about is I've read about some bugs where it's not skipping all over the place when you try to fast foward or rewind and then hit play. That would be really annoying as I like to skip commercials.

With the 721, unplug it and open the case. Remove the ribbon cable from the hard drive, plug it back in and watch what happens. It will attempt to find the hard drive and eventually give youqa message that the HD canot be found (I can't remember how long the process takes, but you need to wait for that message). Unplug it and replace the ribbon cable on the HD, plug it back in and power it on. It will recogize the HD, reformat, repartition and download new operating software. I did this with mine last year and it has worked like a charm since then.
OR PM me and I can give you another option.

[retiredTech]

anyone with dvr should invest in a ups, it will save your dvr from most power related problems