Must Reformat My Hard Drive Message

[Don M]

When I turned on one of my 211s early Sun am a message that said I had to reformat my external hard drive came up. It said I would lose all the current data. Any ideas on how I can save my data? I have not had any power outages or other problems. What could have happened? Thanks for any help.

[Dish97]

I'm afraid you're out of luck. Same thing happened to me about a month ago with my 622. I restored about a dozen movies over night. When I check later that day I had the same message. All 12 movies were restored but I could not access the EHD. Tried everything I could think of. No go. Finally reformatted. I always wondered if it was a problem with the EHD or a receiver glitch. I wonder how often this has happened?

[ibglowin]

Try a hard reset on the receiver.

[harsh]

Try a hard reset on the receiver.+1

Ignore the message and do a power plug reset before you do anything else.

[Don M]

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the receiver power plug reset, but the same message popped up afterwards. I tried just unplugging the HD, but no luck. I purchased a new WD 500 gb HD and will attach it to the 211. My question is, if I do not reformat the old HD would a computer tech be able to recover the data? If so, how would I tranfer it to the new HD so that it would be compatible with DISH? I have another 211 with an external HD and so far it is working fine. I also have an ext HD hooked to a 622 and it is working great also.

[Jim5506]

If you format the new drive and have access to a linux computer, you can copy the folder on the old drive to the new drive in linux and the recordings will be (hopefully) readable by your 211.

I do not recall the name of the folder, perhaps others can illucidate.

[P Smith]

"DishArc" for EHD [622/722].
Whole P3 (may exclude delay_buffer files) for 211/411 and "catalog.*" files from P1.

[usmaak]

Hi.

I'm facing this exact problem right now. It just started tonight. Well, it started last week with intermittent errors, but now I'm getting the reformat message.

I have to admit that I'm pretty dumb when it comes to Linux. I have tried it a few times, but I never did much with it. I had a lot of shows on my external hard drive and I really want to get them back.

So my questions are:

1. Is there some way that I can use Linux without having a Linux machine? For instance, is it possible to use a bootable DVD with some version of Linux on it? If so, where can I find that version of Linux.
2. Is it possible to plug in both a new hard drive and the old one, and copy from the old one to the new one?
3. What folder(s) will need to be copied?
4. If possible, what are the commands for doing the copy?

Thanks for any help you can give. I'm desperate to salvage my shows, if possible.

-Dawn

[P Smith]

Sure, any version of Ubuntu booted from CD (see its site for ISO) will do the job without installing onto your HDD.
Folders ? You didn't say what disk you have - 211 or 622/722 EHD. See my post above your.
Before transfer (it would be very simple in Ubuntu GUI - same as under Windows), connect new disk to your DVR and let it be formatted.

[Michael P]

I used to get that message all the time on my 622. It usually happened when I left the EHD power supply unplugged for any length of time. I now keep the EHD powered up 24/7. I have not seen the reformat message ever since.

When I get the message I ignore it. Several times I had to wake up the EHD by connecting it to my Win XP machine then reconnecting it to the 622. This is with a Seagate 1.5 TB drive.