external drive loss problem

[eatonjb]

ok. tihs is the second drive that I tried with the USB adapter, it works fine, but then when i unplug the drive and then plug it back in , the 622 says that the drive is not formatted!

so second time i lost all my saved shows!!!

ideas?

[eatonjb]

on the phone with tech support.

get this.. this guy actualy told me, if I unplug my USB drive for any reason, i have to reformat it and start over again!!! so the question , whats the use?!?

if i unplug it, all my data is whipd out for good?!?

[FLAsathappy]

Gee ! I sure hope I don't lose power !

[eatonjb]

you know, that EXACTY what I asked him.. not that I loose power alot, but it does happen.

anyways, it says that you can have 1 drive plugged in at any time, and swap drives as you wish. so whatever he told me would null that out..

i got a better tech rep after I said that I don't think he's aware of the use. The new guy had no answer at the moment, and asked a lot of numbers off my box, so that he could send it to another level of tech support.

better then just getting a dumb answer.

time will tell.

I tried a new drive, and from windows made sure it had no partitions on it at ALL! so I will record some random shows put them on the drive and do some personal tests

[harsh]

I tried a new drive, and from windows made sure it had no partitions on it at ALL! so I will record some random shows put them on the drive and do some personal testsPreparing a hard drive with Windows is a bad idea. Windows likes to hide and/or ignore alien file systems. The best choice is to just leave the drive alone and let the receiver deal with it.

[eatonjb]

well.. now that i let windows take out ALL partitions, and then had the reciver set it.. works great!!

tommorow i will test by plugging it back in

[eatonjb]

nope did it again.. DAMN .. this sucks!!!

ohh well.. I will have to try something else..

i am using one of the DYI adapters.. wonder if thats it.. I will pick up a WD Book or something , see if that works.

[HDTVFanAtic]

ok. tihs is the second drive that I tried with the USB adapter, it works fine, but then when i unplug the drive and then plug it back in , the 622 says that the drive is not formatted!

so second time i lost all my saved shows!!!

ideas?

If you read what I posted several weeks ago (though I believe it was a D* user bitching about using eSATA instead of USB), this is why I stated eSATA was the way to go - too many have lost data on external USB drives - its a common problem that many of us have known too well for years now :(

[Tubbie]

Hi there. I have a Cavalry 500GB SATA I/II to USB+eSATA HDD connected to my Vip622. This thing has an on/off button so you don't necessary to leave it on all the time. I leave it connected to the 622 full time but most of the time it's in the off position and I only turn it on when I want to watch my transfered content from the 622 HDD. I have about 39GB of movies (in HD) and so far (cross my fiingers) have not had the misfortune of having to reformat my drive. I would be a very unhappy boy, too if that was the case, though. :mad:

[Ron Barry]

If you read what I posted several weeks ago (though I believe it was a D* user bitching about using eSATA instead of USB), this is why I stated eSATA was the way to go - too many have lost data on external USB drives - its a common problem that many of us have known too well for years now :(

I believe what the user described was not that the drive just deciding to delete all content but was that he got the reformat message and said yes to it by accident. Well at least that is how I read it and definitely not a drive loss issue from what I can tell.

I think we need more information here and the CSR that told you that would happen ever time you turned it off was of course wrong. You shoudl only get that the first time. If you are getting it multiple times something else is up... To give your self the best shot, I would recommend the drive being completely clean.

More info definitely is helpful...

[Jim5506]

After reconnecting your EHD and shows not being seen, did you reboot the 622?

[TBoneit]

DYI Adaptor?

I've tried the Generic ME320(325) and WD 500 gig that was on sale and swapped the WD EHD in and out and uplugged it and so on. Right now ir is showing 393Gb free. Just went and tested a recording from before the last unplug/replug cycle and chose resume and it picked up where I had left off.

My suspicion is that it is the USB to IDE/SATA chipset that causes problems with the one in the 622. They don't all play nice together. BTW I've seen problems with firewire where different chipsets in the PC can make or break the firewire connection working too.

SO far from what I'm seeing here it looks like I was lucky BB was out of the Seagates I was going to buy and had plenty of the WDs.

[HDTVFanAtic]

I believe what the user described was not that the drive just deciding to delete all content but was that he got the reformat message and said yes to it by accident. Well at least that is how I read it and definitely not a drive loss issue from what I can tell.

I think we need more information here and the CSR that told you that would happen ever time you turned it off was of course wrong. You shoudl only get that the first time. If you are getting it multiple times something else is up... To give your self the best shot, I would recommend the drive being completely clean.

More info definitely is helpful...

What happens when an External USB Drive looses its information (and has for years now) is that the O/S sees it as unpartitioned and unformated - all information is gone.

It's not just as if the drive is formated and the files are gone.

Now, if the VIP622 formats an unformatted drive when it sees it, then yes, it sounds as if we are seeing the same old problem again and again.

I don't see how one could tell it to reformat the drive (or why it would ask) if the drive was already formatted and synced to that particular VIP622.

[eatonjb]

ok.. the drive works fine, then when i turn off the drive, and then later turn the drive on. when I choose to access it, by adding a new show/movie to it, or to view it, the 622 says the drive is not formatted and needs to be formatted .

this has happened 4 times now.

[Ron Barry]

eatonjb... can you provide more details as to how you have this configured?

As for the 622 seeing the drive as unformatted? Well without more information I would not say that is what it is seeing. Could be that it is not seeing it as a 622 formated drive and therefore is going through the format step over and over again. But of course i would not rule out your possibility either HDTVFanAtic. I don't think there is enough information to rule out anything. I do find it interesting that it happens over and over again so it makes me feel that something is not getting saved that should be.

Well not familiar with a DYI Adapter, but that could be the reason... This does not sound like a common configuration so it might not have been part of the test bed. I figure most of the test configurations would be standard complete USB drive kits like the WD MyBook.

[mwsmith2]

ok.. the drive works fine, then when i turn off the drive, and then later turn the drive on. when I choose to access it, by adding a new show/movie to it, or to view it, the 622 says the drive is not formatted and needs to be formatted .

this has happened 4 times now.

Sounds like a very similar experience I had a while back with a DIY USB drive. It's been years ago, (on a windows box) but it dumped several gigs of files. Not good. That's one of the reasons I went with a ready-to-go drive. Yours sounds like the controller is sleeping and doesn't want to wake up, which makes the 622 think it's an unformatted drive. Kick-starting it with the powerswitch gets everything up and going, so it looks like it should. I got the Maxtor 500GB and it's been a completely painless experience.