Dish Network's DVR External Hard Drive Feature ROCKS!

Posted By Timothy • Topics: Misc, Tech

Nov 8, 2007 10:09 AM EDT

My Dish Network VIP622 was dying slowly (kept rebooting multiple times per day) and occassionally would squeel and buzz and make very loud annoying noises while crashing (poor thing). Luckily, Dish had finally started their external hard drive feature for the receiver where you can archive recordings to an external USB 2.0 hard drive. I was worried at first that the recordings were married to the receiver and I'd lose everything if I replaced my receiver. It just seems like the way DRM is going these days, that's the route they'd take. (Sort of like how Sirius' "DVR" Stiletto 100 player doesn't contain the ability to notify you of when artists are on (the Stiletto 10 can) because the benevolent music biz decided that would encourage piracy.)

Anyway, Dish Network pleasantly surprised me again. I plugged my replacement receiver in, plugged the hard drive in and it told me "This hard drive was used on another Dish DVR, would you like to convert its contents to work on this DVR?" I hit yes and now I lost absolutely NO archived shows!

Thanks, Dish!

Now the question is with the wording there, can you convert it back? How many times can you convert from one receiver to another? Can you only convert between receivers you own? I would guess the answers would be (in this order): yes, some limited amount, and yes. They can't give away the farm here. The movie and TV industries would blow a gasket whether or not "trading hard drives" ever could possibly become a piracy problem (that's even MORE complicated than trading VHS back in the day). I mean it's not like you want to just go give away your $100 hard drive to people. And the data on the drive is encrypted and who knows if even the mighty Norton Ghost (I refuse to call it Symantec Ghost) could image it successfully. And lastly, when you copy a show to your receiver, it's removed from the hard drive, necessitating recording it again for the original owner, which makes piracy even more difficult (but is also not very intrusive to the legitimate user -- good balance).

Anybody got any answers? I'm curious...

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Comments :

Without a Dish Network subscription there are still a few things you can do with an old DVR 625. I found that you can watch the videos stored on the DVR without a service card. It cannot be used to record, watch TV inputs or USB memory stick. You can take the 235 G hard drive out and copy all the recorded shows to your own PC. Just remove the hard drive from the DVR and connect it to a desktop computer. The Dish Network uses a Linux hard disk format called Ext. (Dish Network uses Linux to run its unit if that helps.) You will have to Mount the three unnamed partitions to see them with Windows. Just use the Windows disk manager to see the DVR hard disk. A special program like Ext2fsd can be used to label the partitions. As far as I know the rest of the DVR 625 unit is useless without a subscription. I just kept the 235 gig HD in my desktop computer and trashed the rest of the DVR 625 unit.

Comment By Dman At 3/19/2008 8:00 PM EDT

I believe you can only transfer the disk between DVRs on the same account.

Comment By Grizz At 6/4/2009 6:00 PM EDT

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Trackback By computer file recovery At 7/13/2009 10:19 PM EDT

hey dman, would your method work if you transfer the files to an external HD and connect with a pc?

i have a mac and a pc and cannot get the mac to recognize the files from my VIP722 because the linux program on the echostar device formatted the externa as such it would need to be reformatted for mac and will wipe all my files. i just want to be able to back up the files to the pc or mac because the echostar device only will allow me 500 gig of external and i used that up pretty fast.

if i cane back them up to a pc i could watch them all there.

Comment By jjbankhead At 7/18/2009 9:55 AM EDT

imm attempting to do the same thing as jjbankhead
any ideas on how to make the files appear off my movabl hardrive they seem to be hidden and secondly how to i move them too my pc

Comment By unionfireguy At 5/9/2010 11:52 AM EDT

You can't. They are encrypted and can only be decoded by a receiver on your account.

Comment By Timothy At 5/9/2010 12:49 PM EDT

I got a hard drive out of VIP622 - it is also formatted with Linix but I also found out there is a hardware lock on it. Anyone knows anything about that or how to break it or give a password or something?

Comment By Tumbi At 3/24/2011 5:16 PM EDT

@Tumbi - The hard drive encryption most likely uses the Smart Card inserted into your receiver (the same one that is required to receive channels). It's pretty strong. As far as I know, it's never been cracked, unlike DirecTV's older encryption methods.

I didn't realize it also has a hardware lock. Can you link a picture?

Comment By Timothy At 3/24/2011 5:53 PM EDT

We need to get an external harddrive for our Dish Mod 625 DVR. We're going to have to go to HD eventually but right now have standard (SD). Does anyone have any suggestios as to an economical harddrive to go to that would work with SD now and HD when we upgrade to HD?
Thanks!

Comment By Sue and Chuck At 9/23/2011 1:27 PM EDT

It’s not as though DISH Network makes it incredibly hard to record your favorite TV shows and schedule upcoming programming, especially with the recent introduction of the DISH Remote Access app.

Comment By IT support UK At 9/25/2011 6:17 AM EDT

I have used Acomdata 1T and 2T 3.5" desktop drives (the Triple and Quad Interface ones scream when uploading/downloading). But now, I have a problem finding the 2T units. But I have used WD My-books (1T/2T), I just got a Toshiba 2T unit. Have to check w/wife about transfer speed. I would love to find a way to play my EHDD archived shows on the computer. It would save me from having to take the reciever on the road and constantly shuffle movies between the EHDD and the DVR.

Comment By Mike At 1/12/2012 8:15 PM EDT

I also have a 625 DVR and am trying to increase its memory with an external hard drive. I have a 1TB Seagate External drive (powered) but when I plug it into the DVR USB port it says it is not a compatabile hard drive. Can you tell me what type of external hard drive is compatible?
Thanks

Comment By Greg At 1/23/2012 12:30 AM EDT

I researched and bought a 2TB WD Elements external hard drive from Amazon for a very reasonable price and it is compatible with Dish Network. There is a link on Dish's site that states the criteria for an external hard drive... must be 2TB and under, have it's own power supply, etc. Hope this helps

Comment By Christa At 2/6/2012 6:54 PM EDT

I am eliminating my Dish Network DVR box and going with another option. I backed up movies onto a WD eBooks HDD. My PC will not recognize the WD due to the format the DVR put it in. I do not want to throw my WD eBooks HDD away. Is there any way to enable my computer to recognize it or re-format it???

Comment By Cameron At 2/18/2012 5:00 PM EDT

@Cameron: You didn't say, but I am guessing you are using Windows? I'm including the steps to use if you are using Windows 7. Before connecting your WD HDD, click the START button, right-click COMPUTER, and select MANAGE. In the left pane of the Computer Management window that opens, left-click DISK MANAGEMENT. Scroll down the center bottom window and take note of what physical disks Windows recognizes (In my system, Disk 0, which contains my C: drive, is the only active disk). Connect your WD HDD and click ACTION > RESCAN DISKS (In my system, the external HDD mounts as Disk 5). Scroll down in the window and look for the newly recognized disk. My Dish DVR archive 500GB HDD shows 1MB as partition 1 and approx 465GB as partition 2. Right-click in each partition and select DELETE VOLUME for each partition. Right-click in the newly blank area where the partitions just were (now unallocated) and select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME. Go through the new simple volume wizard (keep defaults to make things simple). Once you're finished, Windows Explorer will recognize the volume.

Comment By Scott At 2/18/2012 6:13 PM EDT

@Cameron: I forgot to mention, this will reformat the HDD. You will not be able to access the archived DVR recordings without some sort of data recovery solution. By the way, the reason Windows doesn't recognize the volume is because it is formatted with a file system used by Linux (my VIP722K formatted my drive as EXT3).

Comment By Scott At 2/18/2012 6:17 PM EDT

I tried to use a 2T Iomega Prestige EHD with my 722k Dish dvr & and was told by Dish that it met the criteria they have posted but after formating I keep getting the same message to format again. tried 4 times same results

Comment By Bill At 3/3/2012 11:03 AM EDT

I am like Cameron , I have a dish dvr in the vip-722 and it looks like it is formated to the linux ext3 formate . My ? is is there a file driver to use the linux ext3 with windows 7 , where can i i get it from if there is one to make a seagate usb drive work on my laptop and play my shows from the dvr ?

thank you ;; James

Comment By JAMES GILLASPIE At 3/5/2012 8:03 PM EDT

>>JAMES GILLASPIE
Found this:
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/03/19/four-applications-for-accessing-ext3-partitions-from-windows/

For accessing ext3 and ext2 partitions in windows.

Comment By Bobby At 4/2/2012 1:04 AM EDT

...or possibly a live cd could be used if you dont want to go through all the trouble.

Comment By Bobby At 4/2/2012 1:09 AM EDT

If you are having trouble with formats, I found that slowing the disk access speed with the jumpers on the back worked. Most new hard disks include a sheet that explains these jumper settings as a work around for attaching them to an older/slower motherboard. If you no longer have the sheet, most jumper settings are online. I am now able to use any disk that I've tried (up to 2TB at least). Hope this helps.

Comment By JP At 4/9/2012 4:42 PM EDT

I have a 2TB maxwell External HD, My dish network acct. is on pause for 2 months while moving,my vip722 dish reciever will not play the movies saved on it while my acct. is on pause, is there away to play the movies with my laptop,How do I get the dishnetwork formated ext.HD to play the movies & TV shows saved on it to play with my windows7 oprating system??

Comment By J, Noakes At 4/20/2012 2:20 PM EDT

Good info here for Techies, lol. For me though, I grabbed the new Hopper which has a 2 TB hard drive built in. It has a 750 MHz processor, and now actually has a separate 1 TB partition for Prime Time anytime recordings. I think it lets you store some 2,000 hours of content, with an extra 250 hours of HD, bringing the grand total of HD space to 500 hours! I also like the new auto-hop, which lets me automatically skip over commercials on my Prime Time Anytime recordings. This DVR is the bomb. A Dish coworker showed me how to use it, and I didn't have to go embarrass myself asking stupid questions about hard drives at a Radio Shack.

Comment By erik At 5/21/2012 12:51 PM EDT

I have a dish Network VIP622 and about a week ago purchased a WD Element 2TB Ext Hard drive it works great i formatted it as explained but It wont let my Dvr update nightly on it's own . I love the awesome space it holds but I have too unplug my hard drive to get it to update (My vip622DVR)I wish I could find an idea

Comment By victor Burke At 6/13/2012 2:31 PM EDT

I hooked my mexell 2tb hard drive to my T.V in now it will not resopond to my cumputer my labtop or the T.V what should i do.

Comment By EASY At 6/26/2012 11:53 PM EDT

I have a VIP722K dish dvr. I recently connected a portable 320GB HD to it. Even though Dish says you need a hard drive with its own power supply, the portable one came right up, was formatted and available once I connected it. I thought initially that I would need to move recordings off the DVR hard drive to get back more recording time, but I stumbled across a settings in preferences --> Record Plus. There's a button to the right labeled ERD (External Recording Device). Selecting this brings you to a screen that allows you to enable recording on or not recording on an external recording device. It was set to disable when I went there first, so I changed it to enabled.

The my recordings screen reported I had 58 minutes of HD time left. I set up a timer to record 12 hours of Homeland, and checked on the "time remaining" stat now and then. It would go down to about 20 or so minutes left, then go back up to 30 or 40 minutes left. I thought it was automatically sending the excess to the external hard drive, but when I chose Multi Media and looked at the space remaining, the number was not decreasing. Of the 320 GB original, the format created one 1 GB partition and a second 298 GB partition. I had archived a few short shows to test it, so it has 296.5 available. I recorded the 12 hours of the show I wanted, and the DVR still reports 28 minutes or so available, and the space on the external drive is still at 296.5 GB. Question (1) Where are the recordings being stored? No other recordings appear to be getting zapped off the DVR hard drive to make room for more, so I'm really puzzled. Dish doesn't know how to answer this. Question (2): Does someone know more about the ERD setting and how it works?

Comment By EddyV At 10/1/2012 1:08 PM EDT

Comment By Netflix Overseas At 12/4/2012 6:10 AM EDT

DISH 625 DVR is it crashing? Options to save recordings? 1)two remotes - DVR no longer responds to one remote. DVR responds to second remote. (no, its not the batteries.)
2) Freezes/restarts frequently in DVR mode. Not in live mode.
3) Appears like ALL recordings were erased - even protected ones:((

IF I bought and attached an external HDD, would anything exist to transfer?

Thanks for your suggestions!

Comment By Zish Owner At 12/7/2012 12:41 AM EDT

If you outgrow your existing storage, it can be easier and cheaper to upgrade a drive than to buy an entirely new PC.

Comment By plumbing At 12/21/2012 8:57 AM EDT

Very interesting topics here. I am a Dish customer for over 20 years. I wanted to record to hard drives from my 722 receiver, buying my own receivers to play the hard drive on (camper and spare bedroom). Dish tech support told me the 222 receiver would work, I buy 2 on ebay (and 2 2-T hard drives). Go to hook them up, Dish says 222 won't work, need 211s and 1-T hard drive. Now I buy a 211 receiver and 2 more 1 T hard drives. Go to hook them up and Dish says either one will work (even had them say neither one will work at this point), and they will send out a tech to hook me up. Tech gets here and says neither will work, why did they tell me this, and that my hard drive from a 722 to a different model would even format the hard drive and wipe out all my movies. I've bought over $800 in equipment (some I can get refunded through much time and effort) because Dish told me what to do. Not one of the tech supports made notes of our conversations, what I was asking or they told me, so there's no proof supposedly. There's nothing they can do since I bought receivers from ebay. Oh, well, too bad...after 20 years of service with them. I would love to know how to convert my shows and movies to the computer for all the trouble, aggravation and expense they've caused me. Its pretty bad when you can't trust "tech support" on your products.

Comment By Newbbee At 12/27/2012 11:11 PM EDT

I recently added a WD external hard drive (2 TB)to my Dish 622 receiver. Everything has been working as it should except I don't seem to be able to delete anything from the hard drive. I follow the prompts to delete and it just doen't delete. Any ideas? Thanks

Comment By Dave W At 12/28/2012 1:54 AM EDT

I had a 722 and had the same problem along with others, when i unplugged the HD from power and then plugged it back in, everthing worked fine, until the next day. I actually hooked up a remote switch to power the HD off and back on.
I have since went to the hopper and have had no problems with the same HD. Hope this helps you.

Comment By larry At 12/29/2012 2:58 PM EDT

Question, Can you move files back and forth from the DVR HHD to the USB HHD? And can you play a movie directly from the USB HHD or do you need to transfer the file to the DVR HHD first? Great Blog.

Comment By Dave B At 1/4/2013 3:46 AM EDT

The problem seems to be fixed now. I unplugged the hard drive for a few hours and now I seem to be able to delete things from it.

Comment By Dave W At 1/8/2013 1:46 AM EDT

So I have a VIP 211 with an external 500 GB HD. I recorder some Modern Marvels that are not on the web and not for sale, that I need in my classroom. Currently, I hook up a usb dvd XPRESS USB video input device and play the videos through the 211 and record in real time on to my laptop.The quality sucks and is kinda small picture size.

Is there anyway I can extarct the video files off the external HD and convert them to a MP4 or M4V file format.

Comment By teacher dave At 2/28/2013 5:01 PM EDT

Neither the entertainment industry nor Dish wants you to be able to copy HD recordings. The latest HDCP bypass devices have gone even from eBay. The best you can do is buy an old HD streaming device like Hava and connect via component video and save the stream on your PC or Laptop in DVD quality.

Comment By Dennis At 3/10/2013 1:04 PM EDT

I have a 722k and just plugged a 500 GB HD into it. As a test I archived one show. I would like to be able to dump that show into my Windows 7 computer and get to watch it on my computer. I know the HD is now a linux format. How do I convert linux to Windows 7?

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