My 9200: Fubar 2 Weeks In... Error: 0551

[scrooloose]

Fair enough. I was suspicious that Bell wanted the "defective" 9200's back for some other reason, but based on your experience I guess not.

Personally, if I ever get the 551 error, I'm going to try the reformat option. It just seems crazy to me that RMA'ing is their solution!

-Mike

[Analogman]

Originally Posted by scrooloose

Personally, if I ever get the 551 error, I'm going to try the reformat option. It just seems crazy to me that RMA'ing is their solution!

-Mike

If you can. When mine died, the hard drive was completely toasted.

Has anybody actually counted the number of "rare" instances of premature 9200 deaths recorded here?

[Zekes]

Maybe Hugh or a Mod can setup a poll.

Has Your 9200 experienced the 0551 error?

1 - Yes
2- No
3- I don't know what that means

See if we can get a count!!

[Torque3k]

Unfortunately, you can now add me to the list of people who have been hit with the dreaded 0551 error.

I have had my unit for 6 weeks now, and had a fine assortment of programming on my PVR, like purchased HD movies and special broadcasts. GONE >< All timers are gone too.

I had told my wife last week - don't plan on having any programming stored on the 9200 for more than say 2 months, due to what I have read about 0551 on this forum. This morning, I woke up to my wife telling me that basically, the hard drive does not exist anymore. Great.

Considering I paid over 700 dollars for this unit, I told the BEV tech people that if I did not receive a brand new unit, not a refurbished one, I would be parting ways with EV, and thanks for the crappy expensive hardware. They told me that every 9200 0551 issue gets a new replacement unit, not a refurb. From what I have read here, that is bullshit. I hate this lying company.

I also told them that I expected all the money back that they have charged me for their magazines that they send out and just charge you for without asking if I wanted them or not. They told me that was part of the package. I told them that if it was part of the package it would be included in the cost for the programming and to please stop using their stock lines on me as it was making them look like idiots. In the end, they are refunding me 2 months worth of magazines bilkings. Can they be sued for negative billing? Can we start a class-action lawsuit for this?

If starchoice didn't suck so much, I would run back to them.

[unreal1080p]

Originally Posted by Torque3k

Considering I paid over 700 dollars for this unit, I told the BEV tech people that if I did not receive a brand new unit, not a refurbished one, I would be parting ways with EV

To Torque3k:

There is only one way you are going to get a "brand new" 9200: Reformat the hard drive yourself. I don't know why you would want to go trough returning your unit to them and getting a refurb... This forum contains the step-by-step instructions on how to do this (you must reformat twice for it to work).

See this link:

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/for...ad.php?t=37582


Believe me it's not worth the bother of rma'ing the unit. F'N BEV came back 3months after I returned my unit wanting to charge me the FULL PRICE of the unit on my bill because they "claimed" I had not returned the original to them It's a good thing I was able to find my tracking... bunch of fokers!

[unreal1080p]

Originally Posted by courserage

You guys rock!

Got the 551 error this PM. Needed to format twice to make full 25 hours available but it works! Thanks for the great info

Maybe If you format 4 times you'll get 50 Hours

[Torque3k]

Originally Posted by unreal1080p

To Torque3k:

There is only one way you are going to get a "brand new" 9200: Reformat the hard drive yourself. I don't know why you would want to go trough returning your unit to them and getting a refurb... This forum contains the step-by-step instructions on how to do this (you must reformat twice for it to work).

See this link:

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/for...ad.php?t=37582


Believe me it's not worth the bother of rma'ing the unit. F'N BEV came back 3months after I returned my unit wanting to charge me the FULL PRICE of the unit on my bill because they "claimed" I had not returned the original to them It's a good thing I was able to find my tracking... bunch of fokers!

Thanks!! I'm trying the reformat right now. (crosses fingers)

Sweet, it worked. I only have about half the recording time available, so I will try it again. Awesome. I'm a happy camper. Thanks again Unreal1080p!

[kingrat]

Ok...my drive is gone too.The rep told me they would send a 'new' unit unfortunatly I'm doubting that the entire season of 'ROME' in hd will be on the drive !^%$^%*&*^*@!!Does anyone know what the warranty period is on the 9200...

[Analogman]

Put me down for a "Yes". 9200 died less than 48 hours after activation.

My replacement arrived overnight (appears to be new) but has a problem I don't think I've seen mentioned here. Playback of recorded shows has intermittant, split-second freezing. The program plays perfectly for 5-30 seconds, freezes and then continues. It's a playback problem since the freeze occurs at different places if I skip back and replay. Skipping back on live tv is even worse... pixelation galore!

BEV tech said it was "a hard drive about to go", so 9200 #3 is on the way along with a month's free programming (without asking).

[North_of_Calgary]

Originally Posted by kingrat

Ok...my drive is gone too.The rep told me they would send a 'new' unit unfortunatly I'm doubting that the entire season of 'ROME' in hd will be on the drive !^%$^%*&*^*@!!Does anyone know what the warranty period is on the 9200...

Warranty is simple: one year.

[North_of_Calgary]

Originally Posted by Analogman

My replacement arrived overnight (appears to be new) but has a problem I don't think I've seen mentioned here. Playback of recorded shows has intermittant, split-second freezing. The program plays perfectly for 5-30 seconds, freezes and then continues. It's a playback problem since the freeze occurs at different places if I skip back and replay. Skipping back on live tv is even worse... pixelation galore!

BEV tech said it was "a hard drive about to go", so 9200 #3 is on the way along with a month's free programming (without asking).

Well, it may "appear" to be new but actually not be. My replacement was wrapped in plastic, with the plastic protection stickers on the front pannels, and of course did all of the SW initialization when first plugged in, but there were other signs to indicate that it clearly was not new. So I think they try to fake people out.

As for you HDD issue - drives usually work or are dead, I doubt it is "about to go". Regardless, you probably have a reburb and that was the original problem with that unit.

[kingrat]

Got my replacement 9200 today. The rep on the phone said it would be brand new...it arrived in a sheet of bubble wrap in a plain brown box.The finish was heavily scratched on both sides and there were screws on the back only half in! I didn' t even plug it in .Its on its way back to bev in the morning!

[kingrat]

ok ...time for the conspiracy theory.....is it not strange that so many of these drives (0551 errror) are failing at the same time.?? is it possible bell put something in the data stream that caused these failures ....intentionally or not??

[North_of_Calgary]

Originally Posted by kingrat

Got my replacement 9200 today. The rep on the phone said it would be brand new...it arrived in a sheet of bubble wrap in a plain brown box.The finish was heavily scratched on both sides and there were screws on the back only half in! I didn' t even plug it in .Its on its way back to bev in the morning!

I'm not surprised to here that. Let's face it, they'll keep sending units out to you until you get one that you "think" is new, but probably isn't. They're probably drawing from a large pool of refurbs at this point with probably no new units for RMAs. I had mine replaced the first week in September and they were already into the refurb pool (although with all of the proper stickers to make it look as new as possible). Just speculating though.

Makes me ask you kingrat out of curiosity, why are you going to keep mailing these things back and forth when the HDD reformat procedure documented on this site has been confirmed as a fix? Don't you think that the refurb you get has a reasonable chance of being a unit that also had the 0551 error and was reformated by BEV? Or it possibly could have had a more serious error!

[North_of_Calgary]

Originally Posted by kingrat

ok ...time for the conspiracy theory.....is it not strange that so many of these drives (0551 errror) are failing at the same time.?? is it possible bell put something in the data stream that caused these failures ....intentionally or not??

I think it's due to some series of events and the nightly update procedure. Most people report seeing the 0551 the first time they turn it on for the day.

Seems to be an epidemic. I laugh everytime someone posts and says "the CSR says that they have never heard of this error, and failures in the 9200 are extremely rare". Are they (the CSRs) really that ignorant (they can't query "0551" in an internal support system and see how many units are experiencing it) or are they simply lying to us???

Oh well, hopefully I'm not like Earl - otherwise Karma will deliver me a 0551 tonight!