[TheIgster]

So, like many times before, I power cycled my PVR simply because it's been running full time for quite some time and I thought it might be a good idea to reset. I've had an external drive hooked up for quite some time and all content is recorded on there.

Now, when I turn the PVR on, it wants to format the connected drive! The drive has obviously been formatted and all content is recorded on there, as my listings say nothing now, 0%! Help! How can I get my recorded content back on my already formatted and connected drive?

 

[Shaw Guru]

Usually if you say no to reformatting the drive it will not reformat it and you should be able to press the list button to pull up the recordings. Sounds like the drive is not being recognized for some reason. I would say power cycle just the DCT again and see if it prompts you to reformat again.

Are you sure you said "No" to reformatting the last time though. Sometimes it may look like no is highlighted but it actually says yes and you may have wiped everything out.

 

[TheIgster]

Nope, I have tried everything. Power cycled both, unplugged, you name it. Nothing is working. This is pretty bad. I can't lose power to my STB or I lose all my recordings? What kind of hardware is this?

Shaw tech support was no help. First time they have heard of it. Uh huh...

I said No each time it has prompted me, but it will not recognize the formatted drive with recordings on it.

Fanfreakintastic...

 

[TheIgster]

Nope, never came back. Nothing I did would bring it back. So now ALL those recordings are gone. Thanks Shaw.

Oh and just for fun, ALL of my series' recordings are gone too. Yeah, not like that was much work to figure out the time shifting and stuff to record all those series. I'm sure I'll enjoy doing that again.

I'm sorry, but this is simply unacceptable. Cut the power to the box and this happens?

 

[WarrenC12]

I had a lot of trouble reconnecting my PVR and External drive after I had to replace mt TV cabinet and everything needed to be unplugged and put back together.

Trial and error and repetition is your friend, unfortunately. Mine seems to be a weak link on the eSATA cable, but keep trying, eventually it should come back. Good luck.

 

[TheIgster]

Well, I tried and I tried and it simply would not do anything other than want to be formatted. So it has been formatted. Sees it just fine now...of course.

Still though...now I have to go and download all these shows and now I have to setup my series' recordings again as well. We had about 30.

All this because the box lost power?

 

[hugh]

Sorry to hear. If its any consolation, I have had two hard drives full of programming lost with my Bell PVR.

Haven't heard of any such losses on Rogers but I'm pretty skeptical about external drives!

 

[TheIgster]

Yeah, thanks...Oh well, thank God for torrents.

Setting up all the series' recordings though is going to be a pain. Not sure why those would have been removed. I've unplugged the box many times and never had that happen.

Does anyone know how long it takes the guide to come back on these?

 

[Shaw Guru]

I'm sorry to hear that the recordings are gone as i know that is a major inconvenience.

The only way the series recordings are removed is if the hard drive is reformatted. There is no other way to do this unfortunately. Unplugging the power to the DCT would not reformat the external drive.

You mentioned that the hard drive shows 0% full. Is that due to having an internal drive with the DCT? Because if you only have the external drive and it shows 0% full then it is recognizing the external drive and therefore the drive has been reformatted.

This is not something that Shaw did by any means. The DCT and the Expander are designed to remain powered on all the time. Occassional power is lost due to power outages but any time I have lost power or a customer who calls in has lost power the drive is recognized upon power up and all recordins and series are still intact.

 

[TheIgster]

I finally gave up and reformatted the external drive because it would not recognzize it or the recordings on it. Obviously it was already formatted properly and contained recordings, but the Motorla box would not see it as being formatted, no matter what I did and no matter what was suggested from Shaw directly.

It showed 0% full and no items in the listing. That is what I was saying of the drive when it was connected. Obviously the Shaw box was not seeing it and wanted it formatted and this is why that was showing that way. It's formatted now, it wasn't then.

Yes, it is something that Shaw's "hardware" did. All I did was unplug the box. Nothing else. I have done this numerous times to "reset" the box because it seems to slow over time and a full reset helps to get it back to working at least as well as it can.

Regardless of your past experience, that is NOT what happened to me. The drive never lost power. The box did, with a single unplug by me. When it was plugged back in again, it wanted to format the drive. This is a Shaw issue with their hardware and one that should never happen.

 

[TheIgster]

I still don't have more than a few hours on my guide. Why does this take so long to download? It's been hours.

I would like to get a headstart on setting up ALL those series' recordings again.

Anyone know how long it's supposed to take to repopulate the guide?

 

[DSgamby]

It takes 24 hours for the guide to completely update

 

[TheIgster]

Wha? Really? 24 hours? That's ridiculous. Thanks for the info though.

 

[canadianice]

I had the same issue twice after we had two power outages.

The first time I gave up and just reformatted, the second time I tried contacting Shaw tech support online. This is an excerpt from the chat. I was furious but the fact that they tried to tell me that unhooking the coax from the back might fix it was hilarious to me.

In any case we spent an hour going back and forth for nothing. Finally had to swap our my PVR - in my case the PVR would lose connection with the external drive and want to format it each and every time that it lost power.

Shaw Rep (18:25:47):
Can you please check your cables and connections. Particularly both ends of the coaxial cable that connects at the wall and goes into your digital cable terminal. If you have a splitter, please let me know. If they are tight, can you please undo the ends and reconnect them please. Powering both down of course first.

Me (18:27:00):
the cables and connections are fine. i will disconnect and reconnect them but I don't think thats the issue.

Shaw Rep (18:27:28):
sometimes you would be surprised and it has resolved troubles like this
Shaw Rep (18:27:38):
not sure in your case but it is something else to try.

 

[CHrisCHu]

I know this is too late now, but for future reference don't try different boot-up sequence/setup each time after failure. The Pace box in particular doesn't like that. With my now-returned rental Pace box, if I rebooted it w/o eHDD once for whatever reason, the next time I rebooted w/ eHDD it'd ask to reformat it. If I then did nothing else (and not even answering the question) but rebooted w/ the eHDD still hooked up everything would work.

Also, I once had seemingly lost all contents and series recordings with the Pace, I just rebooted it w/o trying different sequence/setup and everything came back.

BTW, series recordings are not stored in the eHDD. The fact that you seemingly lost all series recording suggested that it might just be a bad start-up. A re-reboot w/o "trying a difference bootup sequence/setup" might've been your best bet.