I have a dmr-e85h Panasonic hdd/dvd recorder. Here is my problem: I was doing editing on a title. I was shortening the movie when, after deleting a short section, the picture began to jitter and the Panny stopped editing. The picture froze. I reset the Panny, both soft and facory, but no luck. The piece I was editing cannot be accessed. There is an "X" to left of the title. The date/start time info are gone. I am currently burning all content onto dvd-r. Then I plan to format the hdd. Hopefully, this will solve the problem. I've also been advised to burn off all content and leave only the bad title on. I was told this would prevent the system from ever using the bad spot of the hdd. What do you think? Is there a bad spot on the hdd? I have also used the panny to record and edit after this problem showed up. So far, nothing has gone wrong. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
I've not had that sort of experience with my E85 before, and hope not to do so in the future. However, your approach to remove everything and then reformat the HDD seems sound, so long as you're amenable with losing that particular recording or accepted that it's unrecoverable in its current state. If the drive has developed a bad spot somewhere on one of the disk platters that can't be repaired with a format, you might run into the problem again at some point. The drive can be replaced, but it requires a specific model which is compatible. This AfterDawn forum isn't too active anymore, but one which is and which also has a specific member who works on Panasonic DVR models (including the E85) can be accessed through the link below. The member 'mickinct' has repaired my E85 and a number of models for others who have greatly appreciated his prompt service at reasonable cost, so if you're in North America that might be something for which you'd have an interest presuming you intend to keep the E85 functioning well in the future. After registering, you could send him a private message to describe the issues and ask what the likely diagnosis and repair options might reflect. At the very least, you can pose the same question there and will likely get a far better response. http://www.avsforum.com/f/106/dvd-recorders-standard-def Good luck!
