I am experiencing problems with my DVDR04, like many people seem to be having. It will record fine for a couple of days, one hour at a time. Then all of a sudden, when we attempt to watch a one hour program, we get the "No Disc" error and can not even access programs from the last few days that we have already viewed once. It's like the Disc has been damaged but unfortunately you don't ever know if it'll happen on day 2 or day 5. I have upgraded to the WMEA1098.ES5 firmware and have talked to Tech Support about different "brands" and speeds of blanks to use...... and am convinced that there is a problem with the unit. Once a disc is damaged, it is then useless, so adding an hour per day for a week is not a dependable way to keep your programs. I'd like to know if there is a "hacked" version of firmware that may help because I don't believe Ilo has resolved this problem yet. I've tried +R, +RW, and many different brands of blank media and would really like to resolve the issue.
Over the last three months I was having escalating problems with my DVDR04. First it wouldn't prepare "R" type disc, it would take forever,then show invalid disc. As time went by this began to happen with "RW" disc also. Then two weeks ago it stopped playing "RW' disc that had been created on it, showing them as invalid,or data disc.Yet it would play commercial movies fine.While talking to a tech at ILO support,he ask if I had tried a DVD disc cleaner. That seemed too simple, but it was worth trying.I took off the cover,and carefully removed the top cover of the reader. Then I cleaned the lens with good quality lens cleaner.By the way,DON'T try this unless you have experience working with these type of units. Well, lo and behold, this cured all of my problems. I even tried several brands of disc, and it has prepared all succesfully. Try a commerical disc cleaner,it's worth a try. Hope this helps cookdl and any others who have had these problems.Let me know if this works for you.
