If you have important video on the drive you can 1.Clone an image file of the HDD using winhex (hex editor). 2.Then I use ISOBuster it will finds the individual VROs files on the cloned image file, then I save those to my PCs HDD. 3.Then I use Mpeg Stream Clip (free software) to fix the videos (of errors) and save the video as mpeg2 files. 4.Then I edit them using womble MpegVCR (or any Mpeg video Cutter). It's Quite a lot of work but it will save the video on your HDD. at least it did with my DMR-HS2 (40GB).
I have 3 DMR-E85H's that have been in use for 4 1/2 years. One of my machines finally succumbed to a power supply board capacitor problem. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this. Occasionally while off, I'll hear the fan spin up. Typically it will operate for a few moments and then turn off. I was in my office sitting at my computer surfing and I heard the fan spin up. I looked at the machine and saw Please Wait. Oh oh! I had violated one of VideoBob's rules. I had left a DVD-R in the machine for a couple of weeks. Was that related? Not sure. I quickly hit the eject button and removed the DVD-R. I closed the drive. The machine blinked Please Wait a few times and then stuck with Please Wait displayed. I pressed and held the Power Button for over 10 seconds in order to attempt a soft reset. The machine powered off. I pulled the plug for a minute or so. After plugging the power cord back in, the machine appeared completely dead. I opened the DVR, removed the hard drive - and sure enough - the pair of capacitors at C1260 and C1261 had blown (i.e. the 10v, 680 uf caps). I've never soldered/unsoldered components on a PC board, but I have a co-worker who is quite expert at it. I visited a local electronics component store and picked up several 16v, 680 uf caps for 75 cents each). According to my co-worker, the 16v caps are fine as replacements for the 10v caps - actually an improvement. They did not carry the 10v caps that had blown. My co-worker replaced them for me. Something I did not realize is that the caps have a preferential orientation. The bottom of the negative terminal side of the cap (i.e. the side with the broad stripe with minus signs running up the side of the cap) has to be matched up with the small white curve printed next to the holes for each cap on the top surface of the power supply board. You can see what I'm talking about by looking at the picture posted by IAMX66 on page 78. My machine is back up and working perfectly. As others have reported, simply removing the hard drive and later installing that same hard drive does not cause you to lose any programs you have recorded. That is, as long as you don't install a different hard drive in the meantime.
What should I do if I get a constant please wait on turning power on. Have left it disconnected from everything overnight and still get that message on hooking the power up to it.
Read my post immediately prior to yours. In all probability, a pair of capacitors on your power supply board have popped.
My dvr just stays on PLEASE WAIT. I can only Lock and Unlock, but cannot eject. Seems completely frozen. Cannot Power cycle therefore, cannot reset or enter the system mode.
Wow, seems like a lot of "please wait" problems happening all of a sudden. I have good news to report, although I still don't have my machine back. When I brought it back to Best Buy for servicing I printed out the capacitor replacement section from this forum and also told them that I did not want the hard drive reformated. About a week ago I got a call from the technician who said he had replaced the capacitors and didn't touch the hard drive. Now I'm just waiting for the machine to come back to my local Best Buy Store.
dssidnt, Again, you are probably experiencing a problem with a pair of capacitors on your power supply board. The power supply board is under the hard drive. If you see caps whose tops have burst and ejected a brownish or orange gunk, or if the caps are merely bulging upward, then that is your problem. However, my understanding is that some caps can still be bad without any outward visual evidence. Some on this thread have referred to caps "drying out". Mine had very obviously burst just as pictures on page 78 posted by IAMX66 illustrate. In my case, it was the pair at locations C1260 and C1261. Good luck.
vulcanusa, thank you very much. I read through a lot of this forum and I think your suggestion is what I need to do. Do you happen to have a preferred online electronics store?
If you can't find the parts at your local Radio Shack. Mouser is a good Store for electronic parts.: http://www.mouser.com/
dssidnt, I did look at ordering caps on-line, but I believe some sites ran around $4.00 to $5.00 each - which is quite a lot for these caps. I actually have 4 DMR-E85Hs, but only presently use 3. I wanted enough spare caps to replace 4 per machine since they appear to pop in pairs. There is an electronics store here in San Antonio (i.e. Intertex Electronics) that sells discrete parts retail like caps. They were 90 cents or so each, but in bulk (i.e. 16 in my case) they were reduced to 72 cents or so each. I drove to that store (30-40 minutes round trip) since I wanted to fix my machine ASAP. You may visit http://www.intertexelectronics.com/ if you like. The prices posted on-line appear to be the same as those in the store, but I would imagine shipping and handling will dominate the actual price of the components unless you're ordering in bulk. As I reported in my earlier post, the caps at C1260 and C1261 are 10v, 680 uf, but Intertex Electronics only had 16v, 680 uf. 16v, 680 uf happens to be the rating of the other pair of caps that commonly pop. Substituting the 16v caps for the 10v caps that popped in my case is fine. Radio Shack did not have them.
Mouser http://www.mouser.com/ has them for about 40 cents each But again the shipping probably will cost more than the capacitors themselves.
Dssidnt, unless you see evidence of damage to the capacitors, I probably would not rush into replacing them. Read these threads and you will see other easier options to try first. Personally, I probably would plug the powersupply line from a nearby computer's disk drive into the dmr e85 first. IF you turn on the computer and the e85 at the same time, the hard drive will get power fed from the computer's power supply. When I did this, it worked fine for me. Mine is probably seven or eight years old, I am still using the original capacitors.
And dissidnt, I only had to do that power borrowing once. The system rebooted after that when I went back to the original configuration.
Well I got my machine back and they DIDN't format the hard drive, which is a good thing. I even had the programs that were scheduled sill in the schedule screen. However, since I brought it in (after getting a new HD TV) I got a new cable box so I could get the HD channels on the TV. The cable box doesn't have the "cable out" coaxial plug so I had to do the input to the Panasonic via the L3 plug. Unfotunately, I am now not getting any of the channel line ups for the TVGOS. During the set up screen I got it to work so it changes the cable box however, no channel listings, I still have the channel lineup from when I first disconnected it a months ago, it didn't reset during the repair. I guess the question now is whether I should do a soft or hard reset of the machine to possible clear out all the data in the TVGOS and see if that populates the TVG or whether to just just live with the channel lineup but no channel listings since I would be able to at least use it like a VCR. Any suggestions?
Yeah. A splitter is what, $4? Split your coax before the cable box. You will have the coax on one input and the component on another (for recording anything that you can't get from the raw coax - digital channels).
I had thought about that but I wondered how to nativigate between the two. Right now I can use the Panasonic like a VCR since it controls the cable box so I can set the channels. But if I do the splitter how do I set up the Panasonic since I wouldn't be able to get any of the pay channels through the coaxial? Is there some way to set the recording so that it automatically records from the component video?
Yes, I assumed I would have two inputs into the Panasonic, one from the cable coming into the house and the other from the cable box into the panasonic so I can record the pay channels. I have the component video on the panasonic going into the HDTV. My question was how do I switch back and forth from the coxial to the cable box to record. Will I have to actually switch the input on the panasonic to record the pay channels?
