In the last few days my E85 has been roaming from channel to channel, instead of staying put at channel 51 to get the program information. I have not changed anything. I am in NYC, with Time Warner digital cable. Anyone else has this problem? SHould I reset the machine? If so, how? The DST changed fine by itself.
Well I was pleasently supriesed that the time change worked all right. We'll have to see if it does it again in two weeks... I had a VCR many years ago, before TVGOS existed, that got a signal from the cable company to set the clock. Of course, it always took someone two days to remember to adjust the signal for DST and the clock would keep "correcting" itself one hour off.
It's times like this that make me so glad I live in Arizona!!! Although I guess I should be happy my E85 stayed put and didn't change times for some silly reason.
That particular software update must have come quite a while back - I haven't been getting TVGOS information for quite some time as I cancelled my cable service and only get one channel ota. As it is an nbc affiliate I do not receive the stream any more.
After two and a half years of faithful service my DMR-E85H has started to do exactly the same thing. Trying to burn a DVD-R from an HDD program the recording starts and then the whole unit shuts down and goes through a Self Test wake-up. After going through the unplugging, waiting and starting again process I managed to burn a single episode disc but the machine went through its ritual suicide when I tried to finalise the disc. I bought from Richer Sounds in November 2004 and it should be under the 3 year warranty I took out (if I can get them to find the details for me). There seem to be unresolved issues with this machine and if I get any luck I'll post here with what has been found. From the Service Menu: REGION 1 MAIN 0900EL TIME R0380DD DRIVE J117 ROM M001 Item 41 (Laser) 265 Item 61 (Manufacture Date) 2004 05 06
Hi, well I will do the same when my unit is back, but in the meantime my PC mate is going to link my unit with his recorder so I can get all my stuff burned onto disc. It's not good for the prices we paid 2 years ago and Panny are soooo bloody rude!! We are paying their wages!!!! Neil
8029328D, It's been 2 1/2 years since I upgraded the firmware, but those numbers don't look right. I thought the load was 097--- something or other. Did you upgrade the DMR-E85H's firmware in accordance with the procedure stipulated at: http://www.dxcc.com/dmr-e85h.htm When you state the DVR has been faithful, do you mean you've successfully burned many, many DVD-R's since you purchased it? Are you using the exact same brand, type, & speed of DVD-R media that you successfully burned on many prior occasions? Does it read other DVD's you've purchased (e.g. movies) and DVD-R's you've burned? Anything environmental changed recently (e.g. power surges, kids sticking things in it, liquid spills, extreme humidity, placing another piece of electronics on top of it, ... things of that nature)? As several regular readers are aware, I never operate my units with TV Guide download enabled. Who knows what the heck Gemstar is permitted to play around with? I suggest taking your unit back to factory defaults, upgrading the firmware (if you haven't already), disabling TV Guide download (i.e. using auto channel scan), and then trying to burn the same program again. Your previously recorded programs should remain intact on the HDD during these procedures. Obviously, the object is to help you determine if you have a software/configuration problem or a bona fide hardware problem. As the length of this thread attests, it's quite a trial and error process.
In search box at top of page type: u99 and hard drive By the way, you're not going to realize any increase in space. It's fixed (in USA machines) at 120 GB regardless of whether the drive you replace it with has greater capacity.
vulcan, Have you heard of any of the EH85 machines having slow response times? Sometimes, I have to hit buttons 4-5 times, then the machine freezes up and I have to unplug it and re-start it.
I appreciate all the advice and help but at heart I am a simple soul who yearns for an easy life in harmony with the gadgetry I have collected over the years. (Note: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 64-bit is doing nothing to help this at the moment but that saga would be for another place and time...) The discs are the same ones that I have been using for over eight months with no problems. I don't stick to exactly the same variety because the way I see it is that the recorder is supposed to work for me and not the other way around. I realise that this is not the view of a purist but I always buy from reputable companies and check the reviews before purchasing. I have never previously encountered any problem and to be honest I was thinking that the DMR85 was one of the good things I had bought. The only change in its environment has been a move to another room about 4 months ago (since installing a Panny 95 in its old location), it worked fine after that until now. There have been no extraneous interactions (liquid spills, curious little fingers, toys from Rice Crispies packets etc.) thrust into any of the available openings and power surges have not been a factor as far as I know. I don't even use an external aerial let alone the programme guide, the only feed into the machine is from the digital decoder that brings all the joys that Rupert Murdoch sees fit to secretly force feed my brain subliminal messages with. I estimate that I have made about 300 successful DVDs from the machine since I've had it. I haven't upgrade the firmware because in the UK if you take something back under warranty to the shop from which you bought it and inform the staff that you have tried all sorts of things including using a piece of firmware that you found on the internet the general reaction would be an immediate invitation to enjoy sex, travel and death in fairly short order. My plan (whilst not quite as cunning as a fox) is to transfer the HDD contents of the DMR85 onto my 95 with its big old 250Gb drive, take the offending item back to the shop in Bristol from whence it came and to then stand there being generally large and in the way until they promise to make it all work like new (or even betterer). It's a rubbish plan I know, it has low technical merit and is a coward's way out but it has a pleasing simplicity to me.
keatonbri, The last we heard from you on the 9th was that you could not even get your machine to power on. Have you solved that problem? If you did, how? If you only observed a distinct difference in response using the remote versus the buttons on the unit, then I would guess your problem is NOT related to the hard drive. I would have guessed the problem was the remote, the IR receiver on the DVR, or some kind of IR interference (like direct or reflected sunlight onto the machine's IR receiving window). You should not be trying to operate two IR remotes at the same time (e.g. like trying to raise the volume of the TV while also trying to scan forward or backward through a program on the DVR). However, your post last week stated the power button on the machine was not working either, so I figured your unit was having a hardware problem that would not rule out the hard drive as a possible cause. I have noted one of my machines requires slightly longer to power-on than my other two machines (e.g. an extra cycle of hash marks). Don't know why. That is all. Sorry. Even though most people probably don't think about it, computing equipment can be sensitive to the cleanliness of the power source. If the circuit into which you plug your DVR is very noisy, that could be a factor in erratic behavior. So, if you've recently had a change in operating environment (i.e. moved it to a new location or added a major new piece of electrical equipment onto that circuit that might be producing a lot of noise), then that could be a factor to consider. Just a thought. I'm not a EE However, if everything else has remained relatively static, then you probably are victim of a hardware failure of some sort. To be safe, I'd suggest unplugging all inputs to the DVR. Leave it connected to the TV, of course. Power-it up (if you can). Reset it to factory defaults. Hook up the TV input. Disable the TV Guide download. And see what happens. If you've recorded a heck of a lot of programs and done a lot of small edits, then your HDD could be significantly fragmented. You could consider formatting the HDD, (see the manual), but you'd lose any programs you've recorded at that point. Some of the posters on this thread have written they regularly reformat the HDD as preventative maintenance. Good luck.
8029328D, Oh, I guess those firmware numbers might be good for UK machines. I seem to recall reading somewhere earlier in the thread that UK and USA machines have different firmware. Perhaps the REGION threw me. I figured the UK would NOT be REGION 1. Hey, a lot of people take the easy way out. It sounds like you've got a plan. Sometimes I've regretted not taking the easy way out. As long as you're using DVD's properly rated for your machine then I suspect your correct. Manufacturers keep coming out with higher speed media and those media are not always backward compatible with earlier drives. I've encountered this in the CD burner world. My old computer's CD burner will only burn up to 4x. You can't burn CD-R's in it that are rated for higher speeds or higher, even though you're attempting to burn at 4x or below. It's been getting a little hard to find CD-R's in local stores that are still only 1x to 4x. I haven't bought DVD-R's in a year or more. I don't know if we're at that same point yet. Good Luck.
I've had two overnight U99s this week, the first in many months. I wonder if the downloads have been altered in some way here in the Baltimore Washington area.
Hey, read most of the 57 pages of this post but so far have not found an answer to my question. Got a DMR-E85H Australian version and want to upgrade the hdd to a bigger one. Currently standard at 80 gig (I know we are ripped off here in the land of oz!). Read somewhere that a bigger drive will work but still only be the capacity of the original. Is this the case? or can I put in a 120 gig and use the full 120 gig. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for this info. I really need the software you mentioned! I sent my unit in as you suggested demanding they "not refit Hd". They sent it back stating: "needs digital pcb which requires reformat of Hd- No repair done" ..So I guess I need to copy off my Hd data somehow first before repair, and my Pc sees the drive in Device Mngr, but no drive letter in "my Computer". Platform seems to be incompatable w/windows?? How can I transfer the data?
I've searched through this thread quite a bit but didn't find my exact problem. My E95H unit died many months ago, but I'm once again trying to get it fixed on my own. After being unplugged for days, when the unit is plugged back in, I get the PLEASE WAIT message, then the small HDD is displayed in the upper left corner, and the bouncing lines travel across the display. The hard drive tries to activate for perhaps a minute, I can hear it and feel it when I touch the top. The lines keep traveling from left to right, and that's it. Holding Power doesn't do anything. Channel Up & Channel Down does nothing. The only button combination I can get to do anything is LOCK and UNLOCK with Power and Stop. Skip Rev, Time Slip, & Open/Close does nothing, nor does Stop, Time Slip, & Open/Close, which I'm guessing won't work since the unit won't power down. If the hard drive is shot and everything is lost, I can install a new hard drive. Did anyone find a way to recover the shows that are on the drive? Can I take the HD to a good computer shop and have them copy the files onto another HD? Can I put it in an external HD case and access the files myself some way? Thanks in advance.
