What does it do, step by step, when you turn it on? Can you hear the disk drive or fan running at any point? What was the last thing you were doing before the U99 showed up? Cal
It gives me a PLEASE WAIT display, then goes into SELF CHECK, then brings up the TV Guide listings which are all blank, and finally shows the U99 on the display. My husband moved the unit when we replaced our TV. It downloaded all the TV listings fine, then I went to plug in video and audio lines in the front, got no picture, and then the U99 appeared. Would it be possible that the plug-ins crashed the hard drive? I don't hear anything whirring inside when I turn it on. I love this machine and there doesn't seem to be anything like this on the market anymore so I'm very upset I can't get it to work.
Hi all- VERY BAD NEWS...... the repair place in my area called back just now.... they told me that it would cost 684.69 to fix my unit. They said that the digital board was bad. The next part made no sense..... the guy said that the hard drive is PROBABLY bad as well- and would need to be replaced. I questioned this-- and was told that usually if a digital board is bad, the hard drive is also...... The guy said he had no way of knowing if my hard drive is bad or not..... and he can't order just a digital board to see if it alone would fix the problem because if it did not work, he would not be able to return the digital board. He suggested that I send it to Panasonic....... Sooooooo..... I am back at square one-- no machine....... I can't pay that much to fix it !!!! Karen
This sounds very similar to the one and only U99 problem that I've had. Does it display the TV channel for a few seconds before the guide shows up? If so, try pressing and releasing the power button on the front panel before the guide comes up. That's what I did and the next time I powered up it was fine. Let us know. Cal
Repaiman, I live in Brazil- Recife-PE, and my panasonic DVD Recorder model DMR E55 has a power font problem that give the U99 error. I found two diodes in the primary circuit with problem, its are open, one with the code T3D30 (D005 in the circuit) and other is a Zener Diode with color code (ZD002 in the circuit) the colors are : grey, grey and blue. Can you help me with information about types of equivalents diodes in this situation, and a similar type for the regulador STR-G6353
Sigh. Nope. The TV channel does come up after the SELF CHECK, and this time I heard whirring. So I powered off, no guide showed but a minute later I got the U99 again. Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I need to wait longer to power up?
I wrote up what happened to me on page 52. You might want to have a look there. Here's what you do: - Power down after you see the TV channel display, before guide displays. - As soon as you hear the drive shut down, you will hear a wheeeee sound, unplug the machine. - Wait 30 seconds and plug back in. - Wait until you hear all hard drive activity stop, no harm in waiting 10 minutes or so, then power up. - As soon as you see the TV channel display, power down again using the front panel button. Don't hold the botton down very long, just press and release. - Wait until the drive shuts down, then wait some more. - Power up. Hopefully when your power up again it will be OK. (That's basically how I broke my machine out of a U99 loop.) If it doesn't work, try everything again. I would do everything above several times before I gave up. Keep careful track of what the display shows and what you hear. There may be something critical in the sequence that I forgot and you can tell us to help the next guy out. The unplug for 30 seconds part seems to be key to resolving U99 problems. Let us know what you find. Cal
Hi Karen. I think the price quoted stinks--The digital pcb fot that model is no where near the price quoted even if you take it that in the uk we seem to pay more for items than any where else(we get ripped off big time) and the dollar/pound exchange rate it should be a lot less than quoted. The statement that the hard drive is PROBABLY faulty as well is absolute rubbish and hard drives these days cost peanuts--you do not have to buy them from Panasunic --any good PC shop will sell you a good ide drive to put in your unit for less that $80 It is more likely that that the price quoted was so large to put you off having the unit repaired because the repairer did not know what the problem was and to save face jacked up the quote hoping you would refuse.If you did take up the quote he could afford to send it to someone who knew what they were doing and repair it and then you would pay both the proper engineer and the comedian who gave you this stupid quote. I`ve been an engineer for over 35 years and I`ve seen all the scams Repairman
Still no luck Someone suggested I replace the hard drive myself - since the warranty is expired, I might as well try. But I have no idea what hard drive to use. Is there a certain type I need?
DUFFM, Even though drives are relatively cheap these days, before you replace the drive you might consider testing the drive yourself. I extracted the 120 GB Samsung drive from my DMR-E85H and installed it into a 1999 Windows based machine as a slave drive. That PC's disk controller and drive are EIDE technology, so they were compatible. I FDISK'ed the drive and formatted it. The PC recognized it fine. I then downloaded a test program from the Samsung website and ran it against the drive. The drive tested fine. I imagine the test program only detects the most obvious problems and perhaps not those which might occur with statistical rarity. I tested the drive about 1 1/2 years ago, but I believe at the time I was also able to download a small manual for the drive that explained the jumper settings and specs. If you have access to a PC with IDE or EIDE drive disk controller technology, it might be worth a try. Any hardware device is eventually going to fail. Drives certainly fail, but my bet would be on one of the power component problems mentioned by REPAIRMAN and others. There is a product called spinrite that can recover drives from what the author calls early hard drive death. There is information that is written onto the drive when it is formatted in the factory that is never normally re-written in the life of a drive. If the drive heads drift a bit over time (which they do) and/or if the magnitude of the magnetic field of this data weakens over time, then the drive begins to display access problems. spinrite reads/writes the data that is normally never re-written. It may not be able to accomplish this task for every drive technology. It worked beautifully for an old MFM drive I had. The guy who wrote spinrite really knows his stuff. I highly recommend it to keep drives in shape. The last time I downloaded it on-line (several years back) it was $90. By the way, that Samsung drive is advertised as "super-quiet" - and it certainly is compared to my circa 1999 PC's C: drive. I could barely tell the Samsung drive was spinning, even with my PC case open, without placing my hand on the drive's case. I'm not sure if all drives are "super-quiet" these days, but I imagine you'll notice when watching a recorded program with a low-volume audio scene if a newly installed drive is not as quiet as the original Samsung drive. Good luck.
You've all been so helpful with my U99 - thanks!! Hubby is planning on taking the unit in to Panasonic to have it looked at and then will consider the hard drive swap. In the meantime, my mother-in-law has lent us her DVR - a Panasonic DMR-EH50. We set it up, downloaded the TV Guide listings and only get about 12 channels. We don't have a cable box and never had a problem getting the listings with the other DVR. Is there something else we should be doing in setting this up?
new to the forum. the power supply on my e85h has failed. can anyone tell me where to order a new one for under $100? My repairman toll me a new one cost $300 with a rebate of $150 return of old power supply.
How did you know the power supply failed? What were your symptoms? I don't get the U99 and can watch all of my shows that are on the HDD. The issue I have is that when I try to use Navigator, Setup or TV Guide, the unit locks up. I can't delete anything either. I am able to watch the shows only by doing the following: 1. Power up using the open/close button on the unit and it goes through the self check. This does not work when I power up with the power button on the unit. 2. Switch from HDD to DVD back to HDD 3. Press play on the unit 4. Press the << and >> to reverse/fast forward through 1 show. 5. Then magically, the index buttons the remote start working so I can switch back and forth to different shows saved on the HDD. If I try to hit the erase button, everything locks up - I've tried just letting is sit, in case it was slow, but even overnite it doesn't do anything. Same with the Navigator and TV Guide button. The really odd part is when I press the setup button, the screen goes black, but if I press the open/close button on the unit, I see the screen for a split second. I am thinking the power supply or corrupt ram. I just updated the firmware from a CD I got from Panasonic and that didn't fix the problem either. I also can not get it to reset by holding the channel up and down buttons at the same time. Very frustrating.....
OK, got a call from the repair center, and they said the new hard drive I sent them may not work. (He can't get it to recongize it)I replaced the origianl HD with the exact same size, just a different brand. (western Digital) Any advice i can give this tech to get it to work?
wre46, I thought the last time we heard from you that you were going to have the Digital Module replaced??? Perhaps I missed a post from you. I presume every "tech" would know about proper hard drive jumper settings and such.
OH, it is still there for the DM replacement. But He cannot get the BRAND NEW hard drive to work. He is giving me a bunch of BS about panasonic will not support anything but what they sell. So looking for "EXACT" setting to send this guy so I can get my unit back after 11 weeks of "we are waiting on parts". I may just pay them the $50 check out fee and sell the unit on ebay as "needs work"
I had a panasonic service authorized tech look at it and said that my power supply was missing some voltages. My unit after a power outage would only power up and go through a self check ,then display the time and channel. remote would change channels and nothing else worked. Repairman said that a drop in voltage would cause numerous problems including u99,dvd won't play,hard drive won't record or play and so on depending on which voltage output had been effected.
P.S. I forgot to say that Panasonic has done all owners of the DMR-e85h a wonderful service by discontinuing the biggest problem with DMR-e85h they have. "THE POWER SUPPLY BOARD FOR IT"
Hi all- I will be sending my unit unto Panasonic for repair...... after wasting 42.00 at an "authorized local repair place" and being told that it would cost over 700.00 to repair. I now will send it to Panasonic and pay the flat fee of 130.00 for repair. The crazy part of all of this is that different costomer service people at Panasonic told me different stories...... The first time I called in, I was told that I would pay the 130.00 PLUS parts........ I called again recently and was told by another person that the 130.00 charge is a FLAT fee and includes ALL needed parts............ I questioned this and was told that "sometimes they make out, sometimes the lose.... but it all evens out".... (by charging a FLAT fee)........... I made sure I wrote down the name and direct phone # of the person who gave me this info!!!! The problem with my unit may be a partial power supply failure per the experts on this site......... Gee- I am worried now---- especially after reading the last post that Panasonic discontinued the power supply boards!!! I am now wondering what will occur if I send it in......... (will I waste 130.00).............. Cal mentioned another Panny unit that would make a good replacement, but, unfortunately, it seems to be sold out everywhere. I ended up getting the Phillips unit from Wal Mart that was mentioned earlier as a "back up"........ Have not taken it out of box yet-- (I am still trying to figure out if there is anything better out there)..... Hey- atleast I have it..... these units are also disappearing........ Has anyone heard any info on whether there are any "class action lawsuits" brewing about the probs with our machines? This situation worked in my favor in the past with a Canon Powershot camera that started to erase all the images on my memory card after taking a new picture.... I learned on the web that this was a common problem with this camera..... and also noticed several class action lawsuits brewing..... Canon denied this and denied that there was a common problem with this camera...... They did have a record of my complaint... they also requested my name, address and phone #...... I ended up buying a new camera.... Luckily for me, a few months later, I learned that Canon was repairing this issue free of charge......... My camera was repaired at their cost..... The funny thing was-- they HAD my name and address-- gee they NEVER contacted me to tell me that they would address this issue! Thank goodness I found this out on my own !! I'd be willing to bet that some of the same Law Offices that started the class action suit against Canon would LOVE to hear about the common probs. with all of our units!!! Have a good night all-- Karen
