HARD DISK RECORDER FAULT

el_prez

Hello

I have a Panasonic DMR-EX98VEB. The machine is DVD/HDD/VHS combi player/ recorder in all these formats. Obviouslyy my tv recordings are on the hard disk. Have had the machine several years with no problems until now.

I have quite a lot of content stored on the hard disk I have not viewed yet and had just finished watching a recording when the machine suddenly stopped working and started making a clicking noise. I couldn’t turn it off and had to unplug plug in again but although the noise stopped  the DVD tray opened and an error message HD DERR appears in the front display. I only managed to get the tray to close again by unplugging and plugging the machine in again i now have to leave the machine unplugged to keep the disc tray closed.. The remote no longer seems to work or the buttons on the machine.

Although its an old machine and they don’t seem to make these combis anymore I have still got some VHS tapes that I wanted to put on DVDs. 

I take it that the error code means the problem is with the hard drive recorder. 

Wold be grateful for any ideas would this be repairable and does this mean the content on the hard disk is lost. 

Thanks

fwor

From your description, it's likely that the hard disk is faulty. Occasionally it can be possible to recover data from a faulty drive, but it's relatively rare, unfortunately.

At around 12 years old (roughly) the drive is ~probably~ SATA, so it wouldn't be hard to install it in a recent PC and try recovery, but the chances of success probably aren't great. However, if it is the HDD that has failed, it should be easy to replace and get it working again. Secondhand 250GB hard disks are quite cheap to buy on Ebay - you should be able to pick one up for around a tenner.

I should add that occasionally symptoms like this can have other causes, such as a power supply fault - but failure of the HDD is the most likely.

Heedtheadvice

^^^ I agree. Unfortunately it is usually a cut your losses time.

Sometimes data can be recovered from the hard drive (I have done it before for specific items not available elsewhere -otherwise it is not worth the effort)

The hard drive sometimes/or often contains part of the program used in the booting process. If so that is required to be copied into any new drive. That is not always as straight forward as it might sound! Using the drive during boot is machine type specific. I do not know regarding your particular model.

The same comments really apply to tapes in that unless they are specifically unavailable currently on other formats (streaming services, dvd etc.) such a news items like a family member getting an award etc. then it is not worth trying to rescue them. It is difficult now to get a reliable tape player that is compatible with modern interfaces. Not impossible but not a good move either.

Suggest doing otherwise and spending to try and get back up and running will be throwing good money after ( now ) bad after years of good service.

forgotmyname

A PC probably wont be able to read the files or file system directly. Seem to remember my old one using

odd filetypes to prevent piracy.

It is recoverable but time consuming, is it worth the costs to recover the data?

a

you can try and get it back. My last choice would be Test disk which includes photoRec, middle choice is DDRescue, and top choice is HDDSuperclone. You can also look up on youtube Scott Moulton

jsmith9

You could try this:
1. remove the hdd from the machine. Buy an identical new replacement. Using a pc and free disk cloning program (eg Macrium reflect) copy the first (small) partition onto the new drive. This contains the operating system of the machine.

2. put the new hdd into the machine. Hopefully it will boot up. Used 'format' to format the rest of the drive.

Note: even if you do this, you may gat a HDD-NG error which means a non-genuine HDD in the box. You could try contacting Panasonic to see if they can sell you a genuine replacement drive with the firmware on. Or see if you can get sight of the service manual.

jsmith9

Another possibility is to google Panasonic DMR-EX98VEB firmware update. Find the latest firmware, download to your pc, burn it to a cd. After you have replaced the HDD as above, if the HDD won't boot then put the CD in the box - the system will try and boot from HDD when you power on, will fail, and then look at the CD drive, find the firmware and install it. 

Well, that's the theory anyway!

googler

It could be the HDD controller that's faulty. If the recordings are important to you, I would try to get the same machine from eBay, Gumtree or similar. Take the HDD from the current machine, and move it to the replacement one, then try again.

I would wager that if you take it out and try to read it with a Windoze, Mac or similar machine, it will be totally unreadable. 

el_prez

Many thanks for all the info, given me loads to think about.
I have checked on e-bay and Amazon and the used prices for these machines is quite high. So definetly think it's worth trying to get it fixed even if it means losing whats on the existing hard drive. I am  not confident enough to have a go myself so when the current lockdown ends will make some enqueries. Would i be best contacting a dvd or a computer repair shop. Thanks 

googler

You might want to find out what's required in terms of loading any operating system or similar to the disc first. 

No point in buying a new one if you put it in and nothing happens because the machine can't see it. I'd go for a TV repairer, ideally one who has some familiarity with these machines. I think you'll just get puzzled looks from computer repairers, but by all means ....

googler

Some links which may be pertinent;

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/panasonic-dmr-ex95v-hdd-err-displayed.1283624/

https://www.justanswer.co.uk/recorders-and-players/9e5p0-getting-hdd-err-message-hdd-dvd-recorder-model.html

Repair service offered
https://picclick.co.uk/HDD-ERRSTFAIL-REPAIR-SERVICE-Panasonic-DMR-EX98V-dvd-recorder-172976997500.html

Formatting the HDD

https://support-uk.panasonic.eu/app/answers/detail/a_id/3910/~/how-do-i-format-the-hard-drive-on-my-dvd-recorder?