Pioneer DVR-633H-S Recorder problem (frozen)

[splink779]

I've had this for a while but now all of a sudden it just wont turn on. When I plug it in it says wait a moment and it tries to read the hard drive. It displays the message on screen that I have under 5 hours and I need to delete some things off the hard drive. However I almost always keep less than 5 hours free. So after it tries to access the hard drive for a while and says "wait a moment" on the screen it turns off and reboots. It simply does this over and over. I unhooked the hard drive and the unit powers up and works fine, just without the HDD. Anyone experience this before? It sounds like I have a problem with the hard drive but it came out of nowhere at all.

[Frobozz]

When this model experiences hard drive problems an option appears in one of the menus to re-initialize the HDD. It is explained in the manual. Of course doing this will erase whatever you've saved.

[Corona]

I've had this for a while but now all of a sudden it just wont turn on. When I plug it in it says wait a moment and it tries to read the hard drive. It displays the message on screen that I have under 5 hours and I need to delete some things off the hard drive. However I almost always keep less than 5 hours free. So after it tries to access the hard drive for a while and says "wait a moment" on the screen it turns off and reboots. It simply does this over and over. I unhooked the hard drive and the unit powers up and works fine, just without the HDD. Anyone experience this before? It sounds like I have a problem with the hard drive but it came out of nowhere at all.

Except for the less than 5 hours remaining thing, I had exactly the same symptoms on my Pioneer 531H, turned out to be a whole lot of bad sectors on my hard drive. Had no warranty or I would have sent it back to Pioneer, replaced the hard drive myself, lost a few features like Timer record and TV guide but everything else works.

Corona

[trhouse]

The "Initialize HDD" function replaces the "Optimize HDD" function in Disc Setup when a new drive or drive with bad clusters occurs.

You cannot put the old drive back in and have it recognized anymore. It takes the service remote and service cd to put the CPRM ID # back in the drive electronics for it to be recognized. It will just say HDD ERR on the display if you put it back in.

[splink779]

Thanks guys, but the problem is I cannot access the menu! I would optimize or whatever, I just cant access the menu at all.