Need to replace burner in Pioneer 220s

[Brent G.]

I have a Pioneer 220 DVR and the DVD drive has gone again (churns away when a blank dvd is inserted and says it is not writeable-same with older dvd's that are not finalized). The first time it was covered under warranty but now the warranty has expired. Is this something I can do myself? Where do I get a replacement dvd burner?

TIA
Brent

[ale]

I just got this one and I love it.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Pioneer/DVR111D/

[Brent G.]

Ale,
I posted this in the wrong forum, so that may have led misled you about the problem. The DVD burner in my Pioneer standalone recorder DVR-220s (sits beside TV) is what died and I'm looking for a replacement DVD drive that will fit it. Unfortunately it has different connectors on it compared to a DVD burner that works in a computer . I'm told a replacement drive will cost an arm even if I decide to replace it myself.

Brent

[Bagheera]

I'm told a replacement drive will cost an arm even if I decide to replace it myself.

Brent

Don't forget they will want your leg as well.. Been there, done that recently.

[Frobozz]

Ale,
I posted this in the wrong forum, so that may have led misled you about the problem.
Brent

I'm presuming you've gone here and searched the threads about replacing drives on Pioneer DVD recorders. It's not just a matter of connecting a new drive.

[Brent G.]

I'm presuming you've gone here and searched the threads about replacing drives on Pioneer DVD recorders. It's not just a matter of connecting a new drive.

Sure. But my problem was 2 years ago. 8)

I switched to a Pioneer DVR 233 and it has outlasted anything else I've tried. Granted its menu system is horrible, it works quite well. What I'd like to see a thread that shows which DVR's have replaceable burners and hard drives. Pioneer deliberately made the DVR 220s with special cables so you have to pay through the nose to get it fixed. The next DVR I buy will have to have user replaceable drives.

Brent

[orsetto]

Brent, you might be misinterpreting some of the info floating around out there regarding DVD recorder repair: an awful lot of posts refer to discontinued and/or limited distribution models which did indeed use random, easily replaced burners and hard drives straight from the PC parts bin. Often they weren't worth the trouble, having other problems such as shoddy power supplies and encoder meltdowns. But this is a small percentage of the total recorder population: any big-name recorder made in the last few years thats worth a darn is "difficult" to repair. When it comes to hard drives, most will only accept the size and mfr they came with, and/or require special service codes or service accessories to swap out. The only recorder brand that seems to accept and recognize a wide range of hard drive sizes and mfrs is Pioneer, but they require a dedicated service remote and service disc to do anything.

Burners are another story and much more difficult. Almost all use proprietary ribbon cables attached to a modified controller board. To give just a few examples: Toshibas can use a handful of off-the-shelf burners as replacements, but functionality can be dodgy and you're really better off paying Toshiba for a fully-operational factory replacement. Panasonics require new burners direct from Panasonic under their flat-fee repair program (about $130 including shipping to the Pana facility). There are a number of common Panasonic burner issues that can be easily self-serviced by cleaning the lens and disc clamps, but if the laser or motor goes dead only Panasonic can replace it. It is possible in some cases to transplant the burner from a cheap used Panasonic recorder into a more expensive model to repair it, but people long ago caught wise to that and these days its usually cheaper and easier to send the thing to Panasonic and be done with it. Older and "pro"-model JVCs use a Hitachi Goldstar burner which is not easily replaceable. Current-model consumer JVCs are considered "disposable" and are not really repairable. The Korean brands (Samsung, LG and LiteOn) are so prolific its hard to track their repairability: they're a crapshoot. Some "cult" Polaroids and RCAs use random generic burners, but it varies with the serial number. The Phillips 3575/3576 and Magnavox H2160 appear to use proprietary burners.

Pioneers made prior to 2006 are a mix of the above possibilities. They use Pioneer off-the-shelf PC burners with slightly modified controller boards/cables. If you are comfortable taking apart your recorder and unplugging some cables, you can replace the dead burner in an older Pioneer very inexpensively. What you need to do is find a working generic Pioneer PC burner that is the same model as the one in your recorder. You remove the dead burner from the recorder, open it up, swap its controller board with the one in your generic Pio burner, and put that into your Pio recorder. The recorder looks for the controller board on startup, so most models will accept such a transplant without requiring the service remote or service disc. Below is the list of older Pioneer recorders and which generic PC burner you can use as a transplant. You can often find these older Pioneer burners on eBay for $30 or less. Note again you MUST swap the controller board from your dead burner into the replacement, or the recorder will not accept it:

Pioneer 210, 310, 510 recorders used the generic Pioneer DVR-106 or DVR-A06 burner.
Pioneer 220, 225, 320, 420, 520 and 720 used the generic Pioneer DVR-107 or DVR-A07 burner.
Pioneer 233, 531, 533, 633 and European x3x series used the generic Pioneer DVR-109 or DVR-A09 burner.

(From 2006 forward, Pioneer recorders are co-produced with Sony and incorporate an exotic Sony burner with RAM capability which is not marketed anywhere as a cheap generic PC burner. Also, the Pioneer recorder motherboard is partially embedded into the burner chassis in those models, making it extremely difficult to remove. You should consider the burner in newer Pioneers to be untouchable, send the unit in for Pioneer service. So far there are no reports of a successful DIY burner repair on the newer Pios, and no reports of official repair costs: this Sony/Pio burner has proved very durable. When their time comes, I'm sure we'll hear about it. Affected recorder models are the Pioneer 640, 540, 543, 650, 550, 450, 660, 560, 460 and the new Sony RDR-HX780 which is a clone of the Pioneer 560. None of these has a user-serviceable burner, but their hard drives can be user-replaced with any generic SATA drive using the service remote/service disc.)