ILo dvd recorder not cooperating

[jhayes]

I have been using my iLo DVDRHD04 DVD recorder with hard drivefor a couple of years now and it has performed wonderfully. Lately, when I insert a blank disc it will just read it (w/continuous line going across display) indefinitely until I unplug the unit and plug it back in again to retrieve the disc. Sometimes it will surprise me and prepare the disc for recording.....sometimes. Has anyone run into this problem? Is there a way to restore the unit to the original firmware (I "updated" ther firmware a long time ago to record DVD's and play all regions with a hack provided on an iLo forum) and the re-install the hack? Thanks. -John

[Krispy Kritter]

Are you still using the same media you were using several years ago when you purchased the player? Most likely you are using new/different media and the player is having trouble recognizing it.

Of iLo provides firmware updates, you could try updating the player. That may or may not improve media compatibility.

Otherwise, try using a different brand/type of media.

[oldandinthe way]

As you know your iLO recorder is a Lite-on recorder. In my own experience and postings by others on CDfreaks and TechiLo they have burners which are prone to failure.

Your symptoms are consistant with a failed burner. There are detailed instructions on burner replacement on the Lite-On forum on CDfreaks.

I have experienced no problems burning ANY media with a working Lite-On recorder. Probably a result of burning occuring at 1x.

[CrazyCanuck]

Hi jhayes, I own 4 ILO HD04s and all the original drives have failed, the original drives are not very strong. I've replaced them all and supersized the HDDs. The first symptom is as you described, can't prepare a disc anymore, you will also notice a burnt ring closer to the centre core of the disc, this makes the disc unusable.

Read this thread, it has all the info you need to replace the drive in the ILO HD04 including my own input, it's a long thread but it's all there.

http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1868&sid=2ac0bc9d77edb7c6a59ba505ebbe4b1f

The other challenge that you'll encounter is finding a fully operational drive, Liteon 1693 (and 1635) and lower (and some Sonys which are Liteon clones) will fully work, later ones will not fast forward DVD+Rs or commercial discs, +RWs are ok.

Here's a few lists of fully operational drives.

http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3044
http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3437

and this list includes a bit of both, fully and no FF drives
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f102/replacement-drives-liteon-5xxx-recorders-207698/

You can easily set a drive outside the case and just need to drill/dremel a hole in the backto get the power and IDE cables out or take the plunge and fashion yourself a drive bracket and install it inside which I've done to all of them including an ILO R04 (w/1693) and GoVideo 6530 (w/1693).

If you do get a PC drive, bring it to the PC first, set the region, play a disc and update the firmwqre for that specific drive (if any).

I personnaly don't mind the newer models even if they don't FF, I use the 160, 165 and 20iap in the HD04s, they burn perfectly. I use other players to watch dvds.

CC

[jhayes]

I have a 200gb HD that is the same connectors as the drive in my unit, I tried unsucessfully to put that one in last year. I bought a Lite on disc drive today. If I have a bvrand new model Lite-on disc drive, will I need to connect it to my computer first? I'm gonna do this project tonight and try to resist the urge to hurl it out of the window when the inevitable problems arise.....

[jhayes]

Which format should I format the HDD? NTFS of FAT?

[jhayes]

Replacing the Optical drive worked great! The only real factors are to use a Lite-on drive if you want it to work immediately without hooking it to your computer first. and securing it to the chassis as the screws don't line up. I also found that you need to keep the ( top of) metal casing on or the disc will jump off the spinner. I was not able to format my 200gb hd on Vista and my larger drives (500 & 750 gb) are SATA. I wonder if an adapter would make them usable?

[CrazyCanuck]

Glad to hear your drive is working, what model did you get?. I fashioned a saddle for my drive. As you said the screws don't line up. I place a piece of paper over the post, I passed toothpick through the paper into the posts and that created my template, took flimsy sheet metal and cut it just long and wide enough to wrap around the bottom and up the sides, place the drive on the sheet, folded the sides, then trimmed my paper template to fit the sheet and drill the bottom holes, installed the saddle on the posts, put the drive in, pushed it in as far as it can go, you'll notice that it can go about 1/4 inch right up to the bottom corners of the ilo case opening for the drive then marked my side holes, took off the saddle and drilled the side holes, reinstalled the saddle and installed the drive.

Not sure about the sata HDDs and the adapter, never tried it, I would at least try while the case was open, for sure your 200GB IDE HDD will work.

As for formating the HDD, here are the instructions and a link to the formatter program I used for my 4 ILO HD04s (2 x 250GB, 1 x 200GB and 1 x 160GB)

1) to extract the system files off of the current HDD onto your PC.
- Back-up all your recordings you want to keep on disc.
- Do a full erase of your HDD while still in the recorder
- Remove HDD and plug into your PC and copy the system folder called LITEONFAT, it's around 5 GB in size, give or take.

2) to format new HDD
- Plug new HDD in PC and run FDISK to the largest size, set it "active" and unformated.
- Download fat32format from http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/do...fat32format.zip.
- Unzip and save .exe file on your c drive.
- Click Start->Run and enter cmd. CD to where you extracted the fat32format.exe file, e.g. by typing CD /D c:\
- In DOS Prompt, type (respect the spaces) this for 64k cluster size, fat32format -c128 f: (replace f: with your appropriate drive letter) You'll get a warning notice saying "Warning ALL data on drive 'f' will be lost irretrievably, are you sure (y/n)" answer yes (y) and in a flash you will see results similar to these,

Size : 250GB 488392002 sectors
512 Bytes Per Sector, Cluster size bytes (65xxx for 64k cluster)
Volume ID is 1bdb:2c1d
32 Reserved Sectors, 59604 Sectors per FAT, 2 fats
7629261 Total clusters
7629260 Free Clusters
Formatting drive f:...
Clearing out 119304 sectors for Reserved sectors, fats and root cluster...
Wrote 61083648 bytes in 0.988463 seconds, 61796609.106193 bytes/sec
Initialising reserved sectors and FATs...
Done

3- Copy LITEONFAT file onto new HDD and install in the recorder.

Now some more info, because your Liteon is a 80GB recorder, if ever you do a full erase with the larger HDD, it will only reformat 80GB, if that happens you would need to go over this process to get the full size again. That means from now on, erase individual titles and not the whole HDD.

You need to format at the 64K cluster size, if left at the 32K cluster size, the next time that the HDD scans after a power failure, all recordings after the 1GB point will crap out, not recoverable or playable, this would be at about 15 min. 20 on HQ, 30 min. on SP, 45 min. on LP etc.

If ever in the future, by some sheer bad luck, your HDD completely fails and you have no back-up files, do step 2 (without LITEONFAT) and install in your recorder, do a full erase, this will write the LITEONFAT file on the HDD (but only to 80GB) but at least you can backup the system files and then repeat steps 2 and 3 to get the full size of your HDD.


Hope this helps.

[jhayes]

I used double sided tape to secure the drive. I found that if I removed metal casing, it fit nicely, but the disc rattled around. I just got back from having a 160gb ATA drive formatted w/FAT32.Now to attempt the hd switch. Thanks for the help. -John

[CrazyCanuck]

Great stuff, make sure to format at 64 K cluster size, crucial to do so. Let us know how it went.