Help with Panasonic DMR-E80HS ... need to save home videos.

[Hollywood_12]

Here is the deal... I have loved this recorder until it played out on me.
I bought it in December, 2003
It died about a year ago.

I have been unsuccesfull contacting Panasonic. Thought they might help me troubleshoot it.

I can not get it to do anything, not even open the disc tray.

I have a lot of my family home videos on there that I want to rescue.

If it was yours what would you do?

Please help me. Repair... or replace.... how to save the hard drive content?

Thanks in advance

[aedipuss]

have you taken the hard drive out and used a usb adapter to connect it to a pc?

[Hollywood_12]

No. I have not done anything. Did not know what to do. Did not know if that was an option or not.

[ks47]

The problem could be anything from capacitor to HDD. Try this forum, which has lots of resources to fix your dilemma.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=106

[oldfart13]

So, when you plug it in what happens? No power? Could be a fuse or the caps are gone. If the vids are very important you might be able to rescue the device by getting an authorized repair center to fix it. Might cost big bucks if the parts aren't available anymore and repairing the boards by changing the caps could get expensive. And let's face it, it's an old deck. Pulling the hard drive would be a last resort. Not sure it's even readable in a PC. Might have weird format for the drive. Best to do some more reading...

[Hollywood_12]

On the display screen this is what I get when I unplug it and plug it up:

ch L1
Also there are two Drive select button that light up Green depending on the one that is selected.... The one labeled DVD is lit and I can not get the HDD button to light.

Now when I try to change the channel by pressing the channel up or down buttons, nothing happens
When I press the open/close tray button... nothing happens
Press anything nothing happens

Except when I press the power button.... then you can hear it spinning inside.

Then I end up with this after tinkering with it a bit.
ch L1
CLOSE
DVD indicator light flashing...... which the manual states it does after pressing the power button until it actually turns off... which it never does.

Also there are two Drive select button that light up Green depending on the one that is selected.... The one labeled DVD is lit and I can not get the HDD button to light.


I have noticed that the unit does not get warm or hot after being on a while even and it should be putting off some heat.

[Hollywood_12]

Also on the tv screen i have a message that says to change the disc... but the tray will not open.

[jman98]

Man, you REALLY screwed up here by leaving stuff on the disk drive. IF you are able to get your videos off the disk drive or get the machine repaired, you need to learn a lesson from this and not put yourself in this kind of position again. We get this type of post all the time from people who have stored irreplaceable home videos on unfinalized DVD discs or internal hard drives on DVD recorders under the assumption that their device will live forever and then they post here in a panic trying to save their precious videos. Internal disk drives on DVD recorders are often encrypted specifically to prevent you from attaching the drive to a PC and copying the videos that way. It sucks, but that's what Hollywood wants and the manufacturers were happy to comply. So while you could theoretically connect the internal drive to a PC, it's not very likely that you'll be able to do anything with it if you do. You're going to need a repair.

From taking a look it seems that Panasonic has basically dropped all North American after sales support/repair. Nice. Here's a link to Sanyo's (Panasonic owns them) repair website which still does North American repairs. You might try contacting them and see if they are willing to try to fix it.
http://us.sanyo.com/Customer-Support-Service-Center-Locator

[Hollywood_12]

Most all the items on the hard drive I found out today from the Ex are family videos that we dubbed off of tapes.

Now to do another back up of the tapes what would you suggest.

Send them to a pro or use a computer somehow.

Thanks

[usually_quiet]

Most all the items on the hard drive I found out today from the Ex are family videos that we dubbed off of tapes.

Now to do another back up of the tapes what would you suggest.

Send them to a pro or use a computer somehow.

Thanks

If there are only a few tapes, a transfer service would be your best bet, but not all transfer services do good work.

VHS transfer using a PC is much harder than using a DVD recorder, and some common problems can only be corrected with additional hardware, adding significantly to the cost of the project.

Another HDD DVD recorder would also work, assuming you transfer the captures from the HDD to DVD this time. Magnavox still makes two, the MDR 515/F7 and the MDR 513H/F7. The user interface is not as nice as Panasonic's and there is no flex recording option for DVD, but it has a digital tuner and reportedly it is OK for VHS transfers.