E20 UN-FORMAT ?

[damjanb]

Hi all,
i have 2 DVD-RAMs which my DMR-E20
doesn't recognize anymore. It shows UN-
FORMAT on its display, and says
This disc is not properly formatted;
Formatting is necessary using DISC INFORMATION
on the on-screen display. I've tried reading them
on a HS2, but it won't read them either.
I also tried a Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, which played
them a couple of times, but no more.
I don't have access to a Panasonic drive at the moment.

Would it be possible to save those recordings?
It would be nice if i could send them to someone with
a Panasonic drive, who would copy the recordings to
his hard drive, reformat the RAMs and restore the tracks.

Or maybe some setting in the service menu of the E20
could be relaxed?

Any ideas on this, anyone?

From Ljubljana, Slovenia,
DamjanB

[apaw]

hi

same problem happened to me...i just erased....is there any body with a better solution?

[damjanb]

i just erased....
is there any body with a better solution?

well, i haven't given up/erased yet,
and have made some progress:
i copied the DVD_RTAV directory from a bad DVD-RAM
to the hard disk, and can now play the VRO file with PowerDVD,
though only all the way through.

I can write to DVD+RW, and have another player besides the E20,
so the plan is to make a +RW and play it from the other player into
the E20. I plan to rename the VR_MOVIE.VRO file to a VOB and make
a regular DVD-Video VIDEO_TS directory, using the information in
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/120021.php
I don't understand these things enough yet, but i guess if i just took
the IFO file from the bad disk it would not work?

[damjanb]

.. to answer my own questions - it may be helpful to someone:
it seems computer drives are more tolerant than those in stand
alone recorders. i finally recovered those recordings, except for
a couple of tracks/programs. First i recovered one Ram with an
LG drive, and now another with a Panasonic drive (and the SW
that came with them). The copy of the third one, after several
tries, now plays on the DMR E20, but with problems. Tired now
of all these complications, i went analog: played the programs
on the Ram untill i got a good play from (almost) all, recording
all on D-VHS thru Y/C. I'll now record the good parts back to
Ram, and get a pretty good copy.