Panasonic E50....Recover a problem?

[fredpb]

I have a Panasonic E50. Got it "open box" from Circuit City. Had it about two or three weeks. Use it ever day at least an hour for recording.

Tonight, after recording one of my favorite shows, I pressed the "stop" button to stop recording. It seemed to lock up for a while at "55%", then the front of the recorder said "BYE", then "RECOVER".

After it became operational again, the first recording I had made was there, but the new one was not. Remaining time was 0:00, used time was 21 mins, and it would not Finalize. A coaster I guess.

Is this a common occurrance? Bad disk (Fuji 2X, a Ritek I think)? Or should I worry about the recorder. I do have a 30 day return policy.

I has done this "Recover" thing before, or displayed it on the front panel, but nothing was lost. This is twice now though for Recover mode. Should I return it?

[Capmaster]

I have an E50 and I got that error and "recover" display quite a bit until I found a media it liked - Maxell branded. On some discs when I went to finalize it it said there were 5 or even 10 programs on the disc, even though it was used for only one movie. The reason is that when it encounters an error on the disc it displays "recover" and then tries to resume. Some discs would finalize and some wouldn't. Using good media solved that problem.

A few times it went into the recover mode and stayed there. I had serious doubts about getting the media out again, because the unit ignores the drawer button unless it's happy with everything. I found that in those cases the surefire way to remove the bad media is to, with the power on, press and hold the power switch ...in about 15 seconds the unit will power down. Then, without pressing the power switch first, with the power off, press the drawer button once. It usually powers up and ejects the bad media then. Until I discovered this trick I once even had to remove the cover to get the disc out Once you remove the bad disc it's important to power it down without a disc in it. Only then is the unit fully reset. Otherwise it'll just jump back into the recover mode. I found this out the hard way :P

[chas0039]

I also have an E-50 and would see the recover mode quite a bit until I found two tricks. First, if I am switching brands of media or going from RAM to -R I am asking for trouble so I should expect a problem. A trick I picked up here that seems to work is to write a title to a disc before I use it, especially if I have just switched from RAM. This could be bogus as a fix but it IS a surefire way to see if your media is going to work before you set up your timer. I found G04s from ritek and Prodisc S03s both work well and are readily available for a good price. Try Rima.com or Supermediastore.com. The Prodiscs have a pretty high PI Kprobe score but the Riteks seem to have quality control issues.

[fredpb]

Thanks!

The writing of disc title first is a good idea. That is how I got my first "Recover" indication. Good way to test a disc.

I have switched to Ridata (Ritek). Won't use Fuji again I guess.