How to reformat a RCA DRC8030N 80GB Recorder

[masondixon]

Hi, your power supply may be getting noisy, i. e. there may be some bad or bulging capacitors in the output voltage circuits. They are quite obvious when the cover is taken off the recorder and you look at the power supply board (the one that the power cord is plugged into). Any of the capacitors that the tops are even slightly bulged upward will be bad, thus producing electronic noise in the output. Nothing wreaks havoc with timers like a noisy PS. I've had this problem with 2 of units I have. Replacing the offending caps fixed weird and random problems.
I hope this helps.

[Malfini]

Thanks, I'll have a closer look, but I have pulled the cover off and the caps seemed O.K.

Maybe I'll just shotgun it, and swap them all.

At this point I'm also lookiing at the Magnavox 160GB unit. Still available from Walmart.

[wmelnick]

I just bought one of these on ebay without a DVD drive or hard drive - not a problem as I have plenty of both sitting around. I was wondering what the limitations are? Will any DVD recorder work? Also, what size hard drives work with this unit? Obviously an 80 will. What about 160GB? 250GB? 500GB?

Thanks for any help,
Warren

[lordsmurf]

PM me in a week, and I'll open my unit and see what's inside.

[ablackwidowX2]

Thanks GOGUERRA for the formatting tip. I now managed to get 2 of these machines working and they both had different problems. Now I just need to figure out why one of them loses time. All of the capacitors look fine inside.

[wmelnick]

Could someone post pictures of what the inside of the unit is supposed to look like? I just got the unit I want to put back together and it it basically circuit boards a pata cable with 2 connectors and 2 power cables. I am curious how it is all supposed to go together before I mess it up.

Thanks,
Warren

[Jessicasdd]

I have this same unit and I have the "HELLO" error. I can't get a clock. I plug the unit in and it goes right to HELLO going back and forth. I unplug it, hold buttons down, plug it back in - HELLO. I took the hard drive out and put it into an external case and tried to access it through my computers USB and the hard drive made a scraping and clicking sound. I am thinking that the hard drive may be shot. If I lose the information on it now - at this point I could care less. I just want it back up and running so I can use it. Can I drop any hard drive into this and format it? I tried the formatting tip that goguerra posted but that didn't work because I can't turn the unit off. Once it is plugged in it is on and I can hold the power button in until my finger goes numb - it will not turn off. Any ideas?

[Joesm]

Have the same problem, first it was the hard drive then I rebooted the drive it worked for
a few months happened again, and I couldn’t even reboot the drive, so I didn’t use the
hard drive now six months later I get the hello all the time. I am going to buy a new DVD righter
& hard drive. Hope this works.