Sony RDR-GX7

[joecass]

Has anyone ever replaced the DVD RW drive on this machine ? Mine is from Sept 2003, and finally died....
I scoured the Internet looking for replacements, found one vendor who wants $226 plus shipping, which is too much money.
The machine wouldn't read any discs at all...... took it apart, removed the drive, did my standard cleaning procedures.
After cleaning, the drive will read discs, but is unable to erase or record, I guess the laser is too weak
Although I have many other machines, this one was irreplaceable. Never missed a Timer, never had any copy protection
errors, had a fabulous picture, absolutely great for doing VHS to DVD transfers.
If anyone has any info on a replacement drive, I'd surely appreciate it

[jman98]

People never believe it, but DVD writers eventually will all die or become so unreliable that they have to be replaced. Having it last 6 years is really amazing. The best DVD writer I ever had (in a PC not a DVD recorder) lasted about 4 years.

The following site, which I found via a Google search and you could have found too had you tried, contains some recent suggestions that might be of use to you.
http://www.howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=23446
I understand asking here to get an expert opinion, but we can't all be experts on every single possible model of DVD recorder. Sometimes it's just better to do your own searches first and ask here only as a last resort. Based on things I read in the forums, Sony wasn't one of the more popular brands of DVD recorder among our members. Maybe someone else will follow up with more specific info, but there's also a good chance that the link I provided is the best answer you're going to get.

[joecass]

I spent about an hour on Google doing searches, thanks Jman but I saw this site already. It provides no useful info on replacement drives..... meaning, the exact replacement, not oddball drives that need modification. The Sony model DRU 11a that's inside the machine, has an older, large type casing which hasn't been made in years, and the DVD drawer extends about an inch past the face plate. So it's really not a problem of finding a compatible
drive, it's a matter of finding a replica that will fit into the intricate housing. If it was a simple matter of putting any
old drive in there, I would have done it already......
Believe me I did quite a bit of searching before posting a question on this forum, and searched many other forums
other than this one for help.....
Your tone implies some sort of laziness on my part, and a willy-nilly aproach to solving problems..... that is not the
case, I own and maintain 8 other DVD recorders in my arsenal, Video Help.com is one of the most widely read
Forums available, that is the reason I posted the question

[lordsmurf]

That DVD recorder has notoriously grainy quality, and it would retain all VHS grain and chroma noise. It wasn't a really good machine anyway. There are far better. Even the current Sony available at Amazon and Walmart, the RDR-GX257, has better image quality.

DVD recorder reviews: http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-recorders.htm