DVD Recorder plays discs but does not record

[Tom81]

I have a panasonic e80 (from 2003) DVD hdd/ recorder. It can play dvd discs, but when I insert a blank dvd I get "incompatible disc cannot record". I have tried older blank dvd-r (2x)s , I unplugged unit for hours then plugged back in. I ran a disc cleaner through the unit. The dvd recorder will play dvds but will not record. Any idea what is wrong? The HDD part works perfectly. I have used it almost daily for the last 20 years. The DVD side half , very rarely ( like 3 times a year).

[johns0]

Most likely to dvd recorder is faulty.

[usually_quiet]

Think johns0 is probably correct. Some parts in electronics, for example, capacitors, can degrade over time even if the device is hardly used.

I think you are right to try DVD-R. It is probably less demanding to burn than the other two types of recordable DVD media supported by your DVD recorder. I bought a Panasonic DMR-ES10. The DVD drive was used to burn numerous discs since it had no HDD. Its ability to burn DVD media declined over time. First , it lost its ability to burn DVD-RAM. Later it began having trouble burning DVD-RW, but when I finally retired it, it could still burn DVD-R.

However, have you tried newer Verbatim DVD-R AZO media as well as the older DVD-R media? (Stay away from Verbatim "Life" media.)

[usually_quiet]

I have never done this myself, but if there are recordings on the HDD that you absolutely must save and you are willing to disassemble your DVD recorder to get them, there is software available that can recover recordings from your DVD recorder model's HDD: https://www.isobuster.com/dvr.php In the past, I used this software to recover recordings from unfinalized or faulty DVDs.

Note that this requires a certain amount of technical expertise and that successfully putting the DVD recorder back together again may be far more difficult than taking it apart.

[Alwyn]

I have never done this myself, but if there are recordings on the HDD that you absolutely must save and you are willing to disassemble your DVD recorder to get them

I did it once, the burner stopped working, and I was able to remove the HDD and get the videos off it with ISOBuster. I didn't try to reassemble it.