I'm sure most people understand this by now, but it bears repeating that HDDs should be considered as temporary storage. About a week ago my Toshiba RD-XS35 went all hinkey and would only display a message that the HDD had gone corrupt and to reformat it.

I first tried a "reboot," holding down the unit's power button for 10 seconds until it shut down, since that sometimes heals a flakey machine, but it didn't work in this case. So I gave in and reformatted the HDD and of course lost all my recordings, about a third of the HDD's capacity. Luckily, I had already burned everything that was a keeper beforehand and I only lost about a half a week's worth of shows I hadn't gotten around to watching yet, but they were easily replaceable. All my TVGOS settings were unaffected. Even though I have a spare HDD waiting in the wings, everything has been fine since, so I haven't had to perform an HDDectomy yet.

Let this serve as a cautionary tale. We all know an HDD can go kablooey anytime and that we should burn anything important right away, preferably onto good quality TY media, but human nature being what it is, we sometimes tend to put it off and not think about it until it's too late.

I should delete or transfer some of my shows into disc also, I have movies in there since May 6, 2008 and my drive is about 60% occupied.

Post your cautionary tales here, too! (e.g., UPS, extended warranty, spare drive, etc.)

I do a lot of long-term timeshifting. For example, I've been recording Battlestar Galactica shows with the intention of watching them all once the series has finished (next year, unfortunately). I always dump the show off to DVD-RW as soon as I've edited out the commercials. I try to keep up with other shows by watching them within a day or so of having recorded them.

As a result, last year when the HDD on one of my Pioneers packed it in I actually didn't loose anything at all. The repair was covered under the extended warranty provided by my VISA card, and since I had a Pioneer 640 to use while the unit was repaired the whole thing was quite a painless experience.

I'm sure most people understand this by now, but it bears repeating that HDDs should be considered as temporary storage. About a week ago my Toshiba RD-XS35 went all hinkey and would only display a message that the HDD had gone corrupt and to reformat it.

I first tried a "reboot," holding down the unit's power button for 10 seconds until it shut down, since that sometimes heals a flakey machine, but it didn't work in this case. So I gave in and reformatted the HDD and of course lost all my recordings... ...Even though I have a spare HDD waiting in the wings, everything has been fine since, so I haven't had to perform an HDDectomy yet...Although I still consider myself a DVDR Newbie, I do consider myself fairly experienced regarding ReplayTV (aka recording / storing TV Shows on HDDs - ala TiVo ;) ). As such, I would HIGHLY recommend pulling any "hinkey" HDDs out of any non-PC device, temporarily installing them into a PC and then running some extensive manufacturer's diagnostics on them.

At the VERY MINIMUM, this will identify and RE-MAP BAD SECTORS. Granted, I'm not familiar with DVDR OSes (the OS for the ReplayTV is stored on the HDD), so this may not be as important for DVDRs. But, IMHO, HDDs don't get "hinkey" without a good reason (i.e. It "could" have been a 'power glitch' on the mains :eek: ). And, running the manufacturer's low-level diagnostics can't hurt. :)

...I would HIGHLY recommend pulling any "hinkey" HDDs out of any non-PC device, temporarily installing them into a PC and then running some extensive manufacturer's diagnostics on them.You have to be a little careful about this. First of all, all the HDD DVD recorders that have been discussed here use a nonstandard file system, so if you don't know what you're doing you can make a bad problem even worse if the OS decides to try to "repair" the disk.

Secondly, some DVD units do not take kindly to having their HDD removed. The Pioneers, for example, require the use of a special service remote to re-enter the CPRM code even if the hard disk is merely disconnected and reconnected - and even if this is done with the unit powered off.

The first caveat Sean mentions, DVDRs' proprietary file systems, I was aware of; the second I was not. So there are two reasons you should think twice before attempting this. This indeed does fall under the heading of cautionary tales.

BTW, Sean, what happened to your mug shot? Wassamatter, too many hot chicks recognizing you in public places and asking you for "technical assistance"?;)

BTW, Sean, what happened to your mug shot? Wassamatter, too many hot chicks recognizing you in public places and asking you for "technical assistance"?;)I wish! :eek:

No, the sad truth is just that I'm not using these forums as much these days so I decided not to renew my paid membership. Now I'm back to being just one of the unwashed masses...

With all you've contributed, AVS should be paying you!