My E85H died. I was hoping maybe caps problem, but looking at the PS, the caps look fine. There's some input power test points, and I have power. Also the fuse on the board is good.

While apart I tried plugging the HD into my computer to see what was on it, but windows couldn't do any thing with it. Is there any way to read the HD and get the data off in some usable format? I didn't experiment with any disk utilities. If I were to send the unit to Elk Grove, does it come back with data intact?

scott s.
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There is a thread here somewhere in this forum explaining how to use a hex format converter to read information off a Panasonic HDD but it's rather labor intensive and IMO seems kind of complicated. AFA sending your DVDR in for service, unless the HDD is bad, from everything I've read Panasonic will repair your machine and keep your HDD info intact. It's probably your best option at this point.

While apart I tried plugging the HD into my computer to see what was on it, but windows couldn't do any thing with it. Is there any way to read the HD and get the data off in some usable format? I didn't experiment with any disk utilities. If I were to send the unit to Elk Grove, does it come back with data intact?

Usually when the hard disc of the E85 is removed, when you reconnect the drive the recorder automatically formats the disc. It's generally not a good idea to unplug the drive unless you are willing to lose all data on the drive. You should pretty much assume anything you had on the disc is gone.

There is a thread here somewhere in this forum explaining how to use a hex format converter to read information off a Panasonic HDD but it's rather labor intensive and IMO seems kind of complicated. AFA sending your DVDR in for service, unless the HDD is bad, from everything I've read Panasonic will repair your machine and keep your HDD info intact. It's probably your best option at this point.

Usually when the hard disc of the E85 is removed, when you reconnect the drive the recorder automatically formats the disc. It's generally not a good idea to unplug the drive unless you are willing to lose all data on the drive. You should pretty much assume anything you had on the disc is gone.
I'm sorry scott967, but both of these posts are correct. If you do a forum search, there is a thread called "Panasonic DMR hard drive data recovery - It CAN be done!!" This thread tells you exactly how one forum member extracted the data from his recorder's hard drive. The process seems to be complex enough that only a few have attempted it.

If you plug your hard drive back into your E85, there is a very good chance the E85 will insist on reformatting it. No one yet has a good explanation for this, but the reports and experiences are very consistent.

Thanks that's very interesting. I'm not sure how the units "knows" the disk was removed but will take your word for it. I suppose there could be some low-level software on the drive that records that it was powered up outside of the unit. Maybe some sort of DRM thing?

scott s.
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Recorders contain tiny lithium backup batteries that maintain their clocks and keep constant tabs on whether their drives have been changed. It isn't necessarily a DRM concern that makes the Panasonics reformat their hard drives if removed: more likely its a limitation of the very basic operating system embedded in the recorder motherboard, which probably only has one pre-programed response to a hard drive being removed: it must have been bad, so any new one must be formatted for use in the recorder. This more common with brands that are firmware-limited to recognizing only their original hard drive capacity like the Pannies. A few brands that can accept a variety of hard drive sizes, like Pioneer, do not insist on reformatting removed hard drives, OTOH they do have an idiotic DRM scheme that won't let them read their own drive when you put it back in without use of special service tools. Either scheme is annoying as hell.

The thread that references salvaging video from a Panasonic hard drive using a hex editor really needs to be viewed as more of an intellectual exercise than something any sane person would ever actually do. The process is so ridiculously complex and tedious its not worth the trouble unless the lost videos are irreplaceable memories of children or family that you have no backups of whatsoever. Hex editor salvage requires painstaking re-assembly of the videos literally second by second, from hundreds of randomly scattered files with no recognizable naming scheme. While I greatly admire the perseverance and skill of the AVS member who pulled it off, I cannot imagine anyone else doing it: for all practical purposes, there is no way to access these drives outside the recorder.

Thanks that's very interesting. I'm not sure how the units "knows" the disk was removed but will take your word for it. I suppose there could be some low-level software on the drive that records that it was powered up outside of the unit. Maybe some sort of DRM thing?

scott s.
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I suspect if you actually plugged it into a computer, the Windows or Mac software will do something to the drive at a very low, and in most cases, non-critical way, but that the recorder sees and reacts to. Just the act of reading it changes something. This does not explain the reports of people unplugging and then plugging their drive back in without doing anything else to it, and the machine still wanting to format it before using it again.

The file system on the hard drives is rather paranoid. Just be glad that they use standard drives and, at least with the Panasonics, are not upset when you replace the drive with another one. They only format to the size of the original drive, but you can use larger drives with no problem.

Seems strange that an engineer would go to all the work of inventing a file system, but maybe they had a reason. I know I once saw a list of all the known (agreed to?) file systems codes for partition tables and it seemed there were plenty (I guess it's a one-byte code), so it isn't like there's a shortage of options.

scott s.
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It's generally believed that it's a proprietary variant of UNIX.

Yes, they all use a version of Unix. Its fairly simple to customize Unix file systems to make them unusable outside a dedicated device like a DVR: its not as if they had to wholesale engineer an entireoperating system, just kludge the HDD boot blocks and filesystem.

RE: Auto-formatting of removed drives.

I *believe* that as long as you do not power the unit up without a drive connected--or with a different drive in it--that the Panny will not try to reformat its drive. This is an intuitive guess, and not empirical data, so take it for what it's worth.

I believe this is true for two reasons:

The first is, people who have replaced capacitors on the power board have not reported having to reformat the drives. If one of you who has done so successfully can confirm it, I'd appreciate you saying so here.

The second is, when you power the system up, it reads information off of the HDD. If there is no HDD, it gives you an error message. That error is logged. Future booting with or without the *same* unmodified HDD *probably* sees that error flag in the log and assumed the drive has been replaced. This, too, is simply a SWAG.

I do remember a thread a few years back about upgrading the drives, where one poster claimed that he got around this by simply cutting the WRITE line to the HDD (on the ribbon cable, I believe). When the Panny tried to reformat, the drive simply ignored it, since there was no WRITE signal. Afterward, the Panny was so dumb, that it thought it had been successful and the next time it checked, the drive was back to normal. The WRITE line was then reconnected by the tech, and the unit functioned normally.

To the best of my knowledge, this is both factual and unverified. It would be interesting to see if someone else could duplicate that experiment. I would recommend an in-line toggle switch on a cheap drive cable OR if it proves to be true that you can disconnect and reconnect drives without formatting, as long as you don't power up, then using a cut cable to power up beyond the reformatting process and then replacing it with a good cable after powering down again, *should* allow the old drive to be used as-was *if* it wasn't reformatted earlier or written to by any other system.

bob

p.s. After i posted this, I found *this* post on Wade's thread about manually recovering sectors from the HDD:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14590043#post14590043

According to elno-bgd:

Hi !

I had to reinstall HDD into PANA -> no restart problem but a long time to start (with a little panic :rolleyes:)



This tells me that removing the drive--and even reading it on another system--does not trigger formatting IF you do not power up the system with the drive removed.

I hope. ;)

The first is, people who have replaced capacitors on the power board have not reported having to reformat the drives. If one of you who has done so successfully can confirm it, I'd appreciate you saying so here.

I can confirm that after replacing capacitors on the power supply PCB (three times in last 4 years) in my recordable home theater unit SA-HT1500 (in its based it is similar to DMR-E85H or DMR-E95H) with TVGOS, the HDD was always recognized and it was never formatted when I turned the unit on after repair. All previous recordings on HDD were there exactly as I had them before capacitors replacement.

Note: I always unplugged cables from HDD before removing power supply board from dvd recorder for capacitors replacement when unit was not powered on (not connected to the wall outlet.)