I have a Panasonic E95H that is not dubbing from the HDD. I have been hi speed dubbing with this unit for some time now, but I have recently tried 4 different blanks and the recorder will read 'dubbing failed'. Do I have to some how reset this unit or is seen its last leg. Hopefully not, because I still have about 60hours of material I need to record.

Need a little more info please. Are you dubbing to DVD-R or DVD-RAM?

If DVD-R, did you recently switch brands of blanks or buy a new batch of blanks? If so, it may your new -R blanks causing the problem. Try a different brand or discs from and old set of blanks that previously worked, if possible.

If you don't suspect bad DVD-R's, then see if you can dub to DVD-RAM - whether or not you are successful will point to the units optical drive or the HDD. If you can dub to DVD-RAM then it is likely the DVD-R's or a problem with the way the optical drive reads DVD-R's. If you cannot dub to DVD-RAM then the problem is either the optical drive or a bad HDD (however, the HDD is likely NOT the problem if you can still play back from the HDD OK.).

Another sign that the optical drive is failing is if it fails to read and playback previously recorded discs.

However, from what you are describing, I would first suspect bad media before assuming the worst.

Good Luck.

Iam dubbing to DVD-R and also using the same blanks. I just recorded in flex mode last night which is in realtime and it worked. It just isnt working when I use hi speed. Iam using Taiyo Uden discs.

Can you high speed dub to dvd-ram?

I have had that problem in the past with that unit. I had to format my drive and the problem
went away. I now format every 3 to 4 months.
Hope it works for you

I recently ran into problems with the e85. It would shut off when I tried dubbing to -R discs. It would however, allow me to dub to RAM. So I figured I had filled the hdd too much-it had only 10 hours SP mode space left. I saved what I could to RAM, and deleted about half of what was left, and tried again. It worked, and I got the remaining programs I wanted onto -Rs, and formatted the drive. So luke a pc drive, the more space available means the unit works better/faster?
Now I know not to get down to near 10 hours left before dubbing. With 60 hours left on the drive, that may be more than the unit can handle and still be able to dub.

Have you done any heavy editing or 'divide titling', then recorded more to the drive? Editing out segments without erasing them, then recording new material can lead to hangups like this too.

Yes, I do alot of editing and dividing of titles but then I dub them onto a disc. I have the the hard drive set on SP mode with a total of about 70 hrs. I have about 8 hrs. left on the hard drive. I dont have any dvd-ram with me so I dont know if it will work with that disc.

Indyjack,
How do you format your drive?

You format the drive by click on the Functions button, and going to Disc Settings. There, you'll see an option to Format drive, which erases everything that's been recorded.

If you can buy some RAM discs, I'd suggest trying to see if it will dub to them. If it doesn't work, then you're looking at having to format the hdd, and lose everything you've recorded. One way or the other, you need to find out if it's because the hdd's too full, or if there's something else wrong.