I've got two units that won't accept any type of disk. I've set those aside. I have another unit in use right now that is beginning to do the same thing. I put in a new Memorex -RW disk this morning, it went to initialize it, then spit it out. I put it back in and this time it initialized with no problem.

I've really given these things a workout in the past couple of years that the drives may be failing. I ordered a replacements from partstore.com, but those came broken (one wouldn't open the tray because a piece of the drive mechanism had fallen off and another had the laser head flopping around loose). I've pretty much given up on replacing the drives.

These were wonderful while they worked (I guess 2-3 years was a good period). It's a shame Samsung gave up on them. It's also a shame you can't get good replacement drives to keep them up and running.

I have another unit in use right now that is beginning to do the same thing. with no problem.

I had a similiar problem with one of my recorders (a different brand) I got it to work a little while longer by cleaning the hubs that hold and spin the discs. It was like the hubs were slipping just enough to cause miss reads.....try and google instructions on how to clean the drive
I think cdfreaks had instructions on how

I had one of these recorders but I took it back years ago only because it failed to function on scheduled recordings, other then the problem of recording it was a good system but the store BB didn't have any more at the time so I bought a panasonic it's ok

Try the cleaning it might just work

I've tried cleaning--everything from using different types of cleaning disks to taking the cover off, blowing out any dust, and using alchohol swabs.

Sometimes they just wear out. And without a good company to provide workable replacements, that means the unit is no longer useful.