Panasonic DMR-EH55S No Read

I just joined after lurking the last year when I found this site. My problem is I have two Panasonic DMR-EH55S recorders that I bought new in the spring of 2008 to replace two other Pany's that were stolen in a residential burglary.

They have been performing flawlessly until last Saturday when I attempted to format a DVD+R DL disc in one of the machines. After the lengthy attempted format, which I thought might be a defective disc, neither machine will read any disc, including any commercial movies I have purchased.

I am stumped as to why they both failed at exactly the same time as I only tried to format the disc in one machine.
One machine failing I could easily understand. I have searched this forum as well as several Google searches for the cause of the issue to no avail. Panasonic tech support was of no help either.

I have disconnected the power for 48 hours and upon plugging back in the time reset correctly so maybe I didn't leave them unplugged long enough. I then tried resetting both machines to the factory defaults by pressing the channel up/down buttons at the same time. I have cleaned the hub and laser with alcohol and several Q-Tips. Nothing seems to work. Does anyone have any other suggestions I could try?


I might add that they are connected to two Comcast HD boxes with the included cable blaster for a digital HD source as well as HDMI cables to my Panasonic Plasma.

I hate to think about sending them in for repairs and also I am afraid if I do they will format the hard drives and I have several programs I need to copy to disc which I do not want to lose.

As an added note the recorders make several loud noises similar to whirring and starting, stopping for about 20 seconds or so after the tray opens and whether a disc is loaded or not. It says "reading" on the display and of course "no read" after the noise quits with or without a disc.

I dug an old Pany ES-15 out of the closet and hooked it up and it is very quiet. After a disc is loaded it reads quietly and very quickly and if the tray is shut with no disc inserted it says no disc on the display.

Thanks for your Info Westly-C. Yes I can record, watch and edit on the hard drive as well as see the cable box input, not sure about the SD slot as I've never used it. I just can't dub to disc or watch a movie I have purchased. I just think it is very strange for two of them to go at the same time. I do have all my A/V equipment plugged into a UPS so I doubt it would be an electrical issue. I was just reading the Panasonic repair thread in Elgin, Il and will search the site for the drive swap compatibility thread.
Thanks again,
Bill

Thanks for the help and advice everyone. The drive number on one of the EH-55's is
VXY1956. Tomorrow I will try to allocate enough time to take the lid off my ES-15 and see what the number is on it and swap them if they are the same. If not I will call the repair center and see if they can offer a quick turn around, it might pay to drive to Elgin and drop them off. Saving shipping on two units would certainly pay for a room if they can fix them in a couple of days and wouldn't have to worry about shipping damage.

Having them both fail at the same time is what is bugging me most. The UPS came about because I almost had a disc finalized and lost all power to the house. I went outside and the power company had two men up on the pole doing some kind of maintenance work. I was like WTH, but not that nice to them and asked why they couldn't have come to the door and explain what they were about to do. At least now I have a little insurance for time, not to mention the lightning factor. The two Pannys and my plasma are plugged into the battery side and my surround sound receiver, vcr's, cd player, etc are plugged into a couple of surge protectors on the surge side.

I also wondered if Comcast was able to send out some kind of signal to make the units malfunction.

Well I tried calling Panasonic this morning with the number from the repair thread and got a recording saying to leave a detailed message and they would return my call.
About 10 seconds into my recording another message comes on thanking me for my call and hangs up...is this any way to run a railroad? Has this happened to anyone else? Guess I'll try again later this afternoon or in the morning.
Panasonic Service Center
410 B Airport Rd.
Elgin, IL 60123
1-847-468-5543

I just called back and just spoke with a nice lady named Lisa. I explained my problems to her and asked if they still had the flat $130.00 service and she said yes.
I also inquired about the possibility of driving my units to Elgin and getting a quick turn around. She told me that if I could have them there in the morning,
that they would be fixed by that afternoon providing they had the parts in stock and I would save the return shipping for two units which would be $60.00.
Next week will be very hectic for me so hopefully the week after I can make the trip in one day.

It has been to long since I first posted my problem and since I was running low on hard drive space on both machines about six hours SP on one machine and eight hours on the other one, I called the repair facility in Elgin, Il. again on Wednesday the 18th and asked them again about driving them up and waiting on repairs to be completed.

I spoke again with Lisa and she thought that if they had the parts it wouldn't be a problem. She mentioned she was off the next day and to talk with Cecelia when I got there and she would let her know in the meantime what we had discussed.

I got there at 8 am their time on the 19th, leaving Indy at 5 am (one hours time difference and 234 miles later) to be there when they opened. The place is huge and the doors are locked so you have to ring the doorbell to be let in.

I did have to have new optical drives installed in both recorders, but was only able to bring one home with me as they close at 4:30 and the tech had trouble getting them aligned. Apparently the controller board was not installed with the new drive, as my receipt only states replaced optical and alignment. The person that logs in the units to be repaired and assigning them to the techs was two hours late getting to work and if she had been on time I'm thinking I could have brought both machines home and arrived at a reasonable hour. I was even to tired to drink any beer. The one I was able to bring home still had all my shows in tact as I made it very clear to not delete anything or reformat the hard drive. Let's hope I get the other one the same way. My bill for the one I brought home was $100.00 even since no shipping was involved.

They called around noon today and said the other machine was ready so I told them to just to ship it back by UPS and I should have it by next Tues. or Wed. I'm not sure if I would do the drive again as it took all day with the waiting and not getting back in Indy till around 10pm, also considering a tank and a half of gas and about $10 in tolls.

On a side note after dropping them off and asking where I could go eat breakfast, I asked Cecelia what the difference was between Elgin and the Elk Grove Village repair facilities. She said that Elgin does all the DVD recorder repairs now and Elk Grove Village facility repairs other Panasonic items.

Also I have noticed on another thread a link being posted for the service manual for a DMR-EH75VP. Would anyone have a link for the DMR-EH55 service manual. I would certainly appreciate it as I have made countless searches on here and Google.

Thanks for your response DigaDo, I find your wealth of knowledge and informative posts a tremendous asset to this forum.

Upon closer inspection of the receipt, it does show a part number of RAF3331A optical pick up. When I picked up the finished machine I was told the alignment was done on a machine and often takes around an hour to do, but the tech had trouble on both of mine. Before I left he said if he could wipe the hard drive he could be finished in a few minutes, so I have no idea why it matters if there is data on it or not.

I can now understand why most if not all repair shops refuse to do this type of repair and even if I could have ordered the parts myself, I'm sure I would have botched the job and had a couple of nice boat anchors. I know the Panasonic parts dept. wanted over $400.00 for one DVD drive assembly, making the flat rate repair very valuable.

The link you posted is the one I was referring to, I just did the download of both EH-55 manuals and will look at them tomorrow. I could have sworn I tried this a week or two ago and the downloads were in Hungarian. I guess I must have been on another site.

Thanks again DigaDo.

I received the other recorder I had to leave in Elgin last Thursday on Tuesday the 24th. The unit works like brand new and all of my programs were left intact. It also required the optical pickup RAF3331A. The unit was supposed to be shipped Friday afternoon and when I did not receive a tracking number as promised, I called and spoke with Lisa again Monday morning and she gladly provided it. She said they had a computer glitch on Friday and the unit didn't go out until Monday. It must have been shipped overnight as the UPS driver had it here by 2 PM on Tuesday. I have noticed a reference to being charged sales tax on another thread and wanted to mention I didn't pay any sales tax on both of the units I had repaired. The Elgin location is a fantastic place to do business with as they know what they are doing and are really efficient. I am sure at some point the parts supply for these units will dry up, but hopefully not for a long time.