Posted by SBFan2000 on 11/05/05 15:21

Depending on what the actual problem with the drive is you may or may not be
able to retrieve the data. I am unaware of how Panasonic DVD recorders
format their drives. If its FAT (doubt it) or NTFS (possible, but also
doubtful) you can remove the drive and put it in a windows based computer to
attempt to retrieve the data. If its Unix or Linux based you could but it
in a Linux based computer and attempt to retrieve it.

Also, it sounds nuts, but you can place a failing drive in the freezer for
half-hour or so and sometimes get it to work for awhile longer. I have done
this several times with HDDs from PCs. You can sometimes get it working
long enough to get the info off of it.

I does depend on what the problem is though. Bad sectors can sometimes be
recovered sometimes not. A blown control board is usually fatal unless you
have another of the identical drive and you can swap the external control
boards but this also doesn't always work. The circuitry inside the drive
really can't be replaced unless you have a cleanroom. Opening the drive to
do so will let dust and other contaminates into the drive and may cause
further failure!

Unfortunately failing HDDs are hit and miss. Solutions that work on one
failed drive don't work on another. He may simply be out of luck! :-( I
know how he feels, my computer has over 600GB of storage and I lost one of
the drives a few months ago. Took me down to 450GB for awhile, until a
replacment came in. I saved failed drives info using the freezer trick but
I very barely fit it onto the remaining drives. I'm looking at adding
another 300GB or so.


"Keith" <ks66@consolidated.net> wrote in message
news:1131161831_2929@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
> A friend of mine has a Panasonic stand alone DVD recorder. It has been
> acting up so he took it to the shop. They say its the hardrive and it
needs
> replaced. Problem is they say there is no way to transfer his 150 hrs of
> recordings from the old hardrive to the new hardrive. He even caled
> Panasonic and they said the same thing.Surely there has to be a way. Any
> help would be great. Thanks
>
>
>
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