I have recently started having problems with an RCA DVR80, and would appreciate any advice/suggestions.
1) Almost since the beginning (2+ yrs) it gets a little hiccup every day or so. The system kind of pauses for a second or so, then continues fine. I assume that this is a bad spot on the hard drive. We learned to live with it. But now this is happening more often, sometimes a couple of times an hour.
2) Worse, about a month ago the system reset itself. Goes to the welcome screen, re-initializes. Takes about 7 minutes, then the system is fine. This now happens about once a day or so.
3) Just yesterday, I noticed that it failed to record a show. Notes on the DVR say that the show was no longer on the guide, or that I changed the Season Pass. While the show did change a little in the guide (it was moved due to the President's press conference), it was still clearly in the guide. And we did not change the Season Pass. I investigated a little further, and it has done the same thing to several shows that are on the To Do list -- i.e. the shows now say that they will not be recorded because the show is no longer listed, or the Season Pass has been modified. Neither is correct.
I have done a complete cold reset -- turn the unit off, take out the card, unplug for a minute or so, plug back in, put in the card. This seemed to have no effect.
Am I correct that the hard drive is going down? Anything I can do to correct/prevent these problems? I read somewhere about a process that will essentially reformat the hard drive and restart everything. Will this actually fix a problem like what I am experiencing? I can do it (I have very little on the DVR that I would mind losing), but it seems that if the drive is going bad, reformatting will not help.
I could call D* and get a replacement (I bought the unit), but then I will be stuck in a committment. I am free right now, and am kind of waiting until some of the programming becomes clear before committing to either D* or E*, so I would rather not blow the comittment on a simple little DVR80.
Any other thoughts? I appreciate your input.
- martincva
1) Almost since the beginning (2+ yrs) it gets a little hiccup every day or so. The system kind of pauses for a second or so, then continues fine. I assume that this is a bad spot on the hard drive. We learned to live with it. But now this is happening more often, sometimes a couple of times an hour.
2) Worse, about a month ago the system reset itself. Goes to the welcome screen, re-initializes. Takes about 7 minutes, then the system is fine. This now happens about once a day or so.
3) Just yesterday, I noticed that it failed to record a show. Notes on the DVR say that the show was no longer on the guide, or that I changed the Season Pass. While the show did change a little in the guide (it was moved due to the President's press conference), it was still clearly in the guide. And we did not change the Season Pass. I investigated a little further, and it has done the same thing to several shows that are on the To Do list -- i.e. the shows now say that they will not be recorded because the show is no longer listed, or the Season Pass has been modified. Neither is correct.
I have done a complete cold reset -- turn the unit off, take out the card, unplug for a minute or so, plug back in, put in the card. This seemed to have no effect.
Am I correct that the hard drive is going down? Anything I can do to correct/prevent these problems? I read somewhere about a process that will essentially reformat the hard drive and restart everything. Will this actually fix a problem like what I am experiencing? I can do it (I have very little on the DVR that I would mind losing), but it seems that if the drive is going bad, reformatting will not help.
I could call D* and get a replacement (I bought the unit), but then I will be stuck in a committment. I am free right now, and am kind of waiting until some of the programming becomes clear before committing to either D* or E*, so I would rather not blow the comittment on a simple little DVR80.
Any other thoughts? I appreciate your input.
- martincva
