D Recorder Hep

Hi folks, I have an LG RH266 DVD recorder. I have 50 hours worth of programmes on the hard drive which I want to put onto DVD. The unit will no longer initialize disks but will record onto an initialized disk. It goes through the motions and then comes up with "Initialization Failed" and that's the disk finished with.
My questions are these... Can I use a PC to initialise a blank DVD so that it will then be accepted by and recorded on by my player and if that's not an option, are there any compatible DVD burners that I could pop into this machine?

Comments

  • chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    It all depends on what LG mean by "initialising" as to whether you could perform that stage on a PC. Given that blank DVDs are ten a penny you won't exactly be re-mortgaging the house and selling your granny into slavery to pay for a dead disk if you try it and find it doesn't work. :D

    Have you tried putting a cleaning disk through the machine? May do nothing but stranger things have been known to happen. Or even try a different make of blank disk. Sometimes drives can be picky about what disks they want to play with.

    As for replacing the drive. That depends if the unit uses a computer style drive unit or not. It might be a separate mechanism with all the associated electronics on the main board. Only by opening it up will you find out. But even then you might be no better off.

    If it is a computer style unit then it might only work with the exact make and model of drive as already installed. Plus no guarantee that LG haven't tweaked it. I know I tried to replace a drive in a professional Tascam CD recorder once. It was a bog standard drive that I could find fairly cheaply online. However Tascam flashed the firmware of the thing with a custom version so you could only buy the drives from them. The apparently identical off the shelf drive wouldn't work!
  • OrbitalzoneOrbitalzone Posts: 12,627
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    According to the only info I could find on dismantling a LG 266 DVD player, this unit appears to have a non PC type drive. In fact the laser (but not the loading mech) is identical looking to the one in my Panasonic DMRES10 which lasted for a whole 15 months (worst panasonic product I've ever owned)

    http://www.justanswer.com/electronics/206i3-lg-rh266-suddenly-decided-stop-recognising.html but I don't recommend carrying out the 'turn a pot a bit' suggestions on this link.

    So, I would try and clean the laser as ChrisJr says.
  • chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
    Forum Member
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    According to the only info I could find on dismantling a LG 266 DVD player, this unit appears to have a non PC type drive. In fact the laser (but not the loading mech) is identical looking to the one in my Panasonic DMRES10 which lasted for a whole 15 months (worst panasonic product I've ever owned)

    http://www.justanswer.com/electronics/206i3-lg-rh266-suddenly-decided-stop-recognising.html but I don't recommend carrying out the 'turn a pot a bit' suggestions on this link.

    So, I would try and clean the laser as ChrisJr says.
    The correct capitalisation of my user name is ChrisJR.

    Or just Chris, or I have been known to respond to "oi you!"

    Thank you. :D
  • OrbitalzoneOrbitalzone Posts: 12,627
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    Damnit, that's another forum enemy to add to my growing list, sorry about that ChrisJR

    :D
  • chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    Damnit, that's another forum enemy to add to my growing list, sorry about that ChrisJR

    :D
    You're forgiven. :D

    Mind you if you'd written chris junior :mad: as one poster did several years ago that would be grounds for a falling out...


    :D:D:D
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4
    Forum Member
    I have actually taken the machine to bits and manually cleaned the laser lens twice to no avail. I have tried all kinds of disks from Asda's own to Maxell, TDK and Verbatim DVD+R DVD-R but it still won't do the job.
    The disk drive has two ribbon connectors so is not the same as a PC drive. I wouldn't mind but it will record fine and finalize fine, it just won't initialize.
  • chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    I wonder if it's worth doing a Factory Set reset on the machine. According to the manual I downloaded this should be on the General Settings section of the menu then Initialisation. Just make sure you don't select the HDD Format option by mistake.

    That will return the settings back to out of the box condition. But it might just reset the unit and restore the initialise disk function.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4
    Forum Member
    Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried a factory reset, it merely sets the time, the language and things like that. I have unplugged the machine for 20 minutes which is also supposed to reboot it. I am at a loss. I don't want to lose the programmes I have recorded yet can't find any solution to keep them.
    Initialising a DVD on my PC would do it but it seems that the powers in the digital world have had no reason to invent this concept yet, or if they have I can't find it.
    Cheers
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