[zigthedog]

I have an LG DRT389H DVD recorder. Never had an awful amount of trouble with it though for some reason the first one I had got upset when I connected the HDMI cable. Argos changed the recorder and all was ok, that was some 4 - 5 years ago. Since then it's worked quite well but recently it's developed a couple of faults, the first is the DVD tray will not open or if open will not always close and when it does it's unable to read the disc and even if there isn't a disc inserted will go on forever looking for one. I've searched the Internet and it appears to be a common problem. I must point out I have hacked the recorder to make it all regions and thought that could be causing the problem. Well the reason for this post is I may have resolved it and may help others and it didn't cost a penny to fix and requires no technical knowledge.

My DVD recorder was on a shelf with a Virgin V+ cable box standing on top. Having nothing to lose because the recorder wasn't working I took it from under the Virgin box and laid it on the floor with the view of dismantling it or seeing if there was an obvious fault I could fix. Before doing this I pressed the eject button and the tray came out, pressed it again and in it went. I then put a disc in the machine and it read it without hesitation. I then thought perhaps it was the weight of the cable box stopping it work so I put the recorder back on the shelf but this time on top of the V+ cable box. Once again the recorder stopped working. I then come to the conclusion that it was either the heat from the cable box effecting it or some form of magnetic field so I moved the recorder to a shelf 4-5 inches above the cable box and hey presto it worked and has been working ever since. Just have to hope I'm not tempting fate with this post and the next time I turn on the recorder it doesn't stop working again!