Like to ask the following about the Panasonic DMR-HS2 hard drive :-

1. Am i correct in saying that the Panasonic DMR-HS2 has a 40GB hard drive?

2. Is the hard drive the same as the one fitted in a computer? Is it IDE and not SATA etc?

3. I asked a long time ago if it is possible to fit a larger size hard drive. The reply was no because the software will not recognise a bigger drive. Is this still applicable or has someone found a way of upgrading the software?

4. If the answer to 2 is yes the hard drive is similar to a computer and is IDE variant. Can any 40GB hard drive be used or should one take note of the speed, buffer etc

5. Which 40GB drive do you recommend?

Had this machine since new and it has been faultless. Only problem is lack of hard drive space sometimes. Normally record 8 hours of program daily so the hard drive is used regularly.

With modern technology the hard drive size is forever increasing and now it is hard to find a small size hard drive. At present the smallest i can find is 80GB. I was thinking it might be worthwhile to buy a 40GB or 80GB and put it to one side just in case. I do not want to bin this machine because, according to my Father who has the latest version, it has features that the newer Panny machines don't have.

Has anyone bought a 40GB hard drive just in case?

It is a regular 40gb desktop 3.5in hard disc, usually they were Maxtor units but I am not sure if they were exclusively so. As far as I know you can still not get it to recognise greater than 40gb, it is probably best to fit one as near the spec. of the original as possible.
Some time ago I decided to buy a spare and got one from Ebay for about £20. It was a Maxtor Fireball 3 drive but as yet I have not needed to use it. I figured that it was the most likely thing to go wrong and that even if the DVD drive went I would still be able to use it as a hard drive recorder. They are becoming obsolete as you say but you can still find them on Ebay.
I have had my DMR-HS2 for three and a half years now and it has proved to be very reliable so far. It was an expensive machine in it's day but the build quality seems to be high.

I too have a spare hard disc 'just in case'. I am fairly sure its the exact model used by Panny (I bought it at the time my friend's dmr-hs2 failed).

I seem to remember something about the disc being a special AV revision of a maxtor disc with reduced error checking or something. I'll take a look tomorrow and post some more details.

My hard disc failed so I just put a spare 60gig I had lying around in it, the panasonic dmr-hs2 thinks it's a 40gig but it works been using it like this for about a year with no problems.