My Sony 710 will only display 'hdd error' and does not allow me to do anything - not even play DVDs. I have tried taking the power lead out and leaving it for an hour or so, but no change. Can I fix this by replacing the hard drive - it is about 15-16 months old so out of warranty - if I can is there anything 'special' I need to know about replacing the hdd? Many thanks in anticipation.

This is exactly what happened to my dads one after about 13-14 months. Because i wasn't sure if it needed reformatting i took it to a sony repair centre and they changed it for £140. I wrote an "i'm dissappointed" letter to sony and spoke to someone there and, got the money back so was chuffed to bits. Its not their policy but they coughed up anyway

As an update, I have fitted a replacement 160GB hard drive, I had to connect a cable to Line 2 video out to see anything on the TV, but this still gave hdd error. I googled for this and a solution was found - when the welcome message is displayed hold down the REC, REC PAUSE, REC STOP buttons on the unit for about 10 seconds this then displays a menu. Select 9 for hard drive operations - within this I initialized the drive, formatted it - but it still didn't work!! I went into the menu again and there was a factory settings option - this ran some read/write tests and then OS PREP - and my DVD recorder is working again.

great information-i don't know anyone else who has tried this.
How much was the drive by the way and was it a replica of the original?

The drive was totally screwed, I tried to boot with it in my PC, and the PC wouldn't POST. So I have lost the data on it (as I expected).

The replacement drive was a seagate 160GB 7200 rpm which is far quieter - in fact noiseless, even when doing an A-B erase.

It is a slightly lower profile drive so the shielding around the connecting cable doesn't fit as seamlessly - but it is inside the unit.

It was a fiddle to do, but I think worth £35 for the new hdd, and an hour or so trying to set up to get my recorder back rather than pay Sony £150 (I was quoted) + carriage.

I'm impressed and intrigued...

First, do you mean that if the HDD had been functioning, you would have been able to hook it up to a PC and access the files? I presume that they're stored as MPEG2 with some sort of FAT32 allocation or similar?

Secondly, does this mean that the replacement HDD could be of a greater size? My 710 has been pretty much flawless since I bought it, but a larger HDD might come in handy if a replacement were ever required (it's often almost full)!

Like you I was hoping for MPEG2 format, but I don't know if this is the case as I wasn't able to "see" the drive.

I guess that a bigger hdd is possible, but I didn't want to run the risk of it not being seen, so I put the same size in.

If it fails again (please don't!) then I would try a bigger drive.

I don't have a lot on the drive, I tend to archive to DVD, but it certainly seems a lot faster when editing before archive.

RTD,

Thanks for this excellent information. Hopefully I will never need to use it, but I will print and file it away just in case. By the way did you have to get an IDE or SCSI hard drive?

PATA hard drive

Cheers

have tried pressing REC stop, REC pause and REC buttons when welcome message was displayed but no menu was shown. Instead, number five was displayed after the welcome message. Does it work on Sony 910 or only for 710.
Regards.
Manafeeh

You need to connect a video cable to Line 2 out to see the menu on your TV screen. (see my post #3)

I don't know if it works for the 910, but I presume it will as the boxes are identical except for hdd size and HDMI output.

Thanks RTD for the info I was waiting. I tried and it worked. I want to replace the HDD with 500GB but not now as the DVD writer is faulty (not writing -R & +R). Sony wants to charge me $250 for it. Any idea if I can do anything other than replacing it buy sony ?

Sorry, when I took my 710 apart I didn't check the connections to the DVD. The chances are though that it will be a 'normal' IDE connection, based upon the hard drive connection, you should be able to get a tray-loading DVD/RW for around £20, for that price I would give it a go!

Most Sony units do not allow you to install a larger HDD than what it was shipped with. When Im back Home thursday i will have a look at the SM to see what type of drive the unit had.
I beleive the newer model which are basically rebadged Pioneer units can have a larger drive installed.