Dead Humax DRT-800 burner....again and again and again

[steeleno12]

I was posting in mid-January about replacing a burner in Humax DRT-800. I was trying to find out what burner I could use to replace the one that had died.

From the suggestions that I got from people on this Forum I decided to go with a Pioneer DVR-111D. Well, I am very unhappy to say that I am back!

I have to say that my experience with the Humax DRT-800 has shown me that these units are absolute cr*p...or at least the ones that they ship to me.

I have two of these Humax units and both have been returned to Humax for burner replacement. Next, the burner on one of the replacement unit died.

After that one died I replaced it myself with the Pioneer DVR-111D. Now the Pioneer burner has died!!! There is something really wrong with the quality of these units when I have had 5 burners in two units go bad. Something tells me that there is a problem with heat but then again I know absolutely nothing about this kind of stuff. All I know is there is something really wrong that keeps killing the burners.

I am hoping that Newegg.com where I purchased the Pioneer burner as a replacement will allow me to return the unit since I only purchased it late January of this year. So, beside ranting about how unhappy I am, I want to know what burner is being used as a replacement these days. The Pioneer DVR-111D is no longer available through them and see that they have Pioneer DVR-112 that they may offer as a replacement. Has anyone put one of these in?

Okay, I will stop my crazed rant for now, thanks for listening!

[TydalForce]

I'm sorry to hear about your problems. Looks like the 112 should work fine... scroll down to the bottom of this thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=336641

[Chester_Lampwick]

Are you sure the DVD drives are dead? Have you tried them in a PC to burn discs? MAybe it's another error leading you to blame the drives. Do they still play discs too? Also, rather than heat, I'd suspect contamination. Do you smoke or have many pets?

[steeleno12]

Thanks TydalForce for the affirmation on the Pioneer 112D.

Chester, you are absolutely correct, I needed to make sure the drives were actually dead. It was late at night, I was tired and all I did was try to burn 3-4 times with no luck. When I had no success I figured "here we go again!"

I never thought to check if the drive played discs, I know this is a real "duh" but it never entered my mind because I never use these particular Humax units for viewing DVD's, just recording and burning to disc. (I view the DVD's on other DVD players in our motorhome) I will make sure to add that to my troubleshooting steps.

As far as contamination, good suggestion however there are no smokers in the house and although we do have 1 cat, she is not long haired, she never comes into the room where the unit is housed and when we last opened the Humax there was little or no fur or dust accumulation at all.

So, here is the latest and I am happy to say that I have a smile on my face. After determining that all the recordings I was trying to burn were error free, I reset the Humax and tried to burn another disc. Worked like a champ! Successfully burned 12 hours worth of recordings onto discs.

Was it the reset that corrected the problem? Did I actually run into a 3 bad DVD-R TDK discs? I cannot say at all, but for now, I can burn!!

Thanks to both of you for your input.