kidjk

Yeah, I have what's called the "platinum protection plan" -- it's good for six years total, including the one-year Sony warranty. I think it cost about fifty bucks extra, but I have lost the original bill of sale. (Thankfully A&B keeps records and said it wouldn't be a problem.) I just unhacked it and everything's fine. The unit's not trashed, it still plays fine, it just skips big chunks or doesn't even start when I'm recording. I bought it mostly to tape interviews, but don't anticipate doing any for awhile, so will hold off until moving back to Edmonton where I bought the unit. The new ones sound pretty sweet, so that would be a serious added bonus! Jeremy

Thanks very much for the reply... I was unduly worried about the warranty thing, clearly -- just seemed like a good excuse for them to void it. The extended warranty is a 5-year dealer's through A&B Sound in Canada. They've already told me it should be covered, I just haven't brought it in yet because I'm about to move. I assume the steps to reverse the hack are simply to switch the values back to what they were? I'm pretty sure the instructions typically give both the start and end value, so that shouldn't be a problem. thanks again, Jeremy

Hi all, I hacked my minidisc player a few months ago to get access to the playback speed function on the N707. In an unrelated development (I'm told it's a hardware problem with the optical lens), I started having the expensive-to-fix "BLANKDISC" problem I've seen others post about with respect to recording. My question is, has anybody who has hacked their player ever had any problems enacting their warranty? Mine is on an extended warranty through the retailer, and the terms don't say anything about this kind of altering of the operating software, but I'm still a little concerned. Barring that, is there a way to reset the hack so that the N707 is back to normal before I take it in to be fixed? thanks, Jeremy

From scanning other Internet posts, it seems that this is one of those "known issues" that basically adds up to "you're screwed, open your wallet." It seems many people have had this problem with Sony recorders, and it appears to be a manufacturers' defect that crops up with some players after a bit of wear (not that Sony will be admitting that anytime soon). Mine is an N707 which I've had for about 15 months. The first time it happened it was just music that I'd uploaded via NetMD. This time it was a crucial interview I'd recorded with some essential quotes for a story I was working on. I'm still stressing and hoping I can somehow recover the data, but I'm not hopeful. Thanks Sony. Unfortunately, I probably voided my extended warranty by hacking my player so I could control playback speed. None of the other posts I've seen on the subject were from hackers, so that's not the problem. It would make more sense that it happened from dropping it, but I haven't done that in months, and the problem just started a few days ago. If anyone has actually had theirs repaired and can tell us what the problem is, I'm sure we'd appreciate knowing. the kid