Sharp 702 Won't Read/Record Memorex MD80s

[jpramas]

After a screwup 2 months ago where I recorded an important event on my Sony MZ-R37, had to do a quick switch between my 1st and 2nd minidiscs (Memorex MD 80s), kept sliding the eject switch and hitting stop until it ejected the 1st disc faster than normal. Put the 2nd disc and kept recording.

Got home and found out that the 1st disc read as "blank." Did research on minidisc.org and found out that I had killed the TOC on the disc, and needed a new recorder that could TOC clone; so I could recover the recording. The 2nd disc played back just fine.

Did more research and went on Ebay trying to win one of the decks that could handle TOC cloning. Finally got a Sharp MD-MS702 for a good price. Got it in the mail today. Tried to play back the working Memorex MD 80 disc. No dice. It couldn't find a TOC to read. Tried the broken disc. Same thing. But tried the (d'oh) Michael Jackson prerecorded discs including with the 702, and they played just fine.

Then I tried to record onto a fresh Memorex MD80 as a test. The machine started acting weird. Giving me "defect" messages. Starting new tracks unasked. When I stopped it to play back, I got a UTOC error. Then the test disc went back to saying it was blank. The test disc wouldn't play in my Sony R37 either. But the working disc I had recorded two months ago still played back fine in the R37 as it had before; so it definitely remains o.k.

I'm beginning to think that the recording function on the 702 is defective. As far as I know it should be able to handle 80 minute discs.

I'm thinking of buying some 74 minute discs to see if it handles them any better. But I won't be able to TOC clone the TOCless disc if the 702 won't read it properly.

So do people think my problem is a defective 702, and that I should return it for a refund? Or do they think that the 702 has a problem with Memorex MD80s and that I should try other discs, and sell the 702 to someone else since it won't be able to fix my particular TOC problem?

Help please! Thanks. . .

Edited August 5, 2005 by jpramas

[Syrius]

The time capacity of the discs shouldn't matter. It sounds to me like your discs are just bad. Try another disc, and see what happens. If not even a brand new disc works fine, then the recording block is going kaput.

[jpramas]

OK. Will do. I'll get a new disc and see how it works. Thanks much.

[jpramas]

Bought some TDK MD-SG 74 minidiscs, tried recording, and at first they worked fine in the Sharp 702--then when I turned the recorder over to check the serial number I got the UTOC error again. Put the disc back in a couple of times, and then the recorder started working again.

Something's obviously wrong with the Sharp. And even if the weird errors weren't happening, I'd still need to return it because it's unacceptable that it won't play the Memorex discs that work perfectly well on my Sony recorder. I've used several Memorex discs recently from the same batch and they have all worked perfectly well.

Most frustrating. If I can't find a rig to do the TOC clone on soon, maybe I'll just end up having to send the TOCless disc to the UK to EDL for what will likely be very expensive data recovery. Unless someone knows a cheaper way to do it.

Even more frustrating is that the disc contained my recording of a memorial service for a close friend of my wife's. The deceased was a well known scientist, and a number of his colleagues eulogized about him. I'm not looking forward to telling his family that we may have totally lost the recording of the first half of the event.

Sigh.