I have a beautiful Panasonic DVD-R with a hard drive that I've had since 2006. I've never had a problem until recently when it kept saying I still had a DVD in the unit when I didn't. I can still open the tray but it won't let me play a DVD or burn one from the hard drive.
The hard drive itself is fine. I talked to the boobs at Panasonic and they were useless although I did find out they have a 2nd warehouse in IL which you send a $140 check and they will do whatever work is needed even if it's more whereas the main one in TX they can charge you whatever they want and aren't as reliable.
To me the issue sounds like a sensor or laser problem. That could be correctable. However, I trust nobody with this unit and I'm sure I'd lose what is on the hard drive.
My question is this-could I just buy a stand alone DVD recorder/burner and go out from my DVD-R and take what is on the hard drive to the DVD recorder/burner? If so, would this work and how much is a stand alone burner? I'm thinking between $150-$200.
If I could do this I'd prefer that and I could save my hard drive and not send my unit away. Thanks for any help and suggestions!

I would think there should be a way to get the data from the hd into a computer & burn, but i have no idea what the interfaces are.

Standalones probably could still be found for $150-$200, but having quite a bit of experience with both, i only use a standalone when I have to (TV or VHS copes) as a quality pc burner at 4x will almost always produce a much higher quality burn with a much lower error rate & usually can be bought for under $30.

For a standalone historically Sony & Pioneer have been the best.