Hard button recording doesn't work

It might well have crashed!
I suggest you unplug or turn off the power to the unit and leave it off for a while to see if it corrects itself when you power up again.
Keep a look out for any codes in the display when it powers up. Was there a disc in the drive when you shut it down? That might be contributing to the problem if there is.
If the hard drive has failed it still might be possible to remove it and recover the contents, before fitting a new one. There are the same ones you buy for home PC's afterall.

Ms. - I'm so sorry for your loss.
The least difficult and technical way to retrieve the messages to save would be to buy a digital voice recorder as shown here on Amazon.com
Click Here
or any larger store that sells consumer electronics. There's no need for expensive as spending more money would not get you any better quality recordings of your son's messages. The only feature you require is that the device have a USB connection so you could connect it to your PC and save the recordings to your PC hard drive.
Before you start recording messages be aware that because the messages are digital you can replay them as many times as you need to to get the right quality withou causing them any damage.
To start saving the messages you would place the microphone of the digital recorder over the phones speaker on the left side of the phone at about a distance of 4 to 6" to start. The manual for the digital recorder probably would give you specific advice about this.
The recorder works like a minauture tape recorder. To start recording messages press the RECORD button on the digital recorder, a few seconds later hit the phones PLAY/STOP button to begin the message. When the message is finished hit the phones PLAY/STOP button and then the stop button on the recorder. You've recorded the first message. It's a good idea to rewind the recorded message and play it to make sure the quality is adequate (it should not be much different from the original in quality) If it's OK, move on, recording the messages one by one until you are finished.
To save the messages permanently you would plug the recorder into a USB port on your computer and copy the files to the hard drive. As a precaution, please copy the files over to another medium also, either burning them to a CD or DVD or copying them to a USB thumb drive.
I hope this has been helpful. I hope your healing has begun.
Peace, Mikeywaf

Your DVD drive is having a problem. When this recorder starts, it checks the DVD drive for correctness. If incase your DVD drive is has problem in the ejecting mechanism then this will prevent your HDD from working correctly. Take the player to service center and fix the drive

my l g hard drive recorder/dvd,suddenly would not delete programmes that i wanted to edit ,also the timeshift would not work,but i could still record ok,and i had a few hours space left on the hard drive .so i copied to disc my favourite stored programmes ,about 3 discs,and put them to one side .
i tried then to format the complete hard drive ,but it didnt do anything !so i put it on record for 7hours on sp,then i stopped recording, and tried deleting the programme straight away ,and it did !it also cleaned the hard drive empty ! the timeshift is ok and all else is ok ,so i fixed it witha bit of my logic !hope this helps someone one day !

usually if you click on my computer it should be below your hard drives and if you click on it on the top left of the window it should say take a new picture hope i helped ^^

Yes. Rather than pressing the track SELECT button to assign the effect, press one of the SOURCE buttons to the left of the EFFECTS. This will record the effect HARD to the track as oopposed to SOFT. SOFT being that the effect will NOT be recorded whereas HARD means it IS recorded and will be there anytime you play the track. NOTE: Just make sure that's the effect you want as it is then part of the track.

It is true that the manual says it can record 100 or more hours...but that is at the lowest resolution. You can go to the menu screen and from there go to the recording properties and play around with different recording resolutions that best fit your recording needs. Also, the DVR uses a Hard Drive just as any computer does and within' time it becomes fragmented... that may cause it to record less hours even if you delete recordings. You can format the internal hard drive by going to the main menu screen and press and hold (for about 10 seconds) the OPEN and PLAY buttons on the unit (not the remote). At this time you should see the words FORMAT on the LCD screen and the unit will shut off. Keep in mind that formatting will erase everything on the hard drive so make sure you back up to DVD whatever you want to keep. Hope this helps.

i have the same frickin problem.someone please help

The EDSR1600 will not go into manual recording mode (by pressing the REC button on the front panel) unless all of the automatic modes are disabled and the hard drive bays are firmly pressed in and locked. Press the MENU button, select ALARM and turn everything in the OPeration column to OFF. Return to the MENU, select MOTION and also turn set all the OPerations to OFF. Return again to the main MENU and under RECORD, set ALARM RECORD OPERATION to OFF, PRE-ALARM RECORD OPERATION to OFF, and PERMANENT RECORD OPERATION to OFF. Note: Turn the JOG wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise to select an option. Press the ENTER button to confirm the option and move to the next field. Press the MENU button to enter, or return to the main MENU. Press the MENU button twice to exit the main MENU. To check if the round key locks on the front of the Hard Drive bay trays are locked, turn OFF the EDSR1600. Open (pull down) the left side front cover and gently pull up on the drive bay handles. If locked, the handles should not lift and the bays should not slide out. After your check, press the bays in firmly to ensure good seating of the Hard Drives. The ESDR1600 should now go into manual RECord if the DVR is working properly. The red REC LED should also light each time a recording is being made. If the REC LED flashes, this means the DVR is recording a field or frame of video.

The EDSR1600 will not go into manual recording mode (by pressing the REC button on the front panel) unless all of the automatic modes are disabled and the hard drive bays are firmly pressed in and locked.

Press the MENU button, select ALARM and turn everything in the OPeration column to OFF. Return to the MENU, select MOTION and also turn set all the OPerations to OFF. Return again to the main MENU and under RECORD, set ALARM RECORD OPERATION to OFF, PRE-ALARM RECORD OPERATION to OFF, and PERMANENT RECORD OPERATION to OFF.

Note: Turn the JOG wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise to select an option. Press the ENTER button to confirm the option and move to the next field. Press the MENU button to enter, or return to the main MENU. Press the MENU button twice to exit the main MENU.

To check if the round key locks on the front of the Hard Drive bay trays are locked, turn OFF the EDSR1600. Open (pull down) the left side front cover and gently pull up on the drive bay handles. If locked, the handles should not lift and the bays should not slide out. After your check, press the bays in firmly to ensure good seating of the Hard Drives.

The ESDR1600 should now go into manual RECord if the DVR is working properly. The red REC LED should also light each time a recording is being made. If the REC LED flashes, this means the DVR is recording a field or frame of video.