I have a Toshiba DVD-R (D-R5S) which has been working flawlessly for about a year. I have a cable signal, which ports to the DVD-R via 3-wire (R/W/Y), and the DVR-R ports to a Toshiba color set also w/ a 3-wire.

Recently, we had a sudden power outage in the middle of the day which lasted 3-4 minutes. When the power resumed, there may have been a surge. All I can tell you is that since then:

A) I get no signal; from the DVD-R (only show appears on the TV set, w/ "CABLE 3" in the lower right-hand corner, which signifies that the TV is set to channel 3 (which it should be) and it's getting/expecting a cable signal);

B) It won't play a DVD, and

C) I can't even get the menu screen to appear.

When I called Toshiba, they suggested doing a "reset" using the remote: Zoom 7 0 1 Zoom

Unfortunately, this had no effect.

My question is:

Does it make sense that a power surge is what caused this problem? Has anyone else ever experienced something like this?

Any help is appreciated.

It's never happened to me, but I've heard of it happening to others. It sounds like the unit won't power up at all, and is only passing the signal through to the TV.

Maybe the power supply within the unit got fried. If it's a year old, maybe it's under warranty from Toshiba. If not, maybe you bought a warranty from the retailer when you purchased it?

It does power up, but remains in an "idle mode". I wouldn't at all say it's "passing the signal to the TV" because, as I described, the TV only gets "snow". If I bypass the DVD-R unit w/ a coax cable, the TV behaves just fine (displays a good picture, etc.).

The menu will not display and no DVD can be played (at least no picture displays on the TV). I'm not sure what got fried but I do believe it' was caused by a power surge related to the outage I described.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I see now that I misread your original post and that the signal is not at all passing through. Now I'm even less optimistic about its chances for resurrection!

No warranty from either the vendor or the manufacturer?

OK, so it kind of powers up... and I'm guessing it does eject the tray. So does it TRY to play a DVD? You should be able to hear soft sounds as it reads the disc, and maybe feel vibration as it spins.

If it does, try using a different output on the DVD (unless you're using a really old TV and RF is the only option).

If it doesn't seem to try playing... it's most likely toast.