Thanks, Cris. I'll check it out. Just to be clear, this is not an intermittent failure. Since the tape broke the other day, it's been doing this. I suspect you're right in that there's something going on with the sensors.

Cris, I was able to solve this problem--the pin connecting one of the "sliders" that pulls the tape around the drum had backed out and disconnected the slider from the arm that moves it. However, now when I apply power to the camcorder with the mode switch in any position, the drum spins and one of the reels spins for about 15 seconds then shuts down. After that, I can't get it to respond until I remove power. This is with something blocking the sensors to simulate a tape. Also, the tape transport will not eject. Does this thing need to be reset somehow to get its brains back? Steve