Steve, thank you very much. Because of the problem I stopped using my GR-DZ7U for 6 months....and resolved to only take still pictures with my standard camera, until I decided to look again on the internet. Removing the battery while ejecting the tape seems to have fixed the problem. The message I had was "E03 unit in safeguard mode, eject and reinsert the tape", and it would show up within a second or two every single time I was trying to record or replay.