is my hg10 on the way out?
 

Ive had it for alittle over a year. I saved a bunch of files i shot and had no problem.today i turn it on and I get a red x and it tells me to intialize the hard drive. I did it,if I hadnt saved my work it would be lost. Does this mean the hd is going on it.I dont trust it now.

You could send it in to a Canon authorized repair center for a "diagnostic", I'd contact Canon first and see what that would cost.

When hard disk media camcorders first hit the market, I never considered one. I've seen a few hard drives "go south" with little or sometimes no warning so I never trusted the concept. I now work with Canon HF100's, fewer moving parts to go bad. No tape or disk mechanism and the part most susceptible to problems seems to be the automatic lens cap "blades". It takes very little dirt to cause them to malfunction and I keep that part of the camcorder "sealed" with a multicoated UV filter.

I personally would not invest anything further in a hard drive camcorder. The HF100 is available from B&H at $529 today and if I were looking to replace something and didn't want to go the price of the new line, that's what I'd go for.

god bless canon , i called them could they be more vague on the phone. lol

Down Side of a Hard Drive
 

I suspect that the camera got jarred or shaken somehow which caused a malfunction of the hard drive. It would appear that the hard drive in the HG10 is very suseptable to sudden movements etc. I have heard remarks from a number of HG10 users that their camera suffered from Hard Drive problems.

Kudos to you for ensuring that you left nothing on the hard drive. With my HG10, I clean the raw video off my camera ASAP as I can. My camera sits 99% of the time with a clean Hard Drive. Thankfully, no problems so far. Hope Canon can help you on this one.