I had this VCR/DVD recorder combo for a couple of years and have not used the VCR for a while. It developed a problem of powering down or jamming tapes (or both) when I load a tape regardless of tape location or if the recording tab is present of missing. I took the cover off and thoroughly cleaned it top to bottom. This corrected the tape jamming problem, but when the tape is inserted it would load up and it would power down as explained. The tape path looks like it is loaded correctly in the machine.