LG LRM-519 HD restore image?

[Stonent]

I picked up an LG LRM-519 DVD Recorder / DVR / Media center device for $13 recently from Goodwill. The hard drive is missing.
When you put a drive in it will power up and say that a factory reset is required and of course will fail and say contact LG Service for repair.

It's an interesting device, released in 2005. It has a Celeron 733 processor, Intel I830m north bridge (mainly used for Mobile Pentium 3 processors), but is paired with an ICH4 south bridge (which was commonly paired with Northwood Pentium 4 processors). It has 128MB of PC-133 RAM and 256MB of GDDR video memory.

It originally comes with a 160GB IDE drive and has an IDE DVD recorder that's connected with a flat flex cable like some of the old laptops used to use.
It has an integrated 10/100 Realtek Ethernet, 56K modem, Svideo in/out, ASTC tuner and component out and composite in/out.

Also interesting is the motherboard appears to have a regular ATX power connector where it gets power from the main power supply.

It originally sold for $599 and was being touted as Microsoft's new flagship into the home theater / DVR market. It could be a DVD player, DVD recorder, Media Server, etc and ran a version of Windows (apparently Windows CE)

On a whim, I ghosted over a Windows XP drive to the replacement drive I put in, but it still would not boot and said a factory reset was required. Some more research turned up that it requires a special digitally signed OS kernel in order to boot. I found the service manual for it but it does not cover anything about restoring the hard drive, it only treats it as a replaceable unit. So I assume if you send it in for a corrupt OS, they replace the drive and charge you for it.

Does anyone out there have a drive image for this device? I contacted LG and told them that it "had a failed drive" and I had installed a new drive but needed to do an OS restore on it and the only thing they would say is that I could send it in for out of warranty service and would not offer any other help than that.

Almost all the google resources on this thing are press releases when it came out, people asking about region hacks, or how to repair blown capacitors. It has a soldered in SST 49LF004B 512KB flash chip which I assume is the bios.

Thanks for any help you guys may have.

I seem to be collecting DVR/DVD devices. I've got a Phillips that I got for $20 from goodwill a few years back that's been good. I picked up a Panasonic DMR-ES series DVR with blown caps that I fixed. That one's not as useful because it does not have a digital tuner and our cable system no longer has an analog feed.

[hech54]

I have an older Medion(LG Clone) DVD recorder(w/HDD) and have found some great stuff here:
http://ifndef.altervista.org/index_eng.html
MAYBE there is something you can use here?

[Stonent]

Thanks for the info. I looked through it but it seem the two recorders don't have much in common internally.

[hech54]

I had a feeling this would be the case.

[joecass]

I picked up an LG LRM-519 DVD Recorder / DVR / Media center device for $13 recently from Goodwill. The hard drive is missing.
When you put a drive in it will power up and say that a factory reset is required and of course will fail and say contact LG Service for repair.

It's an interesting device, released in 2005. It has a Celeron 733 processor, Intel I830m north bridge (mainly used for Mobile Pentium 3 processors), but is paired with an ICH4 south bridge (which was commonly paired with Northwood Pentium 4 processors). It has 128MB of PC-133 RAM and 256MB of GDDR video memory.

It originally comes with a 160GB IDE drive and has an IDE DVD recorder that's connected with a flat flex cable like some of the old laptops used to use.
It has an integrated 10/100 Realtek Ethernet, 56K modem, Svideo in/out, ASTC tuner and component out and composite in/out.

Also interesting is the motherboard appears to have a regular ATX power connector where it gets power from the main power supply.

It originally sold for $599 and was being touted as Microsoft's new flagship into the home theater / DVR market. It could be a DVD player, DVD recorder, Media Server, etc and ran a version of Windows (apparently Windows CE)

On a whim, I ghosted over a Windows XP drive to the replacement drive I put in, but it still would not boot and said a factory reset was required. Some more research turned up that it requires a special digitally signed OS kernel in order to boot. I found the service manual for it but it does not cover anything about restoring the hard drive, it only treats it as a replaceable unit. So I assume if you send it in for a corrupt OS, they replace the drive and charge you for it.

Does anyone out there have a drive image for this device? I contacted LG and told them that it "had a failed drive" and I had installed a new drive but needed to do an OS restore on it and the only thing they would say is that I could send it in for out of warranty service and would not offer any other help than that.

Almost all the google resources on this thing are press releases when it came out, people asking about region hacks, or how to repair blown capacitors. It has a soldered in SST 49LF004B 512KB flash chip which I assume is the bios.

Thanks for any help you guys may have.

I seem to be collecting DVR/DVD devices. I've got a Phillips that I got for $20 from goodwill a few years back that's been good. I picked up a Panasonic DMR-ES series DVR with blown caps that I fixed. That one's not as useful because it does not have a digital tuner and our cable system no longer has an analog feed.

Two things come to mind.... this recorder was designed to work with a Microsoft Program Guide, a paid service which I'm not sure still exists. Essentially a 2006 version of Windows Media Center found on Windows XP computers. Did you try connecting it to the Internet ? There are phone line and Ethernet connections on the back of the machine. Second.... sorry to say.... LG recorders are and/or were infamous for failed DVD recorder drives. I've had several LG models over the years, including VHS/DVD and HDD/DVD recorders in which the DVD drives failed. This LRM can only accept analog cable through the RF input, so recording would be limited to Composite/S-Video inputs, output from a digital cable or satellite box. Doubtful if anyone other than LG itself has a "drive image".... perhaps if you found another LRM-519 with a failed DVD drive but with a working HDD, swapping out the drive may solve the problem. It seems this machine only works with the Microsoft Program Guide. Without the Guide, it's pretty useless.
I have one older computer with Vista, at one time I used a PCI digital tuner card for experimentation with recording OTA TV shows. It did work, and there was a Windows Media Center Program Guide available. The LRM-519 is strictly analog, even if you did have a working hard drive, what would you use it for ?

[Stonent]

Yes I did leave it plugged into ethernet in hopes it would somehow try to get on the internet and repair itself but it didn't work. The link light goes on and off a few times when powering on but the activity light never seems to do anything unfortunately.
Well even if it doesn't do digital tuning, I found the media server abilities attractive along with being able to easily burn things to dvd without a separate PC being required.

I guess in the end, it ends up being a fun project.

I found an x86 demo image of Windows CE 5.0 and loaded it on the drive. It powers up and the screen stays blank so maybe it booted but didn't have any display drivers. Or it could have just done nothing since this device will do the same thing if the hard drive is disconnected.