DVD Recorder hard drive upgrades

[pedmundson]

Hi Folks,
I'm about to finally go buy a DVD recorder deck and I'm noticing some things about prices - namely, as soon as a manufacturer dumps a HDD into one of these boxes, the price skyrockets. For example, an LG LRA850 sells for around Cdn$130. The LG LRH880 seems to be the same unit but with an 80GB HDD in it for a selling price of Cdn$300....kinda greedy (maybe I'm naive) on the part of LG since an 80GB drive costs less than Cdn$60 retail.

In any case, I was wondering if one could just go buy a base unit (that has a bigger brother, hdd equipped unit) and simply install a hdd of the size of your choice in it - in other words, do the guts of some (or all) base units have what it takes to use a HDD, but just don't have the HDD? Follow me?

If so, I'm thinking I'll buy the base LG LRA850 (or other) model and buy a 250GB HDD for Cdn$85 and pop it in.
...or am I out to lunch and just wishful thinking here???
Patrick.

[CrazyCanuck]

Sorry Patrick, don't want to burst your bubble, not out to lunch, because I had the same thought in the past, but it is wishful thinking. Just a bit of info for you here.

1- Very few recorders are IEDE based, they are usually made so that you cannot replace the DVD, discouraging you from repairing it yourself, they want you to buy a new unit.

2-Single drive (DVD) recorders are made to recognize a DVD drive on boot up, if it's a HDD in its place, it won't recognize it.

3- Even if you buy a HDD/DVD unit, you might not be able to even upgrade the HDD to a bigger one as you need info on how to format the drive for the unit to recognize the new HDD and then the challenge is to recognize the full capacity of a larger HDD.

Having said all that, they were some that were EIDE based in the past (Liteon-based single and HDD recorders) that were EIDE based and the drive can be replaced with a bit of modding. Same with the HDD in those Liteon models, if properly formatted, you can upgrade the HDD.

I own 4 ILO HD04, (04 = 2004), these are Liteon-based, they came with very poor drives in them, and limited to 80GB. I have since replaced all the drives in them and also the HDDs (2 with 250 GB, 1 with an old 200GB out of my PC and one at 160GB).

Here' s a good site on successes in replacing drives and HDDs in Liteon-based units.

http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=7

Not so familiar with other models but they are some threads on this forum on upgrading the HDD in the Pioneer, and form what I've read, it's not a simple task.

Sorry man!

CC

[pedmundson]

Thanks CC....that's OK, it's what I figured would be the case anyway...at the very least you've saved me a bit of research...I didn't want to find myself re-inventing the wheel....
Patrick.

[handyguy]

You should get one with a HDTV tuner. They are out now, under $300 US.

[BCdave]

pedmundson, here's a detailed post on upgrading the LG recorder from 80GB to 250GB or even larger. https://forum.videohelp.com/topic328524.html?highlight=upgrade%20hard%20drive

I know it's not what you originally asked about, but similar to CrazyCanuck's post about ILO recorders, it shows that the HDD upgrade is also possible with the LG hard drive models.

Good point, handyguy, but as far as I know, recorders with the new HDTV tuners aren't available in Canada as yet.