SUCCES! The solution in post #3 works for x80 models too! Here's how:
I recently bought an RDR-HX780 and outof curiosity wanted to try and upgrade it's 160 Gb to a huge 1 Tb Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ. The exact recorder model is MRX-1735/EC. I did not have to do model name setting procedure as described in #2. It simply isn't necessary. In short: I formatted the new disk in the recorder and hex-edited the disk in my pc afterwards.
What I did was:
1 I ceated a bootable floppy and added the contents of the zipfile (#102) in this thread:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/dvd-...ful-upgrade-hdd-rdr-hxd970-7.html#post6183486
2 renamed remote.txt to remote1.txt and remote2.txt to remote.txt
3 booted an old laptop (that has onboard IRDA) and pressed
R to load the service remote control keys in winsamp.
4 unplugged the recorder and connected my new 1Tb harddisk.
5 reconnected the recorder to mains power and executed the remote control keys
ESC, P.RUN (buttons 1 and 2 in winsamp) whereby the new disk was formatted to 160Gb, the maximum disk size for my recorder model. This took about 15 mins after which the unit displayed '
B Complete'.
6 Unplugged the unit, disconnected the disk.
7 created another bootable floppy and added
DISKEDIT.EXE to it. I took this programm from the NORTON Utilities 2001 Suite. It's somewhere on the installation CD. Other Hex-disk editors will work too. Diskedit isn't very intuitive anyway.
8 Connected the disk to my computer and booted from floppy. Ran diskedit. Followed the instructions as outlined in post #3. I didn't need to calculate anything since the number of sectors on my disk was exacly the same.
9 Powered down, removed the disk, reconnected the disk in the recorder and plugged it in.
10 turned on the recorder to find it now made use of the full 1Tb. It says it can record 457 hours at quality mn21 which is of course a ridiculous amount of time. Using the remote control sequence ESC, CHAP, DiG/ANA I verified that indeed the full 1000 Gb was being used. It was.
XXCross: Thanks a bunch! I'm curious as to how you knew what data needed to be updated on the disk. I never once looked at partition tables etc so I personally wouldn't know where to start looking. And the fact that you came up with the creative solution of modding the disk instead of hacking into the recorder: thumbs up. I think that was rather brilliant.