How can I upgrade the faulty 160Gb hard disk in my Sony RDR-HXD760 DVD/HDD Recorder for a newer, larger 250Gb or 500Gb drive?
Sony did make the same DVD/HDD recorder that I have in a 250Gb and 500Gb model so is it just a case of swapping the drive for a new one?
It's out of warranty and they want far more than the cost of a new DVD recorder to repair it, so I don't mind taking a chance on opening it up myself.
I'm quite able to build my own PC so i should be able to take this on.
Google searches give up nothing so i'll be interested if anyone's done it before.
Cheers

George Smith, April 2008

You may also need a firmware upgrade (if one exists) for this model. Remember the software tells the system what size the HD is. If it doesn't know it has a bigger drive it may not record over the whole drive.

Ed, May 2009

you need to be careful on that because it is not a simple case of removing the drive and putting another in its place. the hard drive in your dvd recorder has got software and directories stored on it so an idea would probably be to first clone the files on the old drive onto the new one or have a way of copying them on to the new drive so that you have exactly the same set up as on the new drive as on the old drive. this should work though i have not yet tried it myself. make sure the file system on your new drive is the same as the one on the old (usually fat/fat 32). there however is a chance that it might not work if the hardware on your recorder can only handle the hard drive size equal to or lower than the size of your old hard drive thus making it impossible to upgrade your dvd recorder. this might not be the case however, so good luck.

joseph, October 2008

Take the old one out and try Maplins or PC World for a match. The key elements are: Interface and spin speed (7200 at a guess).

t, April 2008