[mitchsc]

Does anyone happen to know what type of hard drive (IDE or SATA) is inside the Motorola DCH3416 DVR (cable box)?

I am pretty sure it's 160GB, but cannot find any info on whether it's an IDE or SATA drive.

I am going blind reading Google postings on this device...

Thanks
MSC

[mitchsc]

If anyone is interested, it's a 3.5" SATA 7200 RPM

[thurberm]

If anyone is interested, it's a 3.5" SATA 7200 RPM

Mitch,

I'm wanting to do the same thing you're thinking of... I know it can be done with a PS3--just burn the OS to a CD, swap the drive for any size laptop SATA drive you want, reburn the PS3 OS to the new drive, and voila--you're in business.

Did you try replacing your DVR drive? If so, did it work, and do you have any pointers?

Mike

[mitchsc]

My cable company just released new DVRs from Motorola, model DCX3400, that have 320GB HDDs, so I'm happy now. I can record 42 hours of HD TV on the new system (vs. 20 hours on the old).

Good Luck. Let me know how it goes.

[jawjaboy]

Just an FYI. It is almost impossible to replace the hard drive on a DVR that was provided by your cable company. This is because the Digital Rights Management (DRM) laws instituted by the entertainment industry prohibit the movement of copyrighted content from one system to another. As a result, the DVR manufacturers and MSOs prevent this from occurring by "marrying" the hard drive to the DVR. The drive's unique worldwide number is written to the EPROM of the system so the user can never swap drives...

[mitchsc]

Interesting to know.

I have heard that some cable boxes/companies allow one to plug in an additional external drive for increased recording capacity. Unfortunately, mine does not.