DigiFusion FVRT100

Personal Digital Recorder

2a. Laptop Disk Replacement

You've decided to replace the standard 3.5" disk in your unit with a laptop equivalent (albeit of a higher capacity possibly) to enjoy the benefits this will bring:

• much quieter running
• cooler running, both for the disk and the unit
• removal of the noisy fan
• optionally, to increase the capacity of the disk (and hence recording time)

Follow these steps which show how to upgrade an FVRT100 disk - but the steps will be very similar for the entire FVRT100 series (FVRT150/200)

Step 1 - Remove the cover

You will need a Torx 10 screwdriver (star shaped bit) to remove the five screws that hold the lid on. If you don't have one don't even think of using a Philips/Posidrive screwdriver, they will not work. Go to your local car spares shop and get the required tool!

Here we have a view of an open FVRT100 with the Maxtor Quickview disk clearly visible bottom right. Click the image for a larger image with the following instructions labelled.

1. Gently disconnect the ribbon cable from the motherboard - we will be reusing this cable.
2. Remove the power connector from the disk. You may need to rock it back and forth to loosen it, but it is only a push fit.
3. Disconnect the small white fan lead connector from the motherboard. Go carefully, these can snap off if treated roughly. Even though we will be dispensing with this lead you may need it again in the future!
4. Remove the 3 small bolts holding the hard disk cradle to the chassis - these may be Torx or Philips depending on when your unit was made.
5. Congratulations! Your hard disk is now disconnected and removed - your FVRT unit should look like the following photo.

With the hard disk removed, put the FVRT100 unit to one side.

1. Unscrew the hard disk from its cradle (the bolts going through the rubber grommets hold the disk to the cradle).
2. Slide out (remove) the rubber grommets from the cradle.
3. Unscrew the jet engine,er, fan from underneath the cradle.
4. You should now have an empty cradle ready for the laptop disk installation.

Just look at the size comparison of the two disks. The laptop disk about half the size of the PC disk and many times thinner (which has not been captured on this photo, but is only the thickness of about 3 credit cards).

We're onto the exciting bit now. Turn the cradle upside down (so the "hollow" is facing you) and place the laptop disk on top.

1. You will find that the disk fits exactly over the "hollow" without touching any of the electronics on the underside of the disk - look at the photo (click to enlarge) for the exact position.

2. Secure the disk with long cable ties (or elastic bands, as used by some other forum members) as shown.

3. Secure the cradle back into the FVRT unit with the 3 bolts, two of which can be clearly seen at the top of the photo; the third is in the bottom-centre of the crade between the two cradle tie terminators.

Finally:

1. Connect the IDE-to-Laptop converter to the laptop, as shown in the photo (It's the HK-IDE-K item, but your may look quite different).
2. If your IDE converter looks like this:
   
   it is important to note that the power to the laptop disk are to pins 42-44 (the end where the "K" is of the IDE-K and furthest away from where the Disk Cable Selector jumper goes).
3. Although not strictly necessary, you may want to set the disk selector jumper to CS (although the MASTER settings seem to work just fine too).
4. If your setup looks like the photo then your work is done. Switch on and watch the unit spring into life (very, very quietly!).

All Done!

Just look at all that space around the disk! No fan! Cool running! Quiet Running!

This entire upgrade took about 15 minutes - allow up to an hour if you have never taken the lid off your unit before.

Don't even start thinking about doing this without the necessary tools:

• Torx 10 screwdriver
• IDE-to-Laptop converter
• Laptop disk (read the forums to discover which ones you should avoid!)
• Philips/Crosshead screwdriver
• Long Cable ties or elastic bands
• A calm approach!

Caveats

Don't use Samsung laptop disks. Although there have been reports of successfully getting the Samdung MP0804H working successfully, it would appear that recent disks have a newer firmware that is incompatible with FVRT units.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that in the series of photos above, the laptop disk changed from a Samsung MP0804H to a Fujitsu MNV2080AT; this is what I eventually got working, having discovered the problems with the Samsung. Interestingly, the Fujitsu is only a 4,200rpm disk yet can record two programs and simultaneously replay a third one. It runs even cooler than 5,400rpm disks too!

Links

[0] Back to main FVRT100 page

[1] FVRT100 Firmware Upgrade page

[2] FVRT100 Hard Disk Upgrade page

[3] Power Supply Replacement page

[4] Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

Digital Spy Personal Video Recorders Forum page (select DigiFusion)

Mousemat (webcrazy.co.uk) home page (this web site)