Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[gulf776]

I have a Sony RDR-HX900 Digital Video Recorder that needs the hard drive replaced.  The current drive is a Seagate Diamond Max Plus Nine, 160GB, ATA/133, HDD.

The model number 6Y160P02428BM.   I know nothing about requirements for the replacement. Any suggestions for me? 

[AlanM]

You'd probably need to ask Sony, but hopefully it wouldn't be any harder than just getting another ATA/100 or ATA/133 drive. 

But there might be a size limitation so I don't know if a drive larger than 160 GB will work, so that would mean you'd need to seek an older drive, since none of the most modern generations of ATA drives will be as small as that.  

[fzabkar]

I know that Panasonic sometimes (always?) do evil things to prevent you from installing any drive into their DVDRs, but I don't know about Sony.

IMHO, the best place to ask for help is the following forum:

http://forum.videohelp.com/forums/29-DVD-Recorders

BTW, my supermarket branded DVDR will accept any brand and any capacity of hard drive. The HD is automatically detected and formatted on power-up.

[gulf776]

Thanks so much for the quick reply. Sony hasn’t been much help on this because they seem to want me to send it to them for repair. I have found on other forums before I posted here that several people have been successful in replacing the hard drive themselves. I bought the Service Manual for this unit and with some combinations of buttons on the unit, you can get to the “Service Mode” which will give you a list of options that you can do with the hard drive. Among the options are Performance Check, Format and Write ID.

According to those in the other forums that were successful, they installed the new hard drive, then from the “Service Menu” they formatted it first and used the “Write ID” option second and that did it. Some say that you can install a bigger hard drive but, it will only recognize 160GB.

I am looking at some 6Y160P0 hard drives right now but I am unsure of a couple of things. Maybe someone could help. My current hard drive is a Maxtor not a Seagate as I originally listed, but I came here because Maxtor is now Seagate. It is identified as 6Y160P2428BM. Does the (2428BM) at the end mean anything when buying a new one?

The current hard drive Code: is YAR41BW0 K,M,B,D. The one I am looking to buy ends with K,G,B,D. Does the different letters in the code have any significance?

Any other suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks again for any help.

[AlanM]

Again, I don't know what kind of constraints Sony had placed on that drive and that device, but I can tell you that those other model number questions you have make close to zero difference on the Seagate side.

[gulf776 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the info on the extra numbers and the letter difference not being critical on the Seagate end.   That is very helpful because it is so hard to find exact matches or sometimes that info isn't even available at the web site where you are buying your replacement hard drive.  Hopefully it will be a success.

I am ready to try!!

[fzabkar]

Here is a free PDF copy of the RDR-HX900 Service Manual:

http://www.eserviceinfo.com/download.php?fileid=44376

Like Sony, Panasonic also limit the capacity of the replacement drive to the original spec. I suspect this is done to maintain an artificial price differential between their high and low capacity models.

Message Edited by fzabkar on 06-02-2010 08:43 AM

Sorry, the PDF only contains the first two chapters of the manual. :-(

Message Edited by fzabkar on 06-02-2010 08:51 AM

[gulf776]

Thanks for the thought!!  I tried a free download of the manual somewhere and my virus alerts went crazy.. Not where you were trying to send me to.

What I did get was only the first 70 pages out of 146 pages.  The service secrets are in the back part and was well worth it.

You can really do this without buying the manual....the link that really explains step by step is the following link.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-702051.html

Go down to dove108

Really great stuff...and thanks again

[AlanM]

gulf776,

Thanks!

I've added this to the Common Issues thread at the top of this board so as to help other users.