My brand new DVDRHD04 has a 1 year warranty, and I don't want to toss that out by chopping up the cover, so I decided to create my own modified cover which allows for the use of a removable hard drive rack.

Take a good long look at the cover of your DVDRHD04. It is not all that complicated. Go ahead and create yourself a template of this cover using the cardboard box from a 24 pack of your favorite beverage. This cover requires only 5 bends, a couple long cuts with your tin snips, two tiny triangular cutouts to allow for the side bends, 6 drill holes, and one large hole to accommodate your StarTech hard drive rack. Depending on the size of your back flaps, you may need to cut out sections for the power cord and tuner port.

OK... I do not claim to be a Mod expert, but this mod is fully functional.

You can pick up a piece of 24" x 12" sheet metal for under $4 at your local Home Depot, and while you are there, you can pick up the Black & Decker "dremel clone" for $29 (if you don't already own a Dremel tool). Don't forget that you will also need a tin snips, awl, file and drill.

After creating and tweaking your sheet metal cover, it is time to make a minor adjustment to the internal framing of your DVDRHD04.

Carefully draw out your cut lines and dremel out the small section of the framing so that your drive rack will fit inside the unit. I slid my cardboard template between the framing and the tuner card so that the metal dust did not fall inside my recorder. The metal framing is pretty thick, so be prepared to run through about 3 cutting wheels.

I don't have access to the tools necessary to make that "tuck under" flap, so there is a bit of a buckle up gap on my cover between the plastic front piece and my sheet metal cover. I sleep at night because I convinced myself that this gap is necessary for proper ventilation of the unit.

Well there you have it... you now have access to every precious little VOB file that you have recorded. No more transferring them to DVD+RW disc, then transferring them from the DVD+RW disc to your computer's hard drive! There are no audio synch issues that you may experience trying to rip a multisession DVD+VR disc. Your long recordings will be broken up into tidy 2GB chunks. This mod has made reauthoring DVD discs much, much faster. I use Womble's Mpeg-Vcr to trim my vob files & DVD-lab Pro to author my DVDs.

Now you can spend that extra 30+ minutes of your life to create really nice menu screens.

Make sure you keep the hard drive rack, original cover, and receipt safely tucked away inside the packaging your unit came in.

You can post any questions about this guide in the DVD Recorders Forum.
Address your questions/comments to Normando.