Thread: My CD Rom Drive PVR

CD Rom Drive PVR???
I knew the title would get your attention! lol


"Homemade Xternal PVR"

I recently purchased a new Coolsat 6100 Private stb on fleabay for a super low price and discovered that the old N2 hackware adds the PVR feature to this originally non-PVR model via the USB hardware. So to make this work I gathered up my USB to SATA/IDE adaptor and a spare 40gb Seagate HDD I wasn't using and hooked it up and it works very well but I didn't like having the HDD exposed bare for fear of shorting it out. An external HDD enclosure is what I needed so I thought of trying something different by using some of the spare parts I have, better to make use of the stuff.

I had an old noisy CD writer from an old Dell PC and thought to convert it to an external enclosure using the case. I gutted the internals and cut away all the inner structure of the plastic subframe making room for the HDD then I made two side mounting brackets from aluminum angle stock and this is what I ended up with. I added four rubber feet to the bottom, the CD tray bezel is hot-glued to the faceplate, the cosmetics come later when I decide what to use and how to do it. I may cover the top and sides with thin sheet aluminum and paint it black.

Now concerning the Coolsat 6100 Private PVR, I didn't like having the front flip down door opened with the USB cable getting in the way and it doesn't look good either so I relocated the USB plug to the rear panel for a clean look. The pics show the details.

I hope you enjoy this homemade device.

10 points for recycling. nice work. its a shame we are stuck with hackware for increased functonality on most recievers..

crackt out,.

That is some nifty mod! My other hobbies are computer building, upgrading, & diy wifi antenna construction. I never thought of making an external hdd case from a cd rom case. I have all the parts you are showing to do it.....another project to work on. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Originally Posted by SATisfied

That is some nifty mod! My other hobbies are computer building, upgrading, & diy wifi antenna construction. I never thought of making an external hdd case from a cd rom case. I have all the parts you are showing to do it.....another project to work on. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Thanks SATisfied, This CD Rom Drive HDD case project only took me about 2 hours to make, it's very simple and I'm sure you'll enjoy making one as I have. I've made many wifi antenna's myself and here's the link to one I made using the CD technology. I just posted it after you mentioning 'nifty mods' in your post. Take a look here:
Wifi_Antenna_CD_Case_Homemade_Project (CD Disc Wifi Antenna... homemade)

McGuyver

I have never done that. The steel is too useful for making little brackets and such.

I have made an old parallel port portable CDRW drive into a USB DVD-RW drive, by taking out the CDRW drive (used in my old Win98 box), and parallel to IDE card. I used the back (has the USB to IDE converter electronics) off an old USB HDD case which the clips that held it in broke, carves a hole in thr back of the case to match, and got a 6" IDE cable and extended the power cable to reach the shorter DVDRW drive in place of the longer CDRW drive.