Is it possible to mend a Digihome PVR80 freeview recorder ?

I recently found a Digihome PVR80 box that somebody had thrown out, complete with remote control & instruction booklet. I think the HDD has packed in (it's a Samsung spinpoint 80Gb). I put it in my computer, hoping to carry out a quick format but my pc would not even boot up, and when I touched the top of the hard drive it was very hot. Is it possible to get this piece of kit up and running ? I must say at this point that I have no interest in upgrading to a newer and much bigger hard drive. All I want to do is to get this box working again. I'd be quite happy to use a small hard disk. At the end of the day I only want to record a few programmes that are on tv when I am at work. I have been onto the digitalspy forum, and the amount of advice that is available is quite staggering. But most of it relates to upgrading to 160Gb hard drives etc. Is it not possible to purchase a 40 or 80 Gb hard drive put it in the unit and then switch on, hoping the box will detect the new disk, format it and then start scanning for the freeview channels. Do I need to buy a particular brand of HDD, does the spindle speed matter, does the buffer size have any significance ? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

s p levett
March 2008