Just got off the phone with Liteon level 2.
Very helpful tech guy there said the following:
Liteon is using the Seagate 160gb hard drive and the firmware is set up to recognize the "model number" of the hard drive unit. ((Also said it might be the Maxtor unit)) Unit will not accept non conforming hard drives.
Hard drive is basically just a 32 bit formatted blank single partition. All the rest of the set up is done by the firmware on the machine itself.
The 5045 is basically the 5005 with the hard drive tacked on.
From a previous call I got that they are working on a high def unit that should be networked via ethernet allowing for editing of the liteon files via the computer in an easy highlight and delete type operation.
Any other info and hints anyone has to share would be appreciated==I know I will try to swap harddrives "eventually."