jonah,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for your willingness to help us out here. I feel the Red box has a lot to teach us about how our units work, and don't work. Your input will be very valuable.
I'm curious to know what version of the DMS software (not PMM) your unit came with originally, and if you have the original installation CD.
Also, we are still trying to determine the boot order of files on the DMS and if the Red boxes use a different set. If you feel like playing around with some files, I'd sure like to know if your box plays normally after you delete (make a backup first, of course) the files "phat" and "Royallin.ux". These two files appear to do nothing on the newer boxes and it's not know yet if they are used by the Red boxes, or are just old files that aren't really relevant anymore. If you do erase them and everything works, I'd replace them anyway, especially before attempting a firmware update, to protect your box.
Also, I see you're going to post some pictures of the inside of your box. That would be great. I'll keep checking for them.
Lastly, could you post the make and model of your DMS and what the driveID string is?
Thanks again for offering to help jonah!