Thank you all for your help, I got the desired result and didn't have to change the contents of the file, here is the code for reference

use Path::Class;
use Data::Dumper;

#Input was inserted into a file...
my $dir = dir("C:\\temp\\");
my $file = $dir->file("hashinput.txt");

my $file_handle = $file->openr();

my %slotHash = ();
while (my $line = $file_handle->getline()){
        if (index($line, "Press", 0) == -1 && index($line, "Slot", 0) 
+== -1)
        {
            $value0 = substr($line, 0, 2);
            $value1 = substr($line, 3, 17);
            $value2 = substr($line, 20, 15);
            $value3 = substr($line, 36, 17);
            $value4 = substr($line, 55, 17);

            $uptime = $value4;
            my $find = " days  ";
            my $replace = ":";
            $find = quotemeta $find; # escape regex metachars if prese
+nt

            $uptime =~ s/$find/$replace/g;
            
            $delimiter = quotemeta(":");
            my @uptime = split(/$delimiter/, $uptime);
            
            $totalUptime = (((@uptime[0] * 24) * 60) * 60) + ((@uptime
+[1] * 60) * 60) + (@uptime[2] * 60) + @uptime[3];
            
            $slothash{$value0} = ( 
                 {type => substr($value1,0, 3) ,slotID => $value0, des
+cription => $value1,hwVersion => $value2, swVersion => $value3 ,slotI
+d => $value0,   upTime => $totalUptime}
            );
            
            
            
        }
        
        
}

print Dumper(\%slothash);
[download]

THANKS!