The New iRiver AK100: A High-End DAP - Page 138

I am not sure if anyone has asked this question:
Why did iRiver include the 22 Ohms resistor in the player since it sounds better without it?

Is it possible to order from iRiver directly without the 22 Ohms resistor so that the product warranty is not void?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

WARNING! Do NOT reformat the internal drive! in case you ever considered it (since it's OK with the inserted cards). I'll spare you all my bleeping.

 

The tinkerer in me couldn't help trying it, in an effort to clear out the internal drive all at once, I reformatted it in the same format as originally (FAT32), on Mac OS X, named it "AK100" then put the default folders back.

While everything still looks OK when connected to the computer, when trying to do a library scan, it fails, and System Information shows:
Internal 1KB left/ 19.36MB, rather than the expected ~31GB (which show up correctly when connected to a computer)   :'(

It is still usable by using folder navigation to the external cards, but it is of course a substantial limitation of the AK100 usability. I'll keep you posted about any response from iRiver.

 

If anybody comfortable with their Mac could open Disk Utility, and click on the (i)nfo button in the toolbar for both the actual drive and the AK100 partition and post a screenshot of that, it might help me figure some things out in the meantime...

Bummer. If all else fails, maybe you could get a disk image from another owner.

Easeus Todo Backup is good free program for it.

Have you done the update? Should sort it..

I'd try removing the music folder and see if it creates another that it can access. Probably won't can't hurt at this point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

WARNING! Do NOT reformat the internal drive! in case you ever considered it (since it's OK with the inserted cards). I'll spare you all my bleeping.

 

The tinkerer in me couldn't help trying it, in an effort to clear out the internal drive all at once, I reformatted it in the same format as originally (FAT32), on Mac OS X, named it "AK100" then put the default folders back.

While everything still looks OK when connected to the computer, when trying to do a library scan, it fails, and System Information shows:
Internal 1KB left/ 19.36MB, rather than the expected ~31GB (which show up correctly when connected to a computer)   :'(

It is still usable by using folder navigation to the external cards, but it is of course a substantial limitation of the AK100 usability. I'll keep you posted about any response from iRiver.

 

If anybody comfortable with their Mac could open Disk Utility, and click on the (i)nfo button in the toolbar for both the actual drive and the AK100 partition and post a screenshot of that, it might help me figure some things out in the meantime...

Strange? I thought I reformatted my internal drive and don't seem to be having issues with it... Then again I've never loaded music on it recently either.. Maybe try to do a firmware update and see if that fixes it for you. That tends to fix my issues on hisound players.

I'm already on v1.30. Fortunately, I guess. Since it can't "see" the internal drive I would copy the update on, I can't do a firmware update anymore....

I also did a factory reset, but it really does only reset the settings, not do an internal re-format.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

I'm already on v1.30. Fortunately, I guess. Since it can't "see" the internal drive I would copy the update on, I can't do a firmware update anymore....

 

I also did a factory reset, but it really does only reset the settings, not do an internal re-format.

So what did you do Grumpy? Did you change the filesystem on the device? I had an issue like this on my 64GB card. I formatted it on Windows and it reverted it back to the exFAT so I was like WTF? Is my card faulty? Come to find it was Windows that reverted it back so I had to use guiformat to change it back to FAT32 so I could see and access the drive again...

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

I re-formatted the existing partition (i.e. not the drive itself, which may alter the partition map) in the same format (FAT32). Actually I even went into the commandline later and formatted it in the old FAT format (FAT16). Of course that only made a portion of the drive size available, and didn't change anything as far as the AK100 is concerned.

From the System Information window, it seems the AK100 is now looking only at the small hidden partition that contains the OS (not easily accessible from a computer, usually a good thing) So as far as I can tell, it can't see the "big" one because either 1) the partition map got changed and the Disk ID (not name) is different (i.e. the reference to /nand3/ in playlists), or 2) some other identifier is missing (may be a hidden file or two)

The former gets tricky, the later might be OK. Actually the Mac's built-in Disk Utility can make disk images too; if anybody's willing to give it a try, PM me.

6moons is onto the AK100:

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/iriver/1.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie R. 

6moons is onto the AK100:

 

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/iriver/1.html

 

unfortuanately it's:  "....to be continued". lol

Yes - 6moons does a "Preview" while they wait for the review sample, and then the actual Review follows.  Srajan mentioned in the preview that the unit

that iRiver is sending will have the latest SW, so his ALAC/AIFF collection can be used.  I'm glad they delivered with that update!  I have a lot of AIFF!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

I re-formatted the existing partition (i.e. not the drive itself, which may alter the partition map) in the same format (FAT32). Actually I even went into the commandline later and formatted it in the old FAT format (FAT16). Of course that only made a portion of the drive size available, and didn't change anything as far as the AK100 is concerned.

 

From the System Information window, it seems the AK100 is now looking only at the small hidden partition that contains the OS (not easily accessible from a computer, usually a good thing) So as far as I can tell, it can't see the "big" one because either 1) the partition map got changed and the Disk ID (not name) is different (i.e. the reference to /nand3/ in playlists), or 2) some other identifier is missing (may be a hidden file or two)

 

The former gets tricky, the later might be OK. Actually the Mac's built-in Disk Utility can make disk images too; if anybody's willing to give it a try, PM me.

If you didn't rename the partition, I don't get why it's no longer accessible. I'd try pulling the folders back out and see if it builds new ones. Hope you're good or lucky.

Tried that already, alas since it can't see the partition to read from it, it can't write to it either. The name of a drive or partition shouldn't be an issue anyway since it is actually separate from the drive or partition ID at a lower level, which is the level at which the AK100 seems to look at them... I'd really like someone to check on the existence of hidden files at the root level though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

I'm already on v1.30. Fortunately, I guess. Since it can't "see" the internal drive I would copy the update on, I can't do a firmware update anymore....

 

I also did a factory reset, but it really does only reset the settings, not do an internal re-format.

Where did you get 1.3?   The firmware update page only has 1.2.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daseinpdx 

Where did you get 1.3?   The firmware update page only has 1.2.

If you go through their "Downloads" page it's right here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGrumpyOldMan 

Quote:

If you go through their "Downloads" page it's right here.

If you were to use Windows do you think you could see and access the drive from Disk Management? That may be your only solution to see and format the drive...

Thanks for the suggestion, tried that already. Disk Manager shows the same thing as Disk Utility does on the Mac...

The problem is not so much that I (or rather my computer) can't see the user-available partition, it's that the AK100 now ignores it. There should be 2 partitions, one truly hidden and for good reason containing the OS, only accessible by specialized software tools (I expect some Linux flavor) and one big, visible one called by default "AK100".

For some reason the player software/OS can no longer see the second big one (I suspect an unintentionally altered partition map), though the USB controller obviously does and of course the remaining OS partition is way too small for anything useful (if even writable) A lot of tablets, ereaders and cameras have a "Format internal drive" option or similar in their advanced options but alas the AK100 doesn't at this time...