[DJShadow]

Has anyone replaced the hard drive in their DAP's before? I'm interested because I'm in the process of finding a replacement hard drive for my Sony NW-HD3 (it's a Toshiba 1.8 inch MK2006GAL).

I've been looking on ebay (UK site) and they've been going for about £50+, but thats the the model used in the iPod, the MK2004GAL. It has the same capacity of 20 GB and I'm quite sure it would be compatible with the HD3. Also, is it possible to FIX a hard drive?

Could anyone with any experience of such matters please help?

 

[stevesurf]

The 1.8" drives and microdrives are impossible to repair by those other than Toshiba/IBM/Hitachi/Seagate authorized, and even at that they are most likely not worth the expense. This really applies to the OEM drives; the microdrives we buy for digital photography, etc have a one year warranty direct to the purchaser and these companies are very good with the coverage.

I am surprised why more Hard Disk-based DAP users do not ask for units that have removable Microdrive slots to prevent obsolescence.

 

[jonnywolfet]

replacing hdd's is usually easy peasy. i have replaced hdd's in many a ipod, as well as my gmini400 and a fer iriver h1xx/3xx series.
i have no idea weather or not the hd3 firmware will support onboard refomatting.
do a search in google for the hd3 service menu (or how to remove volume limiter) and mess around with the options there. one warning though, i managed to mess up a hd5 by playin with the service menu... a refformat sorted it out.

 

[Sinbios]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevesurf The 1.8" drives and microdrives are impossible to repair by those other than Toshiba/IBM/Hitachi/Seagate authorized, and even at that they are most likely not worth the expense. This really applies to the OEM drives; the microdrives we buy for digital photography, etc have a one year warranty direct to the purchaser and these companies are very good with the coverage. I am surprised why more Hard Disk-based DAP users do not ask for units that have removable Microdrive slots to prevent obsolescence.

There are several guides to replacing iPod harddrives - the problem is getting your hands on a 1.8" drive.

 

[DJShadow]

I've taken apart the HD3 many times so I know how to replace it, if I had another drive.

ATM, I have 2 HD3's, one of which was dropped and subsequently knackered afterwards - the start up walkman logo would appear briefly and turn off by itself. So I took apart both players and tried the healthy player's hard drive on the faulty player's circuitry, and it still doesn't work.

One thing I noticed is that the model of the hard drive in the faulty player was the MK2004GAL(same as in the iPod) whereas in my other one it was the MK2006GAL.

But now I really have gone too far. The faulty HD3 doesn't even turn on anymore despite correctly reassembling it and my 9 month old HD3 no longer has operational fast foward/reverse, pause/play and up/down buttons. It seems that I broke the (extremely delicate) 'flap' in which the flat wire connects to the motherboard from the metal case, enabling the play functions.

So in 3 days I've gone from 2 fully functioning players to one that doesn't work and one in which i have to use the remote. Great

 

[Oink1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJShadow So in 3 days I've gone from 2 fully functioning players to one that doesn't work and one in which i have to use the remote. Great

Mmm - that blows... Warranty claim?

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinbios There are several guides to replacing iPod harddrives - the problem is getting your hands on a 1.8" drive.

the problem isnt finding a 1.8" disc. the problem is that the ipod company uses "speshul" firmware. if you want to replace a ipod disc, it MUST be an ipod disc from another ipod. actually doing the work appears easy.

this leaves you the option of finding a "batery donner" (double speek, i mean hdd donor with bad battery) because3 the rest of the i-have-problems with mine-too-pods fail from hard drive failures.

for what its worth, the 2.5" format discs are almost all relatively easy to swap. my "work" took 15 miniutes.

 

[Sinbios]

I have no idea what you just said...

 

[DJShadow]

Neither do I. Anyway I'm gonna send off the HD3 which doesn't turn on to Sony soon.