[davidtoc]

Anyone try buying a commercial hard-drive mp3 player, cracking it open, and replacing the existing drive w/ a 200GB IDE drive or something like that? Seems like it should be possible. I'm thinking of capacity here more than portability as it's major feature.


dave

 

[beamrider]

People have been doing that since the HD based mp3 player came out. Pretty simple, actually, but I don't think you're going to be able to use a 200G drive, because most players use a laptop sized drive (2.5").

 

[Squalish]

And you'll have a bit of a hard time with the availability on 1.8" HDD-based players like the one in your avatar.

 

[blipblop]

This is routinely done with the Zen Xtra and Zen NX. Apparently, Creative Labs has made the job quite simple - taking apart the zen is a cinch, and the harddrive connector is not glued, which they could have easily done to stop this sort of thing.

Buy the Xtra if you plan on doing this. The NX has an 8000 track limit which poses problems when adding harddrives of high amount - the large storage naturally leads to track counts higher than this. The Xtra has a 16,000 track limit. People have put in 80 gig drives into their Zen Xtras! Lets see an Ipod user do that - although considering that idiot-factor of the average Ipod owner (most seem to be dumbo styleseekers), they wouldn't know where to begin anyhow!

 

[philodox]

this is also very easy to do with most archos mp3 players... I plan on upgrading mine soon, 20gig is not enough... especially when you have to leave space for movies

 

[Nisbeth]

Quote:

Originally posted by blipblop ...Lets see an Ipod user do that - although considering that idiot-factor of the average Ipod owner (most seem to be dumbo styleseekers), they wouldn't know where to begin anyhow!...

Do not discount the "idiot-factor" of people who actually pay money for anything made by Creative.

/U.

 

[blipblop]

...and why is that? Creative audio is better engineered than the Ipod. It's simple and proven. Half the price, and only slightly larger!
Apple is, and has always been, overpriced. You can justify it till next tuesday, but you know you've paid through your nose for it. I buy my electronics for their usage, not to match my wardrobe, or create a persona. Do you have a Volkswagen Beetle by any chance? Ha ha!

 

[Nisbeth]

/U.

 

[philodox]

blipblop... I agree with most of what you said about the ipod... but I wouldnt buy a creative either... for many of the same reasons

 

[blipblop]

Philodox, fair enough.

I'm also just teasing - its fun to tease iPod owners. They are already so sensitive about paying 1/2 grand for their product that they inevitably explode at the slightest provocation!

Philodox, what player would you recommend? In all reality, I think HD-based players are still at that awkward stage where uniformit of features has not been met, and the technology is still a little iffy. iPod lacked on-the-go playlists till the latest generation, Zen Xtra lacks a scroll-wheel, and the software is a bit less intuitive, the other players I'm not to familiar with, but all have glaring faults of some sort or another. That's what makes it so hard to choose - one must choose which faults they can live with the most, and at what overpricing level.

 

[philodox]

Quote:

Philodox, fair enough. I'm also just teasing - its fun to tease iPod owners. They are already so sensitive about paying 1/2 grand for their product that they inevitably explode at the slightest provocation!

lol, well I can understand that... I paid through the ass for mine as well Quote:

Philodox, what player would you recommend? In all reality, I think HD-based players are still at that awkward stage where uniformit of features has not been met, and the technology is still a little iffy. iPod lacked on-the-go playlists till the latest generation, Zen Xtra lacks a scroll-wheel, and the software is a bit less intuitive, the other players I'm not to familiar with, but all have glaring faults of some sort or another. That's what makes it so hard to choose - one must choose which faults they can live with the most, and at what overpricing level.

well... I wouldnt recommend my player for most... unless you like the added functionality it has... but other devices made archos are very good, assuming you dont buy any of their 1st gen stuff... dont get a gmini until they work out the bugs though... right now if I were to buy a hard drive mp3 player for just music it would be an archos FM20 or I would wait for the gmini to get fixed up... I like the karma as well, although I havent done too much research on it and I think it is a little pricey

 

[Nisbeth]

Quote:

Originally posted by blipblop I'm also just teasing - its fun to tease iPod owners. They are already so sensitive about paying 1/2 grand for their product that they inevitably explode at the slightest provocation!

I'm not even warmed up yet

Seriously, I have a 2. gen iPod, and when I were looking for a HD-based player I could get something cheaper than the ipod, and something with a bigger HD, and something with on-the-go-playlists, and something with recording capability and so on and so forth, but I couldn't find one player that was better overall!! The cheaper ones were generally junk, the Creatives with a bigger HD were bulky and and a drag to operate and that's how it was all the way. If you can show me one player, that'll beat the ipod on all these points and stille be cheaper, by all means tell us about it!!! (in the portable forum).


/U.

 

[xtreme4099]

even the nomad zen has better quality sound than the ipod ... and shoot 18months an your ipod battery dies and you have to buy another ipod ....another ONE!

 

[Voodoochile]

Try to keep this thead focused on replacing the hard disk, and not about whether or not you should buy an iPod or Zen.

We all know that discussion tends to be a loop, but more importantly, does not belong in DIY.

--thanks very much--

 

[Doh]

I think that replacing the hard drive on an ipod is possible, though the difficulty will be in acquiring the higher capacity drive for upgrading an smaller capacity ipod 20 or even 40 gigabytes.

Opening the unit:
There are abundant instructions on the internet for cracking open an ipod. Many people appear to have been successful at doing so in order to replace the ipod's battery. The plastic front of the device appears to be press-fit into the stainless steel back, and may simply be pried off. I saw an article somewhere stating that guitar picks are a good way to get the case open without damaging it.

The hard drive:
The 1.8" ipod hard drive appears to be manufactured by toshiba, which utilizes them in PC card based hard drives, but largely appears to market them to makers of portable mp3 players. Hard drives from older generation ipods appear to be interchangable with those found in newer generation ipods:

http://www.anandtech.com/audio/showdoc.html?i=1575&p=5

It is not known at this time whether or not it is possible to obtain one of these drives and insert it into an ipod, as the ipod may use a special connector for its hard drive.

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/a...472745,00.html

At this time, it appears that the toshiba drives come in one platter and two platter versions. The largest single platter version as of November, 2003 is the 20gb drive found in the current generation G3 ipods.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m.../article.jhtml

Information on the drives may be found directly from Toshiba:

http://www.sdd.toshiba.com

A list of suppliers may also be found on the toshiba site. I do not know if it is possible to obtain a drive through one of these distributors.

Software:
This should be the easy part, as Apple provides a hard drive formatting utility for the ipod. This software formats the drive and to install all the requisite drivers etc.

This is the desciption of the software's function from ipodlounge:
The update command downloads new software to an iPod. The update command may be disabled if the iPod does not need to be updated because it already has up-to-date software. The restore command returns an iPod to "factory fresh" condition. It erases and reformats the iPod before downloading new software. WARNING: The restore command erases all of the music and other data currently on the iPod.

Apple ipod software 2.1 is available here:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/

Please note that this version of the software is only compatable with G3 ipods. I believe version 1.3 is the version compatable with the older models. A link to this software may be found at:

http://www.ipodlounge.com/downloads_windows.php

Anyone who wants to upgrade an older 5gb ipod or a fix an ipod with a broken hard disk want to give this a shot?