iRiver H120 CF Mod Attempt - Success!

[AlexG]

I love my iRiver but I am not a huge fan of moving parts so I wanted to see if I could replace the hard drive with flash drive.  I purchased a CF to 50 pin IDE adapter on ebay a while back to try and see if it was possible.

The adapter has a very large jumper on the front that is taller than everything else.  I am pretty sure I am going to have to trim that if this works

Side by side next to the broken drive i pulled out of my iRiver.  You can see the jumper in this picture on the front right edge.


More of the adapter/jumper from the side


Here is another shot from the front with the CF card inserted


Here is another side by side shot from the side.  You can really see how big that jumper is here.


Another shot from the side


Here I laid the adapter on top of the broken drive.



I cracked open the iRiver put the adapter and cf card on and turned the unit on.



The drive came up as a usb device like it should!  so I started copying the rockbox files over



This took a long time, but I'm using a crappy CF card for now as a proof of concept.  

Now for the moment of truth will it boot?

No

It froze at the bootloader screen and now the thing won't even turn on with the old hard drive  I'm not sure what happened but I'll see if I can break it from it's slumber but I'm not very happy right now...


Edit - Ok a reset of the device brought it back with the old Hard Drive still trying to get it to boot the flash drive

Edit2 - Swapping the CF card with anothter one fixed my problem and it booted!  

[Davide-NYC]

Now that it has been a few days since your CF conversion I was wondering if you have noticed any problems? Does it 'work like a charm'? If so what CF card worked well? What were the specs? Thanks for trying this out!

[Chronon]

Please post this information to the wiki so that others can find it easily.  Tutorials and other static information are better kept on the wiki.

[scharkalvin]

I have the exact same adapter in my gigabeat.  I used a 16gb A-Data cf flash card from NewEgg.com ($105).  It came up as a usb device and I was able to install rockbox by creating the required directories and coping over the software files.  I saved the system files from a working gigabeat OF and copied them over (only two files needed I think).

It seems to work, but sometimes I get disk read errors.  Did you comment out the sleep function in ATA.c?  This was required for iPod mini's using a CF card and I did that on my gigabeat.  I also set the spindown time to 254 seconds (I'd like to modify the code so it is NEVER).

Let me know if you decide to get that A-Data CF card (it's the cheapest 16GB I could find, and it worked great in an iPod mini.) Sometime next year they will have a 32gb model out (hopefully for under $200).  That would be nice...... :-)

[adam917]

I have the exact same adapter in my gigabeat.  I used a 16gb A-Data cf flash card from NewEgg.com ($105).  It came up as a usb device and I was able to install rockbox by creating the required directories and coping over the software files.  I saved the system files from a working gigabeat OF and copied them over (only two files needed I think).

It seems to work, but sometimes I get disk read errors.  Did you comment out the sleep function in ATA.c?  This was required for iPod mini's using a CF card and I did that on my gigabeat.  I also set the spindown time to 254 seconds (I'd like to modify the code so it is NEVER).

Let me know if you decide to get that A-Data CF card (it's the cheapest 16GB I could find, and it worked great in an iPod mini.) Sometime next year they will have a 32gb model out (hopefully for under $200).  That would be nice...... :-)

32 GB is out now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244

[scharkalvin]

32 GB is out now: http://www.newegg.com/Pro...aspx?Item=N82E16820211244

It shows as out of stock, which probably means this is just a product announcement.
It's also a bit expensive right now.  When the price drops below $150 and you can actually GET one I'll probably get one, though I may wait till someone writes a review on it saying it worked in an iPod mini.  (Can you imagine a 32GB iPod mini?)

Also (Holy Cow Batman!) The price on the 16GB CF has dropped to $85!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010070068+50002135+1053107923&name=Compact+Flash+(CF)

   

[adam917]

Well 32GB flash MP3 players are out in Japan now. Creative was first to bring this out. I wouldn't be surprised if 32GB CF is out already.

[scharkalvin]

Just that NewEgg either sold out their first shipment, or pre-announced getting it.
Either way, they are out of stock at the moment.

[Mikerman]

Just fascinating stuff--congratulations on this.  Me, I'm waiting for the 64/128 gb flash drive players which I expect to come out in the next 1-2 years (I have enough space in my iRiver iHP-140 modded, now 60 gb, player to last me that long, I figure).  Of course, hopefully, creative companies will come out with some nice high-capacity, audiophile players by then (even the mainstream press is noting nowadays the dearth of those in the marketplace) ...

[johnson4]

what are the odds of seeing a "flash drive"option in the config.cfg file?
It would really help if this conversion was available without using a custom build and would facilitate further development that would enhance player converted to flash drives.
Thoughts?

[adam917]

what are the odds of seeing a "flash drive"option in the config.cfg file?
It would really help if this conversion was available without using a custom build and would facilitate further development that would enhance player converted to flash drives.
Thoughts?

Well, what would need to be changed in Rockbox to support flash drives/cards?

[AlexP]

Well, what would need to be changed in Rockbox to support flash drives/cards?

We clearly support flash drives just fine - look at the Nana, E200, C200, the flash Archos players that I have forgotten the name of.

According to a IRC discussion (IIRC), flash drives should be capable of sleeping just fine, the problem may well be that when we wake it up it is in a different PIO mode than the one we try to access it with, causing it to hang.  It is just all our other targets don't care.

I don't think a flash drive cfg option is the way to go, but fixing waking uo in the correct mode is the proper fix, that way it shouldn't matter what type of drive a player has.

Of course, someone with more knowledge correct me if I am wrong.

[johnson4]

ok I see,
ya I was just thinking of the models that don't have flash drives and are being converted to flash(gigabeat F) It's just really cool to see it happening.

[scharkalvin]

(Holy Cow Batman!) The price on the 16GB CF has dropped (again) to $80!
http://www.newegg.com/Pro...23&name=Compact+Flash+(CF)

These things keep getting cheaper!!!!!

Bring on those flash conversions!!!!

This card works VERY FB in iPod Mini's

Also the 32GB card is now in stock and the price has dropped to $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244
(if it drops in price by another $50 I'm going to get one and upgrade my iPod mini or  see if it works any better in my gigabeat F10 conversion  (F32?))

[LambdaCalculus]

Quit tempting me, scharkalvin!  

Although the very thought of just getting a cheap mini off eBay and popping a 32GB CF card into it is indeed tempting...