Possible ZIF to 1.8" IDE adapter! 100GB iriver H140?

[stuffedspacedog]

Hi, just to let you know that the ESSkabel adaptor arrived today, the good news is that it fits the iRiver without requiring any modification, the bad news is that the ribbon cable is extremely fragile.  The disk spins up OK, but as soon as the back is pushed on I got "ATA error".  I tried this with 3 different adaptors and broke all of them.  I ended up going back to the original adaptor I got from eBay, which continues to work fine.

[juanpa74]

How can I get/buy one of the ESSkabel adaptors? I want to try them on the H340.
Thanks.

[KKaul]

@stuffedspacedog:

Could you please give the title (or seller) for the ebay auction? You link isnt working anymore...

Thanks!

[stuffedspacedog]

Seller was "h2electronics".  Just searched eBay, and couldn't find any of these adapters... weird huh?

[inluxication]

I'm glad stuffedspacedog had the seller's name, because I lost track of that.  However, I believe the item description was
   1.8" ZIF Hard Disk to Laptop 1.8" IDE HD Adapter t8
I guess the next thing is to write to h2electronics and ask if they will have more of these.

[Jeff]

How on earth do I connect the ribbon cable??

There is no locking mechanism that I can see on this drive.  It's a Toshiba MK1011GAH



Any help with photos would be great!

[inluxication]

Sure, the link is here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280209474185&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=018

As noted earlier in this thread, stuffedspacedog's ebay link worked, but then stopped working.  Now it works again.  He remembered the seller being h2electronics, but it shows up on the link as yeahmarket, with item description
   1.8" ZIF Hard Disk to Laptop 1.8" IDE HD Adapter
I've written to both sellers (just to be safe!) to ask if they have any more of these.

Edit: I also made a PDF printout of the ebay page, in case ebay drops the link again.

[inluxication]

How on earth do I connect the ribbon cable??

There is no locking mechanism that I can see on this drive.  It's a Toshiba MK1011GAH

Jeff, there's now a how-to here:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/ZIFToATAAdapter
It seems that the locking mechanism should be on the connector, not on the drive.  I'm not an expert, I haven't done it, and I don't think you said what connector you're using.

Also, the ebay seller yeahmarket just replied to me and said that he is now offering the part under a new ebay ID, "rexchg".  I see that a part with the same description, 1.8" ZIF Hard Disk to Laptop 1.8" IDE HD Adapter, is also being offered by another seller for a few cents less.  It appears to be the same, but I ordered the one from rexchg.  Now I'll order a drive, see how it goes, and report back.

[Jeff]

Thanks for that link but....

I don't see any black "handle" on the HDD to lock??  Take a look at the photo I posted

[karashata]

That's 'cause the "handle" on the hard drive is off-white, not black.  Lift that up and push the cable in there, then push it back down once the cable is in snugly.

[stuffedspacedog]

Just to confirm that my 100Gb H140 is still running strong with no problems!  The trickiest part is attaching the ribbon cable to the ZIF drive, the locking mechanism isn't obvious, and I initially had the same problem as other previous posters.

[inluxication]

HELP, Stuffedspacedog, or anyone: I've now got a Toshiba MK8009GAH and an adapter like this one
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-8-ZIF-Hard-Disk-to-Laptop-1-8-IDE-HD-Adapter-t8_W0QQitemZ190225019729QQihZ009QQcategoryZ90719QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem,
but I can't assemble it right.  I keep getting errors like ATA -11, "check HDD", and such.  Once I booted into the iRiver firmware, which (correctly) reported 0 folders, 0 files, but connecting the USB cable at that point didn't work.  I don't think I ever heard the hard drive spin up.

The adapter comes with a ribbon cable with a blue end and a white end, and another cable with two blue ends.  Both the Rockbox installation guide here
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/ZIFToATAAdapter
and another I found, here
http://www.digitalintelligence.com/support/zif_hard_drive_enclosure/
show the Toshiba drive taking a blue end.  However, I simply can't fit either end of the blue-blue cable into the Toshiba's white socket.  The white cable fits, and the black lever secures it, but I still get the problems above -- for the most part the same error messages I get if I don't connect anything at all.

At this point I have no way of telling if the HDD, the adapter, and the cables are proper or defective.  At some point I put a fold rather than a gentle S bend into the blue-white cable: how likely is that to have killed it?  I'm just hoping I didn't harm the drive.

To answer someone else's question, the Toshiba ZIF socket (mine at least) does have a black locking lever: it looks like a ridge along the center of the white socket.  I needed a jewelers loupe to see what it was, but you can get a little out of the pictures at the link just above -- click the 2nd and 3rd pictures to zoom in.

    --------------

Another ebay auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-sets-1-8-toshiba-ZIF-Hard-drive-to-2-5-IDE-Adapter_W0QQitemZ290232675597QQcmdZViewItem
for what seems like (2 of) the same item has pictures indicating that the blue-white cable is the one for Toshiba.  That suggests I've got everything right, and either the drive or the adapter is bad.  Any advice?

 -----------------

SUCCESS.  Idiotically, I had the drive, and the adapter, upside down.  The right way is to extend the cable straight, put the drive the same way up as the old one, plug in the adapter, then bend the cable into an S curve under the drive and put the drive in place (same side up).

A later problem I had was that when squeezing the case together, the unit would fail.  If it was off and you tried to switch it on, it would go into iRiver software, then stop.  If it was running Rockbox, it would stop.  Leaving the case loose, playing music in Rockbox, and then squeezing the case together, I saw that by squeezing gently I could trigger the disc-access light.  I think that an exposed electrical contact area near the end of the ribbon cable was being squeezed against the disc drive, causing Bad Things to happen.  I re-bent the cable, and also tucked a bit of insulator between that part of the cable and the HDD case, and the problem went away.

Currently everything is working, reassembled with the lower rubber bumper back in place (there's probably no need to remove it, but I didn't know that), but without the blue rubber cushion that fits around the perimeter of the HDD.  Since uncushioned shocks can easily be thousands of Gs, I'll try again to put that back in place, or failing that, improvise some other cushioning.

I don't have the Esskabel adapter, but I think I see what Linus (I think it was Linus) meant about it being a better fit for the iRiver.  From the second photo in the Rockbox ZIF-to-ATA thread linked above, it looks like the Esskabel adapter has a sticky-up bit on the top, at the bottom end past where the HDD ends.  With my adapter, that bit is on the bottom, pushing up the whole surface of the adapter, and thus the drive (which sits above part of the adapter).  Mine is much cheaper and more easily available, though.

I feel that my mistakes should have resulted in the destruction of the new drive and/or the player, and I'm grateful for dumb luck or good engineering.  I hope my account will make it easier for someone else!


    --------------

Tight squeeze, but everything including the blue rubber bumper is back in place.  Done.

[Nate!]

I'm a little confused also on the hard drive connection.  Do I push down into the pins, push back towards the drive, or push forward towards the cable?

I "received" my MK1011GAH drive without the black handle.  I should receive a replacement soon.  Pic below.

Thanks for the help.

Edit: I just caught the digitalintelligence link in a previous post.  That explains it very well.  Thank you.

[inluxication]

On a related note, it's hard to tell from the small photo, but it looks like your drive may be fine, just with a white handle (like the one on the Digital Intelligence link you mentioned).  Let us know how it turns out!  (My H180 is working fine.)

[1121]

Hi,

I have the same problem as mentioned above trying to upgrade my iHP 140 with a 120GB hard drive. My drive is Samsung HSJ22JC. I cannot find any handle to connect the ribbon cable to the drive...The HDD works ok when I load original iRiver firmware, but it feels like the HDD is not connected properly, because when trying to load rockbox it says: error ATA: -32 and stays there until I reset it (then it boots original firmware). I figure rockbox needs a more secured connection as right now there is nothing that secures the cable on HDD's side. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I have the same adapter as the one here: http://cgi.ebay.com.my/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190228540008&indexURL=

Some pictures of my HDD:

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/6338/dscn9567mb7.jpg

http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/9375/dscn9568ga4.jpg

http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/7819/dscn9569re7.jpg

Another thing is, I am not sure whether it will be possible at all to squeeze it, so that the player can be assembled again...