CF mod for Gigabeat S30?

[ej0rge]

Just wondering if anyone else has attempted to use a CF card in a Gigabeat S30, and share my experience so far.

I've tried both the black and green ZIF to CF adapters available from DealExtreme, along with a TopRam 32gb CF card, and neither of them work.

The only difference between them seems to be that the black one doesn't pass DMACK through to the zif header, where the green one does. Comments on DealExtreme indicate that the green one works in ipods, where the black one does not. But neither work in the gigabeat so far.

I always get error 5, as though no harddrive were connected. If i force recovery mode, i get stuck on message 3.

I am using the gigabeat IDE ribbon cable. The harddrive end of it has to be thickened with a bit of tape on the back side to make it fit snugly into the connector on the adapter. Use of this cable is probably required, since it's not a straight-through connection for all pins.

I've looked at a lot of CF to IDE adapter schematics. Some of them imply that pin 43 (DMARQ in "true ide" mode) should be held high, but most of them don't mention it at all.

Other than the DMARQ signal, all of them have pretty much the same recommendations for which pins are connected through, which are tied to ground, and which are tied to VCC. I checked both black and green adapters, and with the exception of the DMACK line only being passed through on the green one, they both seem to adhere to the generally accepted cf "true ide" connection standard.

On both of these adapters, DMARQ is passed through to the ZIF connector, but a set of pads for a surface mount resistor allows an easy method of holding it high.

So far, I'm too chicken to try it. I have an S30 main board with a bad battery controller that i could sacrafice to the cause, but not a small, cheap CF card.

So, I'm wondering if anyone else has tried this - maybe there's a different adapter that someone has used that worked?

[scharkalvin]

The problem could also be the CF card, you might want to try another one if available.
OR have you tried that 'topram' card in another HD player such as an ipod?
This is the CF that I used in my F10
http://cgi.ebay.com/150X-32GB-OEM-HIGH-SPEED-COMPACT-FLASH-CF-CARD-32-GB-Go_W0QQitemZ110371999075QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDigital_Camera_Memory_Cards?hash=item110371999075&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50
it is available from a number of sellers on ebay.  This is a 150X card.  It is a no-name OEM card that is build from Samsung memory parts and has been reported to work in iPods as well.  It runs rings around the Adata CF cards I've tried in the past in the F10.

[ej0rge]

I haven't tried the Topram card in another DAP, but i can try it in an F10. I have the right adapter for that, somewhere.

There's a report somewhere of the topram card being workable in some DAP.

Edit: And FWIW, Topram says the card supports true-ide mode - which is an optional part of the CF+ specification.

I have a g2 ipod mini that i could try it in, for example, i just need to get a usb cable for it.

I also have a Kingston 32gb card, and the A-Data card in my H120.

So, I have some options, next time i attack this thing.

Also, it occured to me this morning that i didn't check to see whether the cf-zif adapters i have are selecting master/slave/CSL properly.

[scharkalvin]

Also, it occured to me this morning that i didn't check to see whether the cf-zif adapters i have are selecting master/slave/CSL properly.

Some players don't care, since they will only work with one disk drive they will first check for master, then slave ... so it wouldn't matter how the thing was jumpered.  I don't know if the S30 is like that, but it seems that the iRiver players are from what I've heard.
I wonder if anybody has used the same CF adapter you have in an iPod, I think that the G5.5 ipods use the same kind of disk drive as the S30.