Is it possible to use Toshiba MK2431GAH on Gigabeat S?

[isanggon]

I use gigabeat s30 and it work perfectly with mk8025gal(80gb, 512byte/sector).
Now I need more space and found Mk2431gah(240gb, 4096byte/sector).
Is it possible to use Toshiba MK2431GAH on Gigabeat S(I'll buy back panel of s60)?

[cool_walking_]

I've got an S and one of those hard drives, and tried briefly to get it to work without success.  I haven't revisited it since.

[isanggon]

Thank you. It's so sad news

[cool_walking_]

Update!  Thanks to gevaerts, amiconn, and some other helpful people in IRC, it was revealed that the "file not found" problem was just me being stupid.  It was fixed by either booting up the OF once, or formatting the storage partition.

So currently, I can have Rockbox and the OF working happily with a ~127GB storage partition (not at the same time, because for some reason Rockbox doesn't work from a dual-boot nk.bin, so I have to swap between a single-boot Rockbox nk.bin and an OF nk.bin).

If I expand the storage partition to take up the rest of the disk, the OF loader (before Rockbox runs) occasionally (sometimes it just boots straight into Rockbox) gets upset and shows an error #3 dialog, then error #1, forcing me to run sendfirm again to restore the Gigabeat to working order.

So now, so that I can make use of the rest of the disk, I am attempting to create a third partition and use Rockbox with HAVE_MULTIVOLUME, in the hope that the OF loader will not do the "error #3, error #1" thing.  You can follow this latest development in IRC in stunning real-time 3D!

[psycho_maniac]

so if you just wanted rockbox and didnt care about the OF could you use the whole disk on rockbox? i could care less about OF

[cool_walking_]

The expression is "couldN'T care less".  If you *could* care less, you do care about the thing.

I don't want to use the OF either.  Rockbox itself can access the whole disk just fine, but there is a problem with the OF bootloader which prevents making use of the drive's full capacity.

I don't quite know what I'm talking about here, but it seems to be that Rockbox on the Gigabeat S still relies on the OF bootloader.  The OF doesn't seem to support LBA48, so it creates the storage partition at only ~127GiB.  This causes a problem, because the OF bootloader cracks a shit when I fiddle with the partitions.

When enlarging the storage partition to take up the whole disk or creating a second partition past the 128GiB mark, the OF loader sits there doing nothing except looking pretty on an error message screen (#3, then #1, then #2 when it's connected to a PC) until I do a firmware upgrade with sendfirm to restore it to working order.  The drive's contents are left intact, (except of course the partition holding the nk.bin file, which is updated) but it's quite impractical to have to connect to a PC every second boot in order to get the Gigabeat running again.  If I do nothing except shrink the partition to a size smaller than the OF created it at, it gets formatted (error screen #4) at next boot.

From Unhelpful's comment on IRC (linked in my previous post), it seems like the real solution to this is to take the OF bootloader out of the picture.  I don't know how feasible this is, but until it's done, it seems like only 128GiB of the disk can be used.

[AlexP]

Have you tried a multivolume build yet?  Whilst not ideal it would seem better than losing the space altogether.

[cool_walking_]

Gigabeat S has a compile error with HAVE_MULTIVOLUME defined.  Anyway, the OF loader did the "error 3, 1, 2" thing when I created a third partition.

EDIT: Hmm, it seems that not even just *leaving the partitions alone* (which I thought was safe) makes the OF happy.  I'd gone back to that arrangement just so I could get some use out of the disk, and it's now doing the "3, 1, 2" thing.

[AlexP]

Did you ever update the OF?  There were some unsubstantiated potential reports that the updated OF is more picky.  I'd love to try this myself (mainly because I've never had any OS related issues whereas others have), but I can't justify buying the drive seeing as it probably won't work :/

Good luck, maybe there is a magic formula!

[cool_walking_]

Did you ever update the OF?

Nope, but maybe the person who had it before me did.
The Settings -> Information -> Portable Media Center screen says:

Version 2.11 (632)
gigabeat S
Platform Version 1.1 (632.4)

That probably doesn't mean anything though, since the nk.bin I used to restore the OF was the one that someone put on rapidshare and linked from the wiki a while ago.

Good luck, maybe there is a magic formula!

I don't know what else to try.

[psycho_maniac]

this will be my next player and the first thing i am going to do is upgrade the hd. i will probably get a 120gb hd first because i already have my 80gb full almost and i can just wait till the 240gbs price drops.

[isanggon]

Thank you for information. Then, it will be fine mk1231gal with gigabeat s.
How about disk speed? I'm afraid of mkxx31 series's slow disk speed on rockbox

[cool_walking_]

I haven't noticed any slowness in disk access with the MK2431GAH.  Though I haven't tried it without:

#define MAX_LOG_SECTOR_SIZE 16384
#define MAX_PHYS_SECTOR_SIZE 4096

I'll try to run a benchmark when I get home tonight.

i can just wait till the 240gbs price drops

So you are going to buy one anyway?  Did you read what I've said about it being practically unusable because of the OF?

[psycho_maniac]

well just MAYBE then rockbox will take over the whole player and i wont have to care about the OF as i never use it anyways. i dont even know what the OF looks like on my gigabeat F HEHE

[cool_walking_]

These things are pretty expensive.  I wouldn't just buy one in the hope that someday the OF can be bypassed completely.  I don't even know how possible it is.  I PM'd jhMikeS about it on the 5th, but haven't had a reply yet.