Making MK1231GAL work with HP1x0 units

[syrou]

Hi,

I'm writing to this forum to ask if anyone has successfully put an MK1231GAL drive in an HP1x0 unit. I have tried everything but I couldn't do it. I've bought the Korean ZIF-ATA adapter, and it makes the drive spin, but I have no luck trying to run it in my iriver.

The drive comes from a Transcend JetStore 18M USB unit, and although it comes with an Apple sticker logo on it, it seems to be perfectly partitionable in my PC. Have tried to use it both with the OF and Rockbox firmware, but no luck.

I've also started a thread in MisticRiver forums:
http://www.misticriver.net/forums/iriver-h1xx-series-h110-h115-h120-h140/59464-problems-installing-120gb-gal-drive-onto-h120.html

And have also noted this interesting message from ej0rge:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=21680.msg152030#msg152030

I have also thought about a crippled command set in the drive's firmware to be the origin of the problems, and maybe the Rockbox boot loader may have some debugging capabilities to tell what exact ATA commands are the conflictive ones, and compare them to the PC side. Maybe they could be implemented in a Rockbox boot loader revision.

Thanks in advance.

[salamander]

It is not so easy to make a harddrive with more than 60GB run.

I have need 3 days to make an Samsung HS080HB (80GB) run on my H120.

0. Flash the iriver original firmware to your player

1. Check the filesystem Type. It must be FAT32. You can use SwissKnife to format the drive under a windows system.

2. You need to compile a new rockbox version and a new bootloader.

Add to file /firmware/export/config/iriverh120.h
/* define this if the device has larger sectors when accessed via USB */
/* (only relevant in disk.c, fat.c now always supports large virtual sectors) */
#define MAX_LOG_SECTOR_SIZE 2048

/* define this if the hard drive uses large physical sectors (ATA-7 feature) */
/* and doesn't handle them in the drive firmware */
#define MAX_PHYS_SECTOR_SIZE 1024

This works for an 80gb HS080HB Samsung HD.

Maybe you have to try higher values (4096/2048; ...). I cant find any documentation. Would be fine to add it in the harddisk relacement section (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/HardDriveReplacement).
For bigger drives some more information on http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/BigDisk


3. Compile a new rockbox

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CygwinDevelopment
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/HowToCompile

4. Compile a new bootloader and patch the original firmware
    4.1. ../tools/configure  (10 for H1xx, b for bootloader)
    4.2. run make in the tools folder to get the descramble.exe file!!!
    4.3. Follow section Patching the iriver firmware on http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IriverBoot#Direct_links_for_H320_and_H340

5. copy the new patched firmware to your hd root folder and use the original ihp_1[xx].hex firmware filename

6. Use the firmware upgrade in the original firmware, general options to flash the  patched firmware to your IRiver.


Hope it helps.