Support and General Use > Hardware

3.5" Drives

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RandomFactor:
Is it possible to use Rockbox with a 3.5" PATA/IDE drive?  If, for example, a media player were dismantled and hooked up to a 3.5" drive (through an appropriate adapter), would the larger drive's sectors/firmware cause problems for Rockbox?  Or would the limitation lie in the hardware of the player itself?  Or both?

I have recently modded an iAudio X5 with adapter for 120GB ZIF drive and was wondering if a similar thing could be done with much larger disks.  I know that in manufacture 'tricks' are used to gain additional capacity/speed which may not be compatible with Rockbox or the portable hardware out there.

Please can anyone be kind enough to outline the limitations and whether they are likely to be overcome in future builds (if they are not hardware restrictions)?

Thanks in advance...

saratoga:

--- Quote from: RandomFactor on January 02, 2011, 09:01:07 PM ---Is it possible to use Rockbox with a 3.5" PATA/IDE drive?  If, for example, a media player were dismantled and hooked up to a 3.5" drive (through an appropriate adapter), would the larger drive's sectors/firmware cause problems for Rockbox?  Or would the limitation lie in the hardware of the player itself?  Or both?

--- End quote ---

Assuming the player supports >128GB it'd probably work with the right adapter.

larry_llama:
I have done this successfully with iriver h120 and h320 players. I soldered my own adapter and made a "boom box" with amplified speakers, h320 player and a 160gb desktop HDD inside.

THe adapter is very straightforward if you use an HDD or CF based player - not sure about flash based. H320 is perfect if you want a colour screen. If not, the options are many - ipod mini comes to mind also

RandomFactor:
Thanks for the replies, I'm on the case!

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