iRiver H140 iHP-140 with big hard drive on Rockbox

[Gauss]

I've got almost a month ago an iRiver iHP-140. The 40GB HD has already some failing sectors, anyway I'm really happy using it paired with my iBasso D12.

I'm looking to replace the HD. I've found the popular 120GB MK1214GAH to be really expensive, I'd rather go for a bigger HD if possible than paying that much. Some people complain about the performance speed with the former HD, I found it acceptable so I'm not looking into SSDs.

Any chance someone around here with an iRiver H120, iHP-120, H140 or iHP-140 H100 series with a big Hard Drive?

I've found on the Rockbox page this:
2010-05-26: Upgraded/replaced hard disks are now supported on all disk-based players (except Archos). Drives over 137GB and drives with large physical sectors are both supported.

So I'm wondering, anyone that already had tried it?

I'm tempted on getting a Toshiba MK2431GAH 240GB. I have read about success but from people that also recompiled Rockbox before the time of the mentioned change. Would it be possible to just swap the Hard Drive now that I'm using the latest Rockbox version (3.7.1) without having to recompile Rockbox?

Sorry to make again the question but I've only found outdated info.

[tomlemes]

Hello Gauss,

Did you make any progress on this? I want to get rid of the original HD on my iHP-140 and it'd be great to get something decent sized (for me, anything from 60GB up would be good). I saw on wikipedia a mention that "120GB MK1214GAH ZIF" can be used. Sounds good to me, but I don't want to shell out the money only to find that it doesn't fit or that I'll need a soldering iron and a degree in electronics to get it in. Any information or links to information would be gratefully received!

Cheers, Tom

[TriTL]

Hi,

think this would help.

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,27634.msg182375.html#msg182375

found out that drives with up to 80 gig works without any modifications.

for anything bigger you'll need the bootloader 7pre4 which worked just fine with a 160 gig drive in my h120.

some say that this could break your player but i had never problems with this...using it for about 6 month.
you only have to keep the bootloader in the rockbox folder when updating it.

240 gig drives are about 95 € from china at ebay including shipment.

[DTSyX]

That's one interesting info. Thanks.
I was looking for a possibility to run a MK2431GAH on a H140, but so far I didn't succeed.

(I decribed the steps I took in the thread that I started some weeks ago looking for a solution for exactely that problem: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,28808.msg186099.html#msg186099)

You literally made my day, and in iriver-portable-high-quality-audio-listening-terms you made my week, month and year!

It really works and is a piece of cake compared to all the firmware manipulating stuff I was reading about in this forum, which put me on hold...

So, thanks a lot for that info!

Greetings,

DTSyX

[TriTL]

very good to hear somebody who tested this on a 240 gig device
I'm about to do so on christmas.

As i said: keep in mind to keep the modified bootloader file in your rockbox directory.
If you delete it you are no longer able to boot rockbox.

Don't know anymore but i think i could not even access the drive...
I had this problem already and it took me some time to get it working again.

[iRiverer]

@TriTL:
I thougt after installing the modified bootloader it is stored in the ROM area of the player? I should not even load it from the hdd anymore, why should on still have the bootloader in the rockbox dir?

[bluebrother]

As i said: keep in mind to keep the modified bootloader file in your rockbox directory.
If you delete it you are no longer able to boot rockbox.

This is nonsense. On H100 / H300 the bootloader is stored in flash. That's why installing Rockbox involves patching an original firmware file. Even if you remove the original firmware later (only possible on H100 with per-7 bootloader) the bootloader is loaded from flash.

[DTSyX]

Well, I've noticed that the boot screen shows "loading rockbox.iriver".
Previously I would have also said that the 7pre4 booloader is stored in flash. But right now I think it might also be possible that the "flashing procedure" just puts a "link" into the ROM to load the rockbox.iriver file from hdd.
To test my hypothesis I just put the hdd from my backup iriver into the 7pre4 flashed on, e voilá: when trying to boot it says "file not found" where it say "loading rockbox.iriver" whith the other hdd.

So, for the 7pre4 bootloader, it's apparently not completely stored in flash. But it also might have to do with the way I "installed" it. So far I only used the Rockbox Utility for upgrading the booloader. With the 7pre4 I just followed the instructions, which means flashing using the rockbox menu of the player after loading the file to the .rockbox folder.

[bluebrother]

Well, I've noticed that the boot screen shows "loading rockbox.iriver".

That's the output of the bootloader.

Previously I would have also said that the 7pre4 booloader is stored in flash. But right now I think it might also be possible that the "flashing procedure" just puts a "link" into the ROM to load the rockbox.iriver file from hdd.

It's not a "link". The bootloader is code to load the main Rockbox firmware from disk. It's always been that way.

To test my hypothesis I just put the hdd from my backup iriver into the 7pre4 flashed on, e voilá: when trying to boot it says "file not found" where it say "loading rockbox.iriver" whith the other hdd.

which is to be expected, since the bootloader cannot find the main Rockbox binary.

So, for the 7pre4 bootloader, it's apparently not completely stored in flash. But it also might have to do with the way I "installed" it. So far I only used the Rockbox Utility for upgrading the booloader. With the 7pre4 I just followed the instructions, which means flashing using the rockbox menu of the player after loading the file to the .rockbox folder.

Again, this is nonsense.

The Rockbox bootloader is stored in the flash memory of the player. This is necessary since the original firmware runs from flash, and therefore the player by itself cannot boot from disk. Exactly that's the purpose of the bootloader: run from flash and load the main Rockbox binary from disk. This allows easy upgrading the installed Rockbox without the need to flash each time. It also provides the possibility to provide some recovery mechanism in case the main binary is missing -- bootloader USB mode is exactly that, and a way to boot the original firmware. rockbox.iriver is the Rockbox main binary, not the bootloader, and if you delete it from disk the observed behaviour is exactly what is expected. You cannot store "half" a bootloader on disk because the purpose of the bootloader is exactly to boot things. How do you want to boot if you only have half of the code that does the actual booting?

With the H100 7pre bootloader you can also store the main Rockbox binary in flash. That's a different story though. The original claim (you need to keep the bootloader file on the player) is still wrong and won't get any better just because people seem to confuse loading the bootloader with the main binary.

[DTSyX]

Your absolutely right. And I'm wrong and sorry.

I totally forgot, that I haven't yet "rockboxed" the spare iriver. And I was too lazy to try the "delete bootloader.iriver file from disk" way to test.

The best would be to delete my previous post not to confuse anyone.

[Mr Whippy]

Have a 120GB myself with one of those really small IDE to ZIF adapters (power buy from mistic river forums) No problems, would have liked a bigger HD but that meant custom bootloader.