HDD replacement on PMP-120 going a bit wrong

[ashleyfrieze]

Hi there,

Can someone help me out. I tried to replace the hard disk on my PMP-120 last night and it almost worked!

Here's what I did:

1. I took the machine apart using the instructions found online:

shamrockman.net has a good set, though mine came from somewhere else


2. I put in the new drive, reassembled, booted, got the expected error (the drive was blank), attached to my PC and then uses Swissnife to create a 60Gb partition on the drive.

http://compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm

3. I formatted FAT32 and made the partition active.

4. I copied the iRiverSys folder back onto the new partition

5. Power off, reboot... nothing!

6. Yikes! Lots of reading and worrying.

7. Eventually, in a fit of remorse, I decided to repartition my drive to about 20Gb - wasting 2/3rds of it.

8. Formatted to FAT32 and made active (all with Swissnife)

9. iRiverSys copied back on

10. It booted...

So, there's obviously something subtle that I'm missing. Is there a reason why the unit hates my additional 40Gb? Do I have to now resize the partition to sneak the extra space up on it?

My firmware is version 1.24 - do I need a later revision?

Any clues would be great.

Ashley

[ShamrockMan]

Upgrade your firmware, then try to see if it works.

[StealthKill]

Hmm, if I may ask what kind of HD are you using?

As for not reading your full 60gigs, it may be something in the firmware restricting it to only 20gigs. Do what shamrock said and try upgrading and if that doesnt work you could try lookin in the firmware and looking for a restriction and seeting it to 60 instead of 20. Just a guess on what is going wrong. (Believe it or not I've done this plenty of times on other machines)

[ashleyfrieze]

The drive is a Toshiba MK6006.

This will sound silly, but how do I upgrade the firmware? Iriver's site seems to discourage you from downloading the firmware. Is there a dummy's guide to doing it? I thought 1.24 was the most common firmware rev? Might something in there not deal with the possibility of a larger disk size?

Anyway, thanks for the help so far.

One possibility I have thought of is that it might just be that I ploughed straight in with a 60Gb partition, rather than booting it with 20Gb and then resizing the partition with something like Partition Magic... could it be that dumb?

[ShamrockMan]

I have a guide here: http://shamrockman.net/tutorials/firmwareguide.php

[UaDogga]

there are a couple of "dummy" guides to change your firmware. search and you will find them. the majority of the people here have the latest firmware. by updating your firmware you also get a text reader

[ashleyfrieze]

Well... there's good news and bad. The good news is that Shamrockman's instructions for upgrading the firmware were excellent and the system worked straight away with the new firmware...

The bad news is that I tried to get smart on its ass and use PartitionMagic to resize the 20Gb partition within my new 60Gb drive to about 20Mb shy of the full disk size. The partition magic operation succeeded fine... but the PMP now hangs on bootup.

Any ideas on how to fix this? It's not giving me an error message and it doesn't seem to want to run as a USB hard drive device at the moment either. I'm guessing that the sure-fire way to solve this would involve taking the hard disk out, connecting it to a PC, wiping it and starting again. I've not got the 1.8" drive adapter and I don't really want to risk busting the PMP casing some more by attacking it with screwdriver again.

Grrr...

[lynnhaber]

Start over, delete the existing partition and create the partition leaving 8192 bytes unallocated at the end. Then procede as you did before. Should work

[ashleyfrieze]

That's the plan. Can anyone lend me a 1.8" toshiba drive adaptor thingy- preferably for USB? I'll PayPal a deposit against it...

The problem is that now the PMP hangs on boot, I can't delete the partition which is upsetting it. The only solution, I think, is to temporarily connect my 60Gb drive to a PC via something which doesn't care how it is partitioned.

Very frustrating. I'm based in Hampshire if anyone with a 1.8" adaptor lives near and wouldn't mind giving me a hand.

Thanks for all the help.

[saints]

Originally Posted by ashleyfrieze

That's the plan. Can anyone lend me a 1.8" toshiba drive adaptor thingy- preferably for USB? I'll PayPal a deposit against it...

Very frustrating. I'm based in Hampshire if anyone with a 1.8" adaptor lives near and wouldn't mind giving me a hand.

Thanks for all the help.

Just buy one they are cheap as chips, ebay 1.8 toshiba, there are loads there.

[UaDogga]

yeah. last time i checked i think i saw some for under 5 dollars.aud

[ashleyfrieze]

Thanks for the tips. I bought one. I'm just not very patient. My PMP will be out of action until they get around to delivering it. I could put the 20Gb drive back in, but I don't really want to take it to pieces too many times.

If there was someone nearby who could loan me the adapter, then it might speed things up.

This upgrade is turning into a major operation. It took weeks to get the drive too. However, I think it will be worthwhile. Unless I'm mistaken, the 60Gb drive is a bit quicker than the original 20, so the inter-track gap (the most annoying aspect of playing on that device) will be reduced.

[Rud1k]

Swissnife's partitions are recognised by the player if only they are less than 30gb. Try looking for Powerquest Partition Magic in eMule. And sure update the firmware!
PMP 140 with 60gb tutorial/kill the boot failure
take a look at this tutorial

[ashleyfrieze]

Weird. It was the partitionmagic bit that finally upset the PMP. I'm on the latest firmware and I had a 20Gb partition. The PMP has hung on bootup ever since I resized the partition to just under 60Gb.

I've ordered a 1.8" Toshiba USB adapter and I'll try to reformat and repartition the drive outside of the PMP with that. Then it's time for more messing about.

[ashleyfrieze]

Originally Posted by lynnhaber

Start over, delete the existing partition and create the partition leaving 8192 bytes unallocated at the end. Then procede as you did before. Should work

Given that some say to make the partition at under 30Gb in Swissnife and then resize it with Partition Magic, and given that I did that and it went pop, does anyone have any thoughts on how best to do the partitioning? I've got a 60Gb drive, a PMP-120 and the latest firmware.