Making new case to handle 2.5" or 3.5" drive in H100 or H300 series - possible?

[adam917]

Is this possible? Would it work if you did such a thing, with an adaptor and hooked it up? It may be nice for a home set-up, where you may never need to move the unit much.

[shadesbass]

It would theoretically be possible, but you'd need an external power supply for the 3.5" (and possibly the 2.5") drive.
You'd also need a great big hole in your player to get the cable out.

Post up photos if you try it!

If you're using it at home, why not build a media PC (apart from the obvious cost)? You can even get an IR remote then.
I have my PC (no IR remote ) connected up to my hi-fi speakers, and since all the music that is on my player is also on my PC (plus LOTS more) I'm only losing out on having to use a 19" widescreen TFT instead of a tiny monochrome LCD screen.

[colo]

It has already been done with an H100, if I'm right. I think I've already seen pics in this forum.

[adam917]

Originally Posted by shadesbass

It would theoretically be possible, but you'd need an external power supply for the 3.5" (and possibly the 2.5") drive.
You'd also need a great big hole in your player to get the cable out.

Post up photos if you try it!

If you're using it at home, why not build a media PC (apart from the obvious cost)? You can even get an IR remote then.
I have my PC (no IR remote ) connected up to my hi-fi speakers, and since all the music that is on my player is also on my PC (plus LOTS more) I'm only losing out on having to use a 19" widescreen TFT instead of a tiny monochrome LCD screen.

I want gapless audio and fast seeking many softwares on Windows don't do it (well the seeking, yes). Rockbox can play FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, & MP3 gaplessly.

Originally Posted by colo

It has already been done with an H100, if I'm right. I think I've already seen pics in this forum.

Can you supply or point me to these pics?

[shadesbass]

In the H1xx hard drive FAQ (link in my signature) there is a link to a thread started by the_winch, who got an 80GB 3.5" drive to work with his H140, but the photo link seems to be down at the moment.
You could try searching the forums, as I know several people have asked about this in the past. Somebody else may have posted photos.

[Step666]

I've definitely seen pictures of an iPod attached to a 3.5" drive in the past.
I think it was referred to as an 'UberPod'.

It must technically be possible so long as you can get ahold of the relevent adaptor cable. But, as shadesbass pointed out, it would probably be impractical.

[the_winch]

I made a 1.8" to 3.5" cable. I took a 3.5" ide lead and chopped the end off so I had the 3.5" connector with about 8" of cable attached.
The 1.8" connector pins are the same pitch as compact flash so I used an old compact flash card for its connector. Old compact flash cards should be available on ebay for peanuts if you don't have one.
I then googled for pinouts for both drives and set about soldering the wires from the cable to the correct pins on the compact flash connector.

As noted you would also have to power the drive. I'm sure 2.5" drives are 5v which would make it simpler since you could use the same power supply for the player and the drive. I think the iriver supply should be able to provide enough current for both the player and drive.

I don't know if there is a limit to disk size and what it is. I found 80gb to work perfectly but I don't have any bigger disks to test.

The cheap webhost the photos where on appears to have disapeared and I don't think I have any backups. I can probably find the cable and get some pics of that if it would help.

[shadesbass]

The master returns!
I did take an educated guess (from the photo the_winch provided) at the pinout for the 1.8" drives in this thread (post #5), so if you use that diagram and wire it up to a standard 3.5" IDE cable it should work, but I'd check on the pinouts of both connectors first, just to make sure.
I've no idea about connecting 2.5" drives, although the_winch is right - if they run on 5V the standard iRiver charger should have enough power to supply both the player and the hard drive since you won't be powering a 1.8" drive anymore (which requires 500mA IIRC) - I ran my player on a charger with 1/3rd of the power rating of the standard ones for several months.