ZIF connector drives on H320/H340

[phusion]

Wow...nice tip on that ebay search enty. Brought up another one that
looks somewhat promising:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-1-8-ZIF-hard...QQcmdZViewItem

Even claims to, "fit most of IPOD", whatever that means.

If I could find a suitable drive I'd be willing to be the guinea on one of these...

[stickris]

There might have to be a bit of bending to get it in. But it looks like the pins would bend coming from the PCB.

[juanpa74]

I just bought an 80GB Zif hard disk for my "H360"
The ZIF-IDE adaptor is on its way from China..
It should arrive next week but also I am going to be away from home for 2 weeks.
It will depend if the adaptor arrive before I leave, if not you will have to wait till the end of the month.
I want to say about both linked adaptors on eBay that the pictures are different but If you look well I think it is the same one.
Also there is a thread at Rockbox forums: Possible ZIF to 1.8" IDE adapter! 100GB iriver H140?
someone had succes on a H1xx using this adaptor ADA-HDD-1.8-REV1
too bad I had ordered mine already. Also my German is not very good and I don't know how you order from them (And I can't find the adaptor in the English version of their website)

[juanpa74]

The ZIF to IDe adapter works fine.
The trouble is I am finding it hard to close the H340... maybe peeling the battery...
If I could find a longer ZIF ribbon cable...

[inluxication]

Juanpa74, first, thanks for going where few men (or women) have gone before, and letting us less intrepid souls know what you found.

Good news that this works in principle, but not so good if you can't close the case. Any chance you could provide some photos to show how things look? (You could put them on Flickr or something, and just link them here.) It would be nice to see how it all gets assembled, where the case problem is, and why a longer ribbon cable might help. That's a lot to ask, I know, but here's an easier request: can you say exactly what model hard drive you used, and what ZIF / IDE adapter (ebay link or whatever)?

Does anyone know whether the H140 case is roomier or less roomy than the H340?

[juanpa74]

Hi
This is the connector I am using: NEW!1.8"ZIF harddisk to 1.8" CF/IDE hard driver adapter on eBay, also IDE, Cables Connectors, Desktop Laptop Accessories, Computers Networking (end time 03-Mar-08 16:16:49 GMT)

The harddisk is a Toshiba 80GB MK8009GAH 1.8".
I wish I could take pictures or even a video. The problem is I have a Microsoft Exam tomorrow and after that I am flying away for 2 weeks. I may take all with me and upload some pictures but I can't promise anything.
The hard disk is shorter than the IDE ones but it seats over the connector because it is a bit longer than what it should.If I could find a longer cable I could turn the harddrive top to bottom and fit. Or if there was a cable with one extreme facing the other side.
I guess you need pictures to understand. But it would fit better. Of course the best solution would be a shorter connector (there is space..but we need to find someone to do it). Or a flexible connector, more like a cable extension like solltech? did)

There is a thread in rockbox forums where you may find info about the H140:
Possible ZIF to 1.8" IDE adapter! 100GB iriver H140?

[ivar00]

Originally Posted by juanpa74

The ZIF to IDe adapter works fine.
The trouble is I am finding it hard to close the H340... maybe peeling the battery...
If I could find a longer ZIF ribbon cable...

Hi,

I am into similar business, as I would like to replace my 80GB micro-ATA Toshiba HDD on my 1.5yrs old subnotebook with 120GB Samsung Spinpoint N2 HDD with zif connector.

I found a lot of useful info here, guys. Thank you all.

I found this offer of seemingly appropriate FFC longer cables on ebay.
The seller was not sure about the precise thickness of the cable (he told it is very thin and promised to measure it).
eBay Store - RAID GEAR: .5 MM PITCH, 1.00 MM PITCH, Headset Foam Earpads
Specifically:
FFC FPC flat ribbon cable 40 pins .5 mm pitch 4" L OS - eBay (item 220162496245 end time Apr-17-08 06:39:30 PDT)


You should be careful if you need SS (same side) or OS (other side) cable!

I will probably order one or two of those cables for my experiments. Someone in Europe may like to cooperate with me to share mailing costs from the US.

==============
BTW, juanpa74,

if I will be successful with installing 120GB zif HDD to my subnotebook, I will have my 80GB Toshiba with micro-ata for sale(i am in Germany), so you can upgrade your player without extra tweaks.

[ivar00]

Hi juanpa74,

I got your PM but I cannot reply because this forum requires from me 25 messages before i can reply to PM. Please send email to ivkiili@mail.ee. My HDD is MK8007GAH (if I remember correctly).

[shadesbass]

Originally Posted by ivar00

...I would like to replace my 80GB micro-ATA Toshiba HDD on my 1.5yrs old subnotebook ...

Which notebook do you have? Does the 80GB drive come as standard or did you have to retro-fit it?
I haven't heard of a product using the 8007GAH until now.

[ivar00]

I am not not sure what you mean by retro-fit.

My subnotebook is the latest edition of Dell Latitude X1. It is using 80GB Toshiba 1.8" HDD with micro-ata connector.

[shadesbass]

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Retrofitting refers to the addition of new technology or features to older systems.

Basically, did the 80GB drive come installed by Dell, or did you replace the original drive with the 80GB yourself?

[ivar00]

Thanks for teaching me one more English word!

It was shipeed by Dell with 80GB installed! Those were produced in Q1, Q2 2006 but those models of X1 with 80GB were not sold in Europe.

Now I am certain that I will sell my micro-ATA Toshiba 80GB.

I got an Esskabel adapter http://www.esskabel.de/Produkte/Ansc...1.8-ZIF-CF.pdf to try if a 120GB ZIF hard disk by Samsung can be installed into my notebook. It was electrically possible, I booted the laptop, formatted the disk, and installed linux on it without problem. I only don't like that the adapter is a little bit too thick and it doesn't fit well under the keyboard (though it does in principle).

I will probably return this 30 eur adapter back to the shop and wait for a different, smaller and cheaper adapter from China which I can try to change a little bit to fit it better without risking too much of money.

[stuffedspacedog]

Just to confirm that I got a 100gb MK1011GAH ZIF drive installed and running in my H140... check the H100 series forum for the details as I don't want to cross-post. Having worked with both H100 & H300, if it fits in one it should fit in the other.
Link here:
Upgrade H140 to 100GB

[juanpa74]

ivar, I sent you an email but they are returned.

30€ the esskabel adaptor seems too expensive,
And how do you buy from them?
If only they made a flexible adaptor...
So the one from esskabel is even bigger than the one from China? That is bad news.

Also I would be interested in the hard drive if I can't make the Zif one work.
But I would pay as much as I paid for the Zif one. I mean I got the 80GB zif to try check if that ZIF adaptor would work and fit, I would need even bigger capacity like 100GB.

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by ivar00

Now I am certain that I will sell my micro-ATA Toshiba 80GB.

I got an Esskabel adapter http://www.esskabel.de/Produkte/Ansc...1.8-ZIF-CF.pdf to try if a 120GB ZIF hard disk by Samsung can be installed into my notebook. It was electrically possible, I booted the laptop, formatted the disk, and installed linux on it without problem. I only don't like that the adapter is a little bit too thick and it doesn't fit well under the keyboard (though it does in principle).

I will probably return this 30 eur adapter back to the shop and wait for a different, smaller and cheaper adapter from China which I can try to change a little bit to fit it better without risking too much of money.

[ivar00]

Hi,

the old email works (but I heard from several people that emails have returned yesterday. i dont know the reason).

Now I got also the chinese adaptor. It is of the same size. Esskabel adapter can be made smaller and the chinese one cannot.

I will probably go with a longer FFC cable + chinese adapter for my purposes.

I will still need my Toshiba disk for a while: a disaster happened when I tried to remove the zif cable from Esskabel from the zif connector of the disk. I was really carefull, but the black lock of the zif connector of the new Samsung disk is broken now, because the cable shipped by Esskabel is slightly too thick (though it may be just allright if you want to fix it once and forever ....
With the thinner cable of the chinese adaptor there would be no problem like this!
Now I am into a hard business of searching for a zif connector used in my new disk to get a replacement of the tiny black plastic locker with 40 tiny holes.

If you or someone are really interested to purchase the Esskabel I can write on the forum where to click (in German). I will return mine back to esskabel.


It is just a difference in the construction of both adapters which makes difference depending on your specific hardware (the zif connector of esskabel adapter points inside the adapter, not outside, as in the chinese adapter).

[st5150]

Originally Posted by inluxication

I'm really surprised that no one has reported doing this yet, successfully or unsuccessfully; it's been years that lots of people have wanted it. How I wish someone would figure it out, someone other than me. As far as I know the only success story is Stolltech's handmade adapater. The adapter in phusion's post is cheap enough to make it a reasonable experiment for someone who has a ZIF drive kicking around, but I don't.

Searching ebay for << 1.8" ZIF Hard 1.8" IDE Adapter >> gives a few more listings than the one above, some of them cheaper (factoring in shipping).

Looks like it has been done for the H1XX series though:

ZIFToATAAdapter < Main < TWiki

HardDriveReplacement < Main < TWiki

I'm interested to know if anyone got the deal extreme ZIF to IDE adapter to fit inside an H320 using a 5mm HD and high capacity battery pack. Anyone heard of this being done?

[juanpa74]

I have been using a MK8009GAH 80Gb 8 mm hard disk on my H340 since March 2008.
Using an adaptor from eBay.It could be like the DealExtreme. It has been working fine since.
So yes ZIF drives had been working in the H340 for some time.
At the moment I did that the bigger drives were much expensive.And also I was lucky to get mine for about 60GBP then!
Now I can see HardDriveReplacement < Main < TWiki there is a 240GB one!! They must be really expensive at the moment... but lets wait and hope that work too!!
Good thing Toshiba abandoned the CE-ATA. I thought there would never be bigger ZIF drives. They are also coming with Micro-SATA. Somebody should start making adapters for that....
But those would be bulky I guess if different electrical connection is needed. So useless.
But I think by the time I have filled 240GB It may be time to get a new player..

EDIT: The MK1214GAH is GBP 98.70 at Span. www.span.com - IMtg120 - MK1214GAH HDD1902 - MiniDrive, MicroDrive 1.8", MP3 Drive, Ipod, Iriver, Video Ipod, Vaio, Gal, Gah - Toshiba 1.8" ATA7 MK1214GAH HDD1902 ZIF-40 71x54x8mm 4200rpm (120gb)
The MK2431GAH 240Gb is To be Announced.. it is not going to be cheap...