hey all I just posted this over at AnythingButIpod.com and thought I would share with you guys also http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33193 (http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33193) I mean who dos not like looking inside your favored gadgets
This mod should also work with harddrive biased Ipods and maybe a few of the newer netbook computers....
My Mp3 player is a 30gb Creative Zen Vision:M, that started to have harddrive problems (The Click of Death)
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A few mounts ago I posted about an adpter that lets you replace the hardrive with a compact flash card
I have since had time to gather all the parts and try it out..
Step one opening the zen...
see http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/02/how-to-disassemble-the-creative-zen-vision-m.php (http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/02/how-to-disassemble-the-creative-zen-vision-m.php)
on how to get it open
Step 2 do you have a Zif harddrive or a Ide harddrive (mine was Zif)
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/1.jpg)
My zen with the back removed
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/2.jpg)
front cover Harddrive and back cover with battery
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/3.jpg)
close up on harddrive and ribbon cable release
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/4.jpg)
close up on harddrive motherboard plug
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/6.jpg)
Side "A" of harddrive ribbon cable
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/5.jpg)
Side "B" of harddrive ribbon cable (note white triangle points to pin one)
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/7.jpg)
32Gb Compact flash found on e-bay for $50
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/8.jpg)
Zif harddrive to compact flash adapter found on e0bay for $9
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/10.jpg)
Zif harddrive to compact flash adapter with compact flash installed
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/11.jpg)
close up of adapter (note white triangle points to pin one and must match pin one on harddrive ribbon)
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/12.jpg)
faceplate , compact flash adapter , back plate
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/13.jpg)
the compact flash adapter does not fit as snug as hardrive, I used some duct-tape to keep things from moving around to munch
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/14.jpg)
compact flash adapter sitting on top of tape and harddrive plunged into motherboard
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/15.jpg)
compact flash formatted and ready to go
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o160/drew1515/mp3/16.jpg)
me playing one of my favorite podcast
I test this for about a week everything seams to be working
total cost for upgrade about $70 us
Cool. I love mods like these.
That's really cool! I got a Creative Zen laying around here somewhere. ;)
Duct tape is kinda like the force, it has a light side, a dark side and it binds the universe together.
Great mod! I wish I had the patience to figure out things like this!
I love this sort of stuff too.
There were a whole load for adding big batteries into the old Palm T3 but I never dared try it. Flash for Disk replacements always seem like a good idea - they must add a little more robustness too. They've got to survive a drop better.
Only problem with flash is that it has a finite number of writes until it dies. Though for an application such as this that isn't a huge deal as it is read substantially more then it is written to.
Quote from: billybob476 on February 03, 2009, 05:11:50 AM
Only problem with flash is that it has a finite number of writes until it dies. Though for an application such as this that isn't a huge deal as it is read substantially more then it is written to.
While this is true, I've yet to meet someone who's aowned a FLASH device that's been written to death.
I think the downfall would be if it were used as a system drive, with regular writes, logging, swap file writes etc I could see the technology hit it's limit. I'm not sure how solid state drives are made but I don't think it's with conventional flash tech.
As I said, for uses like this (music players, etc) I don't foresee a problem unless you cause writes to the device continuously for years on end.