From: Neon John <johngd_at_bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 23:19:34 -0400

Or....

80gb in 45 minutes.

yep, sports fans, 'tis true. I just installed a Toshiba MK8025GAS 80 gig
drive in my JBR. It was probably the most painless drive install I've ever
done. I was able to do it using XP without resorting to Win98. I'll recap for
everyone's benefit.

I ordered the drive from Page Computer (can't recommend, as they have a 15%
restocking charge that isn't disclosed on the order but that's another story).
I ordered a USB/IDE adapter from NewEgg (would have ordered the drive from
them too, except that they insist on collecting TN sales tax) CABLE ADPTR
QS|USB EZGO (Qty=1,Price=35.00) I decided to order this adapter rather than
spend time trying to get the drive to format in the JBR. It might have gone
just fine but my patience wears thin easily when dealing with computers.

This kit is da bomb. It comes with the USB/ide adapter, a whippy little
switchmode 12/5 volt power supply, an adapter for the laptop drive connectors
and an IDE extension cord. The adapter simply plugs into the drive and the
USB cable plugs into the computer. No driver needed for XP boxes (Win98
drivers supplied) It mounts just like an Archos.

When I plugged it in, the hardware was recognized but the drive wasn't.
Hadn't been partitioned or formatted.

I've never installed a raw drive under XP so I used the handy F1 key, searched
for "partition a drive" and found the command line program DISKPART. I also
found the GUI later but I used DISKPART. This utility allowed me to create a
partition, make it active and assign a drive letter. A drive letter is
necessary for the formatting process. The GUI that can be started from the
help screen will do the same thing but I didn't find it until after I got the
job done.

I then used the h2format utility available on the rockbox web page to do a
high level FAT32 format. The command line is "h2format x:" where x is the
drive letter assigned the new drive. This utility ran so fast on my machine
that I thought at first it hadn't done anything.

The next thing I did was to connect my JBR and mass copy all the files over to
the new drive. This USB/ide adapter really strokes, as it took under 20
minutes to copy about 16 gig. I use a Belkin USB2 PC Card adapter in my
laptop.

At this point the drive was ready to install in my Jukebox. Opening the JBR
was fairly easy after looking at some of the disassembly instructions on the
RockBox site. I curse the pointy-headed prick who designed those blue
bumpers!!!! All that was necessary on my unit was to remove the batteries,
remove the face and remove the unit from the back pan. The drive pops right
out. No unsoldering necessary. I did give my battery contacts a careful
look.

I stuck the drive in, stuck in some batteries and flashed Rockbox booted right
up. Amazing how well that works.

The worst part of the whole process is reassembly. Getting those bumpers in
is a chore for someone with arthritic hands. I finally did and now I'm the
proud owner of an 80 gb Jukebox. I can now have my entire music collection in
one place. Whippy!

While I've been typing this I have reformatted the old Hitachi 20 gig drive to
NTFS to use as a backup device for my laptop. The old drive is a pig while
writing. I copied the data off the drive in under 20 minutes. That was with
the drive in the JBR and the new on on the USB adapter. I'm now copying over
about 12 gb from "my documents" and file manager is reporting 120 minutes to
go. Hmmm.

Anyway, the JBR is MUCH more responsive with this new drive in. When I
navigate into a directory the contents snap up on the screen almost instantly
as long as I haven't waited long enough for the drive to spin down. It would
take the better part of 2 seconds with the old drive, just long enough to
spoil the rythem.

One little thing that I noticed that might be of interest. When I
right-clicked on the old drive to initiate a format, the pop-up gave me a
choice of NTFS or FAT32. I don't know if it would have done that on a virgin
drive but it did on the previously FAT32 formatted drive. I wish I'd noticed
that before I'd used H2format.exe.

John

---
John De Armond
johngdDONTYOUDARE_at_bellsouth.net
http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/o/johngd/
Cleveland, Occupied TN
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Received on 2004-06-23