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Author Topic: What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?  (Read 3963 times)

stuffman

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« on: July 01, 2004, 05:59:16 pm »
My Rio Riot 20GB MP3 player died a few weeks ago (fried the system board when I hooked it up to my home-made car adaptor). It's got a 20GB 2.5in laptop drive, just begging to be used for a project, along with a battery that seems good enough to power it for a few hours.

My question is, is there any way to attach this to the Zaurus. I know that Compact Flash is just an extension of the ATA IDE interface, so theoretically it should be possible to attach the drive to the Z. The problem is, I cannot find anyone who manufactures an IDE-to-CF adaptor, although CF-to-IDE are quite abundant (remember the iOpener; it ran off of a CF card acting as a HD). The drive can easily be powered from battery I have, so power consumption should not be too much of an issue.

The only major obstacles I see is the phyical interface and any potential memory limit on the OS side (i.e., is > 4GB ok?). Any ideas or suggestions?
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tz

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2004, 11:31:07 am »
I looked very hard for one but was unable to find a real CF to IDE interface.

I already have a CF to PCMCIA adapter, and even tried looking for externally powered (This is a bit more complicated than you might imagine) PCMCIA to IDE boxes that were 3.3v friendly but couldn't find one.  I could do USB via the RATOC card.

The Toshiba pcmcia drives work, and I have a 5Gb card via CF-PCMCIA adapater, but that was the best I could do.
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brownb2

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2004, 02:43:41 pm »
Quote
My Rio Riot 20GB MP3 player died a few weeks ago (fried the system board when I hooked it up to my home-made car adaptor). It's got a 20GB 2.5in laptop drive, just begging to be used for a project, along with a battery that seems good enough to power it for a few hours.

My question is, is there any way to attach this to the Zaurus. I know that Compact Flash is just an extension of the ATA IDE interface, so theoretically it should be possible to attach the drive to the Z. The problem is, I cannot find anyone who manufactures an IDE-to-CF adaptor, although CF-to-IDE are quite abundant (remember the iOpener; it ran off of a CF card acting as a HD). The drive can easily be powered from battery I have, so power consumption should not be too much of an issue.

The only major obstacles I see is the phyical interface and any potential memory limit on the OS side (i.e., is > 4GB ok?). Any ideas or suggestions?
Why not go cf -> pcmcia -> IDE?

Here's half the journey:

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=105200

I read somewhere about someone who'd done this and had not success due to the fact you may need some external power for the hard disk tho ( I believe the zaurus can output 3.3v but the drive requires 5v

Personally I just went out and bought the largest CF card I could get at the time (2 years ago was 512MB)
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stuffman

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2004, 01:32:28 am »
Any other suggestions?
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5GB Seagate ST-1 Microdrive from Rio Carbon, Asst. Other CF Cards.
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AmbiCom WL1100C-CF WiFi Card.
Some GPS Card I Can't Remember...
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padishah_emperor

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2004, 02:48:37 am »
I asked a similar question many moons ago, I wanted to know if I could get a 40GB HD wired upto my Z via the CF, but I found nothing really.  The Ratoc USB host is an idea though, that and a USB chassis for the drive, if that's possible?
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SteelMyst

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2004, 06:12:32 am »
As padishah_emperor said one of these would work.

http://www.cputopia.com/cputopiaonline/drive-enclosures.html

I used one for a standard 3.5 inch drive and it worked like a charm. However, you may need to find one that's externally powered. The Ratoc card only puts out 100mA(5v), which may not be enough to power a harddrive.  Oh, and make sure the drive enclosure is compatible with USB 1.1.
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maslovsky

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2004, 03:21:46 pm »
I would add - don't expect good performance from the hard drive attached to the USB Host card. Too many slow interfaces in between the HDD and Zaurus...
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arniel

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2004, 12:25:31 pm »
Sure it's possible.

I got one up-and-running using a CF -> PCMCIA adapter, then a Apricorn EZ-GIG PCMCIA -> IDE interface that I picked up via eBay.

It's true, the Z only puts out 3.3v for the drive, which was just enough to get an ancient Toshiba drive working, but not an almost-as-old IBM, even though they both specified the same voltage.

I plan to splice a DC-DC convertor into the IDE cable, but I'm not going to until I can find the parts to make up a new IDE cable.  Can't buy one as it's a 44 pin (2.5in) type, which has a different number of pins, and different spacing to the generic IDE cables in desktop PCs.

Does anyone know of a supplier with these cables?
 Performance seemed pretty good, but I was copying a file from SD, so I suspect that was the limiting factor.
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mitchrl

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2004, 02:30:36 pm »
Why don't you try one of these (Notebook Adapter). Then all you would need to do is supply power through the power connector.

Robert
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arniel

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2004, 07:15:05 am »
That's a nice idea, but the PCMCIA adapter already has a 2.5in IDC connector, so I'd have to go 2.5in -> 3.5in adapter (as in your link), 3.5in -> 3.5in coupler, 3.5in -> 2.5in adapter, which would be a lot of cable, not to mention having to find/build a coupler.
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mitchrl

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2004, 06:50:12 pm »
Sorry as I should have read your post a little closer.

This might be a little complicated as the 44 pin connector carries power to the notebook drive as opposed to a 40/80pin ribbon. You will probably have to isolate your power supply from the power coming from the Zaurus.

I don't know if this will help but this link points to a great resource for custom ide cables. They describe various combinations of 2.5 and 3.5 drives in laptops and desktops.
Good luck!

Robert
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arniel

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What to Do With 2.5in Hard Drives?
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2004, 05:27:55 am »
Thanks for the link - this looks ideal.  Now, about shipping one item to the UK...

Arnie
« Last Edit: July 30, 2004, 05:29:36 am by arniel »
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