What can I do with a 5GB iPod drive?

...and some questions

I am not familiar with the drive connectors, are the drives from these IDE (like a laptop might have) or some variant thereof? I just do not know what the internal connector is, but I can think of a couple of suggestions based on what it is.

You could always put the complete iPod up for sale as parts or as a complete unit. Some folks (myself included) have parts/catalogs/sources that they may be able to get a replacement part for the broken connector.

Other than that, you could look into adapting a connector to the drive that would allow you to use it as a secondary hard drive. For example, if you had a early iMac, you could add this as a secondary hard drive (albeit the geomoetry would present its one set of challenges). You could also pursue your idea of recasing the drive as a USB device.

--DDTM

If you don't want the iPod with the broken FW port, I'll take it.

I've repaired a couple of similarly injured 'Pods.

The HD itself has an odd pin arrangement, I've not been able to find any ready-made adapter to connect to other systems, eg: PCMCIA or ATA. You'd have to roll yer own, not exactly an easy task. If you have been hesitant to solder the FW connector back on, I 'spect yer not a good candidate for such a hack.

Otherwise, I'd just suggest you sell off the bits.

dan k

When I took mine apart I thought it looked like a cf card connector. Probably not though.

sorry, I didn't mention that in my first reply. It's nearly the same as Toshiba's PC card HDs (MK5002MPL), just with an oddball(?) 50 pin ATA connector. Interestingly, Toshiba's drive model listing says MK5002MAL is 68 pin. Hmmmm. So no, it's not a CF card connector, good guess though. Here's the pinout, if anyone cares. If that url dies (likely!!), drill down from http://sdd.toshiba.com -> Documentation -> User guides . . .

My thought was to source or build an adapter so I could use it in a PC card slot. Toshiba at one time did sell a 1.8" HDD Developer's Kit which included a 2.5" adapter. Dunno if it's still available, I searched for it just now but no joy.
adapter board
1.8" connector
2.5" connector

adapter board pinout
adapter board power info

boardart.JPG
jumperdrawing.gif
adapter board dimensions (pdf)

I ended up using my spare working 5GB iPod drive to fix another 'Pod, so I never followed up.

dan k

Hi Guys,
Recently I had a problem with my old iPod (the old firewire version with 5 Gig drive). It just kept on reading from the HD (clicking noise) but the display was frozen, I tried to switch it off with button combinations without success. I couldn't wait until the battery was finished so I opened it. I also stripped a CompactFlash to PCMCIA adaptor (ex. Kingston) and removed it's cover so I only had the electronic part left. Pin 1 should be inserted at the side of the HD where a round hole is located on the connector. The oval hole is the side of pin 25. If you insert this into your (PC) laptop you get the message that an PCMCIA\UNKNOWN_MANUFACTURER is inserted! So I suppose it will work if we have the correct drivers, not?...
Something else I heard on the net was that there are FireWire system files located on the HD, so if you like to insert a bigger HD into your iPod you also need to copy the files to the new one. I'm not really sure I can read the data from a PC, but I will try to read them from a Mac G3 Laptop later on.
I keep it posted in this section.

I saw an for the WiebeTECH BittyDock in this months Mac World.

http://www.user-groups.net/news/bittydock.html

It allows you to use both Toshiba and Hitachi 1.8" drives via USB.

I believe the iPod's HDD is just a PCMCIA-ATA drive but with a non-PCMCIA connector. Don't put it in your laptop

See hackaday, they recently had an article about a guy who made an IDE adapter for his iPod.

No it isn't. If you do "just poke it in" it will probably destroy your pcmcia card slot, i.e. lots of bent pins.

Speaking of 5GB iPod drives, I was just given a 1st gen 5GB iPod with a bad hard drive. Interested in selling one?

I have an iPod (3rd gen.? touch pads, not buttons) with a bad HD.
Anybody know if the 5GB HD will fit? My busted 'pod is pretty slim.

I think if you insert a new hard drive you just run the iPod updater utility in Apps -> Utilities and this will put it all there and make it work. Any confirmations of this?

Also at iPodlinux.org in the installation guide they copy the apple firmware off and then put it make on with the new boatloader so you presumably could do this as well... I can remember what the specific files are *-)

About needing new hds i think u can buy them at stores on the net ...

Just got a 20GB SmartDisk FireFly drive, and just as I 'spected it's got an iPoddish drive inside. I forget the exact model number, but it's the same formfactor (and thickness!) as the one inside my gen1 5 gigger. I paid less, but brand new 20GB FireFly USB2 drives generally ebay for ~US$110.

I popped the FireFly's 20GB drive into the iPod, but of course the iPod updater balked. Bloody thing said the disk had the wrong structure or somesuch.

A bit of research later I belatedly discover the required 32mb boot partition my FireFly disk is of course lacking. Oh bugger. Now I gotta do some pdisk-type stuff, how dreadfully non-Maclike for an old Mac hand like me.

Still, I'll give it a go one day soon, looking forward to having a gen1 20 gigger iPod, just for giggles and sh1ts.

Yeah baby!!

dan k

This is the ultimate version of that :|

http://www.command-tab.com/index.php/ipod-super

anyway theres a basic explanation of the partitions if thats what you want but im guessing u already know

Alright, I stand corrected. Sorry if anyone busted their slot 8-)

The problem is getting the firmware. I've got every thing all soldered together and can't find teh firmware....

Grrrrrrrrrr. My 20GB drive ain't working in my 5GB iPod.

I succeeded in using pdisk to partition my 20GB Tosh MK2004GAL drive just the way it's supposed to be, but the drive just won't work properly in my gen 1 iPod. The drive keeps doing a weird clicking thing, over and over. The mechanism itself is fine, testing it with the FireFly USB-ATA bridge shows it to be working. But once in the iPod it becomes unresponsive.

I did get it to through the iPod update once, but the update failed (apparently) even though it seemed to go through it OK. I also tried directly loading the firmware from my 20GB gen 2 iPod, but that didn't work either.

Ah well, that's enough endless futile masochism for one evening, time to . . .

STOMP THE F&*%*%*(% THING INTO LITTLE PIECES AND SEND IT ALL STRAIGHT TO H*&%*%)^(_(^(^)()&%*% Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Whew! I feel better now. Thank you and goodnight,

dan k

Ex-parrot wrote:

I believe the iPod's HDD is just a PCMCIA-ATA drive but with a non-PCMCIA connector. Don't put it in your laptop

See hackaday, they recently had an article about a guy who made an IDE adapter for his iPod.

it's not PCMCIA, it's straight ATA. You can adapt it to ATA with no electronics at all.

I gathered a bunch of Toshiba docs 'bout the MK5002MAL drives into a .zip file here.

Of interest to anyone contemplating any sort of hacks involving this formfactor.

dan k

are you sure its not simply a compactflash port? since the size looks about right and the cf should have also exactly 50 pins, is compatible with ata (passive adapters); etc?

"bittydock" from http://www.wiebetech.com

look at this pdf file, from what i think they're saying it should be not only the same connector, but EXACTLY the same, minus some plastic tab to keep the cf from moving or something

http://www.wiebetech.com/specsheets/SS_BDK.pdf

_

just to be cautious:
it may be ATA but the drive requires 3.3v not 5v like a 2.5 laptop drive. so a straight pin to pin cable wouldn't work. i've been looking at weibetech's combo dock adapters to fit my ipod hardrive into my g4 cube.

I recently got a 60 ipod hard drive to use in a computer. I scoured the internet and finally found the answers to your and my questions about connecting a drive. The Toshiba drives in the Ipod is a ata interface drive that almost straight connects to ide. The drive itself has 50 pins, but even the toshiba tech support could not tell me why because it only needs 44 to connect. A standard compact flash slot has 50 pins in the same layout as the hard drive. This means that it is possible to plug a drive into a compact flas connector, but the hard drive will NOT be read as a compact flash card. To solve the prolbem you could buy a compact flash connector and then solder it to a laptop ide connector, as all of the pins but power are just straight through, or you could do like I did and order one pre made. Mine cost 30 pounds, about $45 at the time from http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=4267, but it took over a month to get in. Now that I have connected it to my computer, I have run into another prolbem and that is that the computer sees this drive as the primary drive. I want to know how to make it a slave drive. Maybe that is what the other pins are for.

After a week of research, this forum has been the most helpful - I feel like I'm getting much closer to my goal. I have a 1G iPod with a dead hard drive. I do not want to replace the drive with another Toshiba "GAL" series. I want, no WILL, replace it somehow, with flash. I am continuing my research, and will make attempts in the next week or two to get it done. I will post my results when the experiment is done. And any help or advice anyone might have would be much appreciated.

Here's what I'm about 80% sure of. CF, like the Toshibas, are 3.3V. The pinout is not exactly the same, but similar. The goal is to 1.) make it work, and 2.) make it all fit in the original case. I'm feeling optemistic.