attention iPod dissectors: will new Toshiba HDs fit into older iPods?

I've never heard of it and I've been around these forums for a while.

You might want to head over to iPodHacks.com. They tend to do more stuff like what you want to do.

found pics of the 20 GB dissection:
http://www.ipoding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=albums.php&set_albumListPage=1

no image that shows the HD's model number, though.

i guess i need to open up my old iPod and see for myself...

As for formatting a new drive:

Linux will allow you to do a bit-for-bit copy of the firmware from your old device to your new device. However, I reckon apples utilities might do the partitioning and uploading of the firmware anyway :)

Just out of interest; how much are these mini hard disks?

LOL, OK then this conversation seems totally academic at the moment then :)

Presumably in 2-3 years these micro-HDs will be a lot cheaper though, so us old-skool iPod owners (and those with the hacker spirit) will be able to overhaul our iPods with a higher density HD (and therefore higher capacity - maybe 40 gigs on one platter available by then) and a higher capacity battery. I can't see myself wanting a different media player for a while (maybe 5 years at least), the iPod is plenty small enough, it looks good and it does everything I want.

please try it and post this will be very interesting if it works

elmy: you are exactly right.

"Presumably in 2-3 years these micro-HDs will be a lot cheaper though, so us old-skool iPod owners (and those with the hacker spirit) will be able to overhaul our iPods with a higher density HD."

that's basically what i want to do. i want more capacity, and Apple flipped the script and changed the interface that i liked. i want to keep what i like AND get the HD upgrade.

elmy again: i would also agree that the iPod updaters will do the formatting for me. maybe not the partitioning. there's got to be a way though, if the Apple updaters don't do it. i could just give them a call and ask... ha ha.

mike: the hard drive is much less than the cost of a 40 GB iPod. (well, not for the cost of mine, but then again i can sell the 40 GB iPod for a lot more money than the cost of the drive, if that puts it into perspective). the 1.8" 40 GB hard drive that Toshiba makes (same as in the iPod) goes for around $200 online.
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=348882&store=ecost&source=ECOSTCNET&adcampaign=email,ECOSTCNET

well... now i just have to convince myself to open it up!

no the new 20 gig ipod hd is smaller. I have a 20 gig 2nd gen. and it is the 8mm thick drive that uses the spacer on it. the mk2003gah is the 2nd gen drive. the mk2004gal is the new drive. look at the thicknesses of the ipods compared with the older ones. the new 20 gig is thinner than the new 40 gig.

as far as the voltages go... the pinout specs are exactly the same. voltages included. i know that the 1st and 2nd gens will run the hard drives no matter which model the board was originally from. I have 7 of these so i know from experience. that being said i have no experience with the 3rd gens.

can anybody back me up on this?

You could get that Speck Products Flip Stand man. Its clear hard plastic and from trying it out it's quite nice and smaller than you'd think. It fits the 40GB perfectly, the 10, the 15 and the 20GB need and insert. Try it, it may make you change your mind since it's sorta like the iSee.

well, this whole thread is my attempt at research... i haven't cracked anything open yet.

if someone can get Linux running on the iPod, then there's at least a chance that swapping out the hard drives will be a piece of cake... on the other hand, maybe there's a reason why i haven't seen any documentation on this hack being pulled off... because it hasn't worked.

as for reading the new drive on my PC (or my Powerbook), it's just an unpartitioned drive when it comes from Toshiba, right? why would i not be able to connect it to either computer, then dump an image of the old iPod's drive onto the empty drive? if i could make a bit-for-bit image of the old hard drive as someone else here suggested, i would be copying the "visible" files like iPod_Control and the "hidden" partition that contains the OS.

> The only place to get those drives is out of another iPod.

right... so even if the above trick fails, i still have two perfectly functional iPods, because i haven't even opened up either one yet. i could take the hard drive out of my 40 GB iPod and put it into the old one and run the iPod 1.3 updater. the way i see it, any complexity that Apple has built in has come with later models, not earlier ones... the 2nd-gen models have proved to be quite hackable. if i have a problem any step of the way, i can just put the drives back in their proper places. i'm out $200 for the new Toshiba, but i can still return it or sell it... the price of experimentation.

your note about the firmware being programmed to only recognize 10 and 20 GB drives might be wrong, since at least one person has successfully swapped out their drives with no ill consequences ( http://users.wpi.edu/~sethm/iPod%20Dissection/iPod%20Dissection.html ). it seems like it would take extra work by Apple's iPod team to make the software recognize only certain drive capacities... and they may well have done that, in the interest of making the iPod harder to hack. but then again they might have decided that it wasn't worth their time and would make their own future upgrades require more programming.

your comments imply that the obstacles are formidable. i have no doubt that Apple would make it very difficult to pull off, because if word got out that you could upgrade it yourself, they wouldn't sell as many new iPods because the people who are brave enough to open up the case would do so... it would be sort of like this WMA debacle. but i am definitely not in any hurry to screw up either of my iPods, so i appreciate your comments and hope you can respond with more detailed information about the firmware and disk mode.

i found a link here that says you can swap them out, but who knows, it's TechTV:
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3472745,00.html

i think my best chance would be a straight-up swap of the drives like i'd originally intended... if they're the same size (8mm), and i don't break any of the traces, i don't think there will be too much of a problem... aside from that whole waranty-voiding thing :(

I have checked the model # of the drive inside which is mk2003gah 20 gb 2nd gen.

as for the reason for the # of ipods I have look here.the reason i have so many ipods... (http://ipodlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=131121#post131121)

I am currently working on a ipod hd to desktop converter to see if you can use a desktop or laptop hd with the ipod. "why" you ask?
because.

as for the firmware... only thing you can do is swap the drives and try to run the ipod updater to see if it will install the firmware on the bigger drive. I have not pulled the code off of the ipod to see if any size limitations are built into the software.

I can say however that my 2nd gen will recognize my 1st gen 5gb hd.

since he is talking about an ipod hd to ipod hd swap i do not think that firmware will be incompatable. guess you wont know for sure till you try it.

Originally posted by iso-9600
[B]well, this whole thread is my attempt at research... i haven't cracked anything open yet.

That's good. Somewhere at ipoding.com they have the same info that I'm saying. Or at least they have it scattered throughout their website.

as for reading the new drive on my PC (or my Powerbook), it's just an unpartitioned drive when it comes from Toshiba, right? why would i not be able to connect it to either computer, then dump an image of the old iPod's drive onto the empty drive? if i could make a bit-for-bit image of the old hard drive as someone else here suggested, i would be copying the "visible" files like iPod_Control and the "hidden" partition that contains the OS.

Right. So theoretically you could put the new non-Apple drive into any iPod and put it into disk mode. But the reality is that it won't function properly in disk mode. So you could save the image of the old iPod onto your computer. But you won't be able to copy that image to the new drive because the iPod doesn't work in disk mode with non-Apple hard drives. That's where the problem is.

However, if you could access the new hard drive without using the iPod, such as through an adapter (I have one, but I don't know where you can actually find them, it converts the hard drives 1.8" ATA interface to a standard 2.5" ATA, and then another adapter converts that to standard 3.5" ATA so I can put it into my PC) and copy the image over to the new drive, then the iPod will work fine in mp3 mode. But it won't work in disk mode. You would also have to re-partition the drive to take advantage of the extra hard drive space.

The whole deal with the iPod not working in disk mode with non-Apple drives is best explained by the hard drive's special made-for-Apple firmware. All hard drives have their own firmware. It's not the same as the iPod's firmware/OS.

your note about the firmware being programmed to only recognize 10 and 20 GB drives might be wrong, since at least one person has successfully swapped out their drives with no ill consequences ( http://users.wpi.edu/~sethm/iPod%20Dissection/iPod%20Dissection.html ). it seems like it would take extra work by Apple's iPod team to make the software recognize only certain drive capacities... and they may well have done that, in the interest of making the iPod harder to hack. but then again they might have decided that it wasn't worth their time and would make their own future upgrades require more programming.

That transplantation works because firmware 1.X supports all 1st and 2nd gen iPods, which means it supports 5, 10, and 20GB hard drives. So transplanting between a 5 and 10GB shouldn't pose any problems. Putting a 5GB into a 3rd gen ipod may not be possible. Likewise, putting a 15, 30, 40GB drive in a 1st or 2nd gen iPod might not work either. I don't know about putting a 20GB drive into a 1st gen 5GB iPod, but it should work, provided that the 20GB drive has an Apple logo on it.

i found a link here that says you can swap them out, but who knows, it's TechTV:
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3472745,00.html


Well I guess if they say it works it does. But note that they specifically say the hard drives have to come from iPods.

Remember the key is that it's only worthwhile to do upgrades/transplants with hard drives that came out of other ipods. It's possible to use non-Apple hard drives, but every time you want to modify data on the hard drive, you'd have to open up your ipod, take out the hard drive, put it into your computer, and put it back into the iPod.

I'd take a picture of that adapter I have so you can see it, but I don't have a digital camera. However, it says Toshiba on it, and the part number is FADPT2 and below that is another number S00257SMTGO1.

Putting a 40 GB drive in a Gen 1 would produce the ultimate pod. Try it!!!!

I would also love to put a 40GB hard drive in my G2 someday if it wasn't too much trouble or cost too much. I like the G2 design even though it's a bit bigger. But anything over a $150 or so, and I would just upgrade to a G4.

People sell broken iPods on EBay, sometimes they just have broken displays or controls. Might be worth a shot if you could get the hard drive for relatively cheap. That's the only way I see this being cheap enough.

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111402&highlight=mk3006gal