I-pod Hard Drive.

[Richb2004v2]

My non-photo, click wheel, (3rd Gen I think) i-pod went down some months back. The hard drive is corrupt and needs replacing. I can not find a 20 Gig replacement in Thailand, other than a second hand one in Pantip, which I don't want since it has a short guarantee and might go down too. Rather than throw the thing away I was thinking of replacing the hard drive with a flash memory of 2 or 4 gig. I have looked on the net and can't find out if this is possible. I know the nano's and micros are flash memory and the others are actual hard drives. I asked in the Apple shop in Pantip if I would be able to do this. The girl said yes, but to be honest I think she would have said yes if I'd asked her if it's possible to turn it into a time machine.

Has anyone any experience of doing this, or any ideas as to its feasibility?

[cdnvic]

I don't think your firmware would support it. Know anyone who could hook it up to a mac and try reformatting the drive for you?

[dekka007]

Forget it. Electronically it is possible - but you would need a PHD in micro electronics and access to parts that I am not sure that you could even buy to convert the IDE etc. to solid state and then reprogram the firmware to change the access with regarding buffering scanning storage.

The time machine idea is probably easier to do than what you are contemplating

Easier / Cheaper / Quicker to buy a nano or new ipod.

Edited February 24, 2007 by dekka007

[Dakhar]

I have a 2 gig flash drive NANO.... it is fast, but the battery life stinks. The 8 gig flash drive is about 1K baht cheaper than a 30 gig HDD i-pod.

So it is a hard call.

I have read that Apple will release a 32 gig Flash drive during 2007. That may be worth waiting for.

[Grover]

My non-photo, click wheel, (3rd Gen I think) i-pod went down some months back. The hard drive is corrupt and needs replacing. I can not find a 20 Gig replacement in Thailand, other than a second hand one in Pantip, which I don't want since it has a short guarantee and might go down too. Rather than throw the thing away I was thinking of replacing the hard drive with a flash memory of 2 or 4 gig. I have looked on the net and can't find out if this is possible. I know the nano's and micros are flash memory and the others are actual hard drives. I asked in the Apple shop in Pantip if I would be able to do this. The girl said yes, but to be honest I think she would have said yes if I'd asked her if it's possible to turn it into a time machine.

Has anyone any experience of doing this, or any ideas as to its feasibility?

I'm not sure if the ipod uses 1.8 inch HDD but if they do, 32GB flash drives for 2.5 & 1.8 inch drives have been out for a while, as reported here

they drain less battery, are more shock resistant, 3 x quicker access times but now expensive and limited writes.

i got a 2G 2GB nano and its got a very high build and sound quality

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

My non-photo, click wheel, (3rd Gen I think) i-pod went down some months back. The hard drive is corrupt and needs replacing. I can not find a 20 Gig replacement in Thailand, other than a second hand one in Pantip, which I don't want since it has a short guarantee and might go down too. Rather than throw the thing away I was thinking of replacing the hard drive with a flash memory of 2 or 4 gig. I have looked on the net and can't find out if this is possible. I know the nano's and micros are flash memory and the others are actual hard drives. I asked in the Apple shop in Pantip if I would be able to do this. The girl said yes, but to be honest I think she would have said yes if I'd asked her if it's possible to turn it into a time machine.

Has anyone any experience of doing this, or any ideas as to its feasibility?

buy a HD over the net from a company like Ipodresq or any of the many companies out there. I bought a replacement battery(gen 3) for $17 and shipped it to a friend in the states and they sent it airmail to me. No import duties or anything. Just ship it USPS airmail registered which costs $20 and change.

but yeah the new Nano's etc are cheap, slim and longer battery life.

[Richb2004v2]

How much are the nano now?

To be honest I have not got a nano because the memory size it too small. I have 8 Gig of tracks already.

The real reason I can not bring myself to buy a new i-pod is because I only had the broken one for 18 months.

I might try to get a new drive from UK and have some one bring it out for me.

Thanks for the help anyway. I almost bought the flash memory at the weekend. I felt sure it was the same. Now I am home and look at the old i-pod drive I see it says HDD on the back. That would have been another waste of money.

[Rice_King]

The iPod SUPER certainly isn't pretty, but it IS feasible. The instructions are very detailed. Coincidentally, the example shown is of the 3rd gen iPod, the same as the OP's.

[Richb2004v2]

The iPod SUPER certainly isn't pretty, but it IS feasible. The instructions are very detailed. Coincidentally, the example shown is of the 3rd gen iPod, the same as the OP's.

Wow, thats a bit extreme. I think my unit is a 4th gen.

Anyway, I have found a new drive for 35 GBP. I will have it brought across by a work mate.

Thanks anyway.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

The iPod SUPER certainly isn't pretty, but it IS feasible. The instructions are very detailed. Coincidentally, the example shown is of the 3rd gen iPod, the same as the OP's.

Wow, thats a bit extreme. I think my unit is a 4th gen.

Anyway, I have found a new drive for 35 GBP. I will have it brought across by a work mate.

Thanks anyway.

check it out. Replacing a HD with flash in Ipod

http://geektechnique.org/projectlab/753/ho...lash-based-ipod