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zoroaster68 · Sep 15, 2005, 11:08 PM

My ipod's 5 gig hd recently died, and I'm trying to find a replacement. I know that 10 gig drives will fit, and even 15s, but 20s are when it gets more complicated. Which drives can fit and work in a 1st generation ipod?

- Rob

jdc45 · Sep 15, 2005, 11:17 PM

Just buy a new one, they are 300 for a 20g and your life will be so much easier than trying to replace a hard drive.

vinster · Sep 15, 2005, 11:18 PM

Probably need to buy a drive off of one of those iPod web sites. Perhaps they might know what the largest size drive is that will fit in a 1st gen.

zoroaster68 · Sep 16, 2005, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by jdc45

Just buy a new one, they are 300 for a 20g and your life will be so much easier than trying to replace a hard drive.

You are a moron. Opening an ipod is easy as pie, and you can get a 10 gig drive for like $30 or so.

Now, it would help if someone who wasn't retarded would answer my question: What is the largest drive that works in a 1st gen ipod?

wilsonng · Sep 16, 2005, 01:20 AM

Maybe it would be good to check out www.ipodresq.com and ask them what HDs they have for the iPod 1G. I'm sure they'll know.

wilsonng · Sep 16, 2005, 01:22 AM

Maybe it would be good to check out www.ipodresq.com and ask them what HDs they have for the iPod 1G. They mention that they can repair almost anything so they should have an idea of what can fit.

zoroaster68 · Sep 16, 2005, 09:45 AM

I emailed them, but their answer was fairly cryptic. They said I could fit up to a 20 gig drive, but I know that that's only partially true. The 20 gigs from 3rd and 4th gens should work, but 2nd gen 20 gig drives were thick, and wouldn't fit. So now the question is do I play it safe and get a 15 gig drive, or do I risk it and get a 30 or 40 gig drive?

wilsonng · Sep 16, 2005, 09:23 PM

I'm guessing that improved technology allowed the 3G and 4G drive sizes to get smaller. I wouldn't risk a 30 or 40 basically because it may not fit your iPod. It's pretty tight in there as it is.

In any case, you tripled your capacity from a 5GB to a 15GB. Perhaps the 4G 20GB should be able to fit into the thicker iPod 1G body?

Railroader · Sep 17, 2005, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by zoroaster68

You are a moron. Opening an ipod is easy as pie, and you can get a 10 gig drive for like $30 or so.

Now, it would help if someone who wasn't retarded would answer my question: What is the largest drive that works in a 1st gen ipod?

What's with all the hostility? He only offered advice he thought would be a better solution.

You need to take some medication or something dude.

iMacfan · Sep 17, 2005, 01:03 PM

You'd have to check this all out, but I believe that all full size ipods have used the same physical size HDs apart from their thickness, the main difference between them being whether or not they have 1 or two platters. All 40 and 60Gb ones so far are 2 platters, but there have been 2 platter 30Gbs in the 3G iPods, and a single platter one in the iPod photo.

The original iPod was a single disk one, so 30Gb is currently your max size, unless you can find one of the new 40Gbs which has not yet appeared in an iPod. Now, this is not to say that they would work in the original one, as the software may not see all that space, or there may be a subtle change in interface or connector, though I would be surprised as I'd expect it to be a standard variant of IDE/ATA.

If you can get one of these huge disks to work, it would be excellent, as these new disks are rated to work for a far longer time than the first ones, and draw much less power.

However, despite all this, I'd recommend that you either get an original style 5 or 10, because that would be very cheap. If you are tempted by any larger sizes, a new iPod photo would not be such a bad idea, as Apple get huge discounts for buying the components in bulk, and you also get USB2, a colour screen and a brand spanking new battery.

Hope these ruminations help,

David

zoroaster68 · Sep 17, 2005, 05:56 PM

Alright, he clarified his email. He said any 10 or 15 gig drive will work, and the 20 gig drives from a 3rd or 4th gen iPod would work great. Fantastico.

John G. Stillmank · Sep 20, 2005, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by zoroaster68

You are a moron. Opening an ipod is easy as pie, and you can get a 10 gig drive for like $30 or so.

Now, it would help if someone who wasn't retarded would answer my question: What is the largest drive that works in a 1st gen ipod?

Since when did politeness and manners go out of style?

zoroaster68 · Sep 20, 2005, 09:02 PM

The same time people thought it was easier to spend over $200 than to crack open a small consumer device and replace a hard drive.

ghporter · Sep 20, 2005, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by zoroaster68

The same time people thought it was easier to spend over $200 than to crack open a small consumer device and replace a hard drive.

A hard drive that, I must point out, is NOT a basic, "get it at CompUSA" device. The iPod uses a microdrive, and those are most certainly not as easy or inexpensive to get as desktop drives or even high-end laptop drives. Apple gets them in large quantities so they can afford to price the iPod for about what a consumer would pay for the microdrive itself. THAT is the point of jdc45's post, and I have to agree.

Further, the state of the art has improved considerably since the original iPod was introduced, enough so that buying a 20GB iPod today is nothing at all like getting two 10GB 1st Gen iPods. With the advances in both the hardware and the iPod's OS, the only reason I can think of to crack one open to upgrade the drive is for the thrill and challenge of it-and I am a born tinkerer.

Civility is ALWAYS supposed to abound here. Rudeness is NOT acceptable, particularly outside the Lounge.

budster101 · Sep 20, 2005, 11:19 PM

na-no.

Eriamjh · Sep 21, 2005, 03:15 PM

Isn't there a problem with inserting a "blank" HD in an iPod? Doesn't the HD have to have some kind of firmware or special formatting on it (or boot info) in order for the iPod software to recognize it?

I guess you can always try it. May "Restore iPod" will correct this.

ghporter · Sep 21, 2005, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

Isn't there a problem with inserting a "blank" HD in an iPod? Doesn't the HD have to have some kind of firmware or special formatting on it (or boot info) in order for the iPod software to recognize it?

I guess you can always try it. May "Restore iPod" will correct this.

Just run the updater; that should format the drive and install the latest operating system on the iPod. It works for fixing goofed up (not "broken") drives and goofed up OSs on otherwise working iPods.

ThinkInsane · Sep 21, 2005, 05:15 PM

IIRC, it's not so simple to format the drive. I believe someone else around here attempted to do exactly this, and it turns out that the drive must be formatted off of a computer using some sort of drive bay adapter. I could be wrong on this, and I don't have time to search threads for the info, but I believe what I have said is fairly accurate, based on the experience of one of our members (I think it might have been a mod, Oreo maybe?)

John G. Stillmank · Sep 21, 2005, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by zoroaster68

The same time people thought it was easier to spend over $200 than to crack open a small consumer device and replace a hard drive.

Do it and let us know how that works out for you.

budster101 · Sep 21, 2005, 08:56 PM

Sending out my concern and love as well. Kisses.

zoroaster68 · Sep 22, 2005, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by John G. Stillmank

Do it and let us know how that works out for you.

Will do, the 15gig hd should be shipped out tomorrow or the day after.

Where in madison are you located? That's where I'm from. We should have beers or something. Dotty Dumpling's English Garlic burger + Leinenkugels= goodness.

misc · Sep 26, 2005, 03:22 PM

Good luck bud. The drive you are about to put in your iPod will not be able to be synced via Firewire.

ThinkInsane was probably talking about me. The drive you got will not be able to be written on the first 512kb, which is where the boot sectors are. You will need to acquire (or maybe you have) a USB to iPod cable to update it.

It may be a little bit tricky to get it working, contact me if you need help.

(Anyone who cares - I dropped my iPod from 30' and had to replace the 40 gig drive that costed $180 and then the cable (USB and Firewire) to iPod cost around $30.)

'"}{/quote} · Sep 29, 2005, 09:50 PM

Sorry Misc, but you're wrong. I opened up my 1st generation ipod today, started disassembling it. The 15 gig drive is physically identical, except it has blue rubber shock mounts. Peel those off, replace the drive, put it back together, and reupdate and you should be done. Unfortunately, I could not get my iPod to mount. The culprit? Loose firewire port. Somehow, during hte last few weeks, my ipod's firewire port was getting lose, and it would only connect if I inserted the FW cable and moved it at an angle. I then disassembled the thing, removed the battery, HD, and then took the mobo out of the case. I removed the screen, and to my horror discovered this:

All 4 mounting pads were disconnected, and all 6 pins were broken off from the main board. One of the pins was even broken near the connector itself. About 30 minutes later (and a lot of extremely delicate extremely lucky work), I arrived here after use of my trust $5.49 radioshack soldering iron:

Pretty? No. Ugly? Yes. Does it work? YES! So booyah. I saved my ipod from certain death and dismemberment. Hopefully. I plugged it in, realized the disk was formatted in MSDOS mode, played around with disk utility for a while, eventually got it formatted to mac extended journaled and thought all was okay. Alas, it would start to copy songs, but hten stop. I ran Tech Tool Pro, and it was finding bad blocks on the surface scan, so I'm rezeroing out the drive right now in an attempt to save it. If not, I guess I need to find another HD.

Anyway, I've been through ipod hell so far. I HATE soldering.

misc · Sep 29, 2005, 10:39 PM

Let me know when you can use it...

'"}{/quote} · Sep 29, 2005, 11:55 PM

I can use it. I put a few songs on it. Just rying to make sure the HD is okay.

'"}{/quote} · Sep 30, 2005, 09:35 AM

Damn. I put it in diagnostic mode last night, and did a HDD scan. It was STILL scanning this morning. Good lord. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

'"}{/quote} · Sep 30, 2005, 09:48 AM

Crap. Now I'm getting hte folder of death again. Argh. I'll see if I can figure it out tonight.

misc · Sep 30, 2005, 07:30 PM

Try a USB to Dock cable.

quote68 · Oct 3, 2005, 09:08 PM

USB To dock cables would solve nothing. After the latest format, it just quit responding. Now when I connect it, the ipod updater says an ipod is connected, but not mounted. I hit restore, and the status bar gets about 1/3 of the way through, then locks up. Anybody have any ideas? I've tried reformatting with apple disk utility but it always fails due to an input/output error.

misc · Oct 3, 2005, 10:11 PM

Have you tried a USB to dock cable?

quote68 · Oct 3, 2005, 10:18 PM

Dude I'm not blowing money on a freakin cable if hte HDD is probably bad.

Also, AGAIN< THIS IS A FIRST GENERATION IPOD! IT HAS NO DOCK CONNECTOR! jesus.

vinster · Oct 3, 2005, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by misc

Have you tried a USB to dock cable?

1st generation are firewire only so no dock or USB, unless I'm mistaken. Perhaps try formatting it in someone else's iPod. If you can't do that then send it back and refer to the 1st reply.

misc · Oct 3, 2005, 10:25 PM

Right. The drive you bought will not work with firewire.

quote68 · Oct 3, 2005, 11:51 PM

Well it did for a while, and the guys at www.ipodresq.com say it WILL work just fine. You are wrong. Is your job fixing and repairing ipods? No. It's responding to forum topics where the THREADS TITLE CLEARLY STATES it's a 1st generation ipod and you ignoring that fact until just now with your incorrect ideas.

misc · Oct 3, 2005, 11:55 PM

Have you ever replaced a drive in an iPod and got it to work?

quote68 · Oct 4, 2005, 09:19 AM

In even more weirdness, my ipod started screaming last night. Just screeaching and beeping for no reason at about 4 am. It woke me up. I came in here, reset it, and all was well again.

bad_quote · Oct 18, 2005, 06:47 PM

k. I got a 10 gig drive from ebay that was guaranteed to work. Plugged her in. It was MSDOS format. Ack. Disk utility kept locking when I treid to reformat, and none of the ipod updaters I had were working. Downloaded the new ipod updater, restored, and BAM

I now have a 10 gig 1st generation ipod that works great.

I do NOT need to use any cable other than a firewire cable to transfer music, despite what other people will claim. 1st gen ipods can accept any 5-15 gig drive, and 20 gig drives from the 3rd and 4th gen ipods.

Peabo · Oct 18, 2005, 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by quote68

In even more weirdness, my ipod started screaming last night. Just screeaching and beeping for no reason at about 4 am. It woke me up. I came in here, reset it, and all was well again.

Maybe it had a bad dream!

appleusr · May 9, 2006, 04:36 PM

Originally Posted by z0ne81

Maybe it had a bad dream!

lmao! maybe it saw an iRiver

anyways, if the updater isnt mounting the iPod, what i'd do is, with the iPod plugged in, reinstall what came with teh iPod CD. If the iPod is screwed up and the computer isnt mounting it then the installer should say that the iPod needs to be formatted. I did this with my nano - i messed up installing iPod linux, and windows would not mount the iPod, so i couldnt restore. I clicked yes to format, and it did the formatting, then it changed to a different progress bar, "resetting iPod", and kept filling up the bar and filling it up again. if that happens and you get stuck in a loop, just exit the installer. Then run the updater you just installed (my iPod just didnt like the new iPod updater that I (and probably also you) got from the apple site), so i reinstalled teh original i.e. the one you got with the CD) and it should pick up the iPod. Click restore and voila. then youll want to download teh newest updater and update teh iPod's firmware.

However, this may well not work at all, as we seem to have a different cause for our problems. its just what I did when I thought my nano was totally screwed up. it may not work for you, but the way I see it, if youre only using official apple software, you cant really screw it up...

hope this helps,
DG