How to replace the hard drive in your Cowon A2

[GSV3MiaC]

So what's the average, and spin-up, current requirements for the dual platter drives?? I guess the latest generation are lower power than the early ones, but I still wonder how well the A2 will cope.

[Ath]

How do you propose to make a converter that will fit in the case?

I doubt that you'll get an 8mm drive to fit now matter what you strip off...

And you missed a key word in my post: SPACER. Assuming that the drive can be connected to the pins and actually work properly, all that should be necessary is to create some kind of spacer between the back plate and the main unit. This would make the A2 thicker than it currently is, and make any cases kinda unusable, but this is still feasible. OK, you'd need slightly longer screws, too, but that shouldn't be too hard to find.

How do you propose to make a converter that will fit in the case?

I doubt that you'll get an 8mm drive to fit now matter what you strip off...

First off, I already have a connector that I can connect A2 to a 3.5" HDD. This will prove A2 can support beyond 100GB. I connected it to a 160GB Maxtor HDD.






And this is photos showing A2 connected to the maxtor HDD







To prove this is working, here's a screen shot





So, you must be wonder how am I suppose to connect it to zif HDD?

I have ordered some flat flex cable(FFC)




I'm going to strip off one end and connect it to the CF connector







Now about the SPACE

here's a 'blueprint' of the mk1011gah. It's from toshiba's website. You can download it here.




The blue circle indicates the thickness of the faceplate of mk1011gah. It's 0.85mm. We got 0.85mm free now. Check here to see how to remove it. I'm still waiting for my drive to confirm it.


Now the rubber spacer



It's 2mm in thickness. It's mostly at the side of the drive. The photo below show that those part of rubber that need to be removed.



So another 2mm freed. So 0.85 + 2 = 2.85mm
There is still some space between the rubber and the battery. 0.25mm is just the thickness of a few strands of hair. So there goes the extra 3mm of the double platter HDD.

[Ath]

About the connector. As you can see, my connector is small enough to fit inside the A2. the FFC can be folded and put in the empty space shown in the photo below

[zombie woof]

Good luck Ath, you are very brave!

What I don't understand is; why do Toshiba fit that face plate if you can simply remove it and it still works?

[stow]

Amazing work Ath - you're a real inspiration. I have to say I would have been surprised if a 3.5" HDD wouldn't work in capacities well over 30GB. But your plans for a home-made ZIF-IDE connector are genius.

I have a 8mm Toshiba drive knocking around - I might try taking off the faceplate and measure how much extra room I get. I think you might be right in your estimation that the rubber and padding takes up about 2mm as well. All in all, this is the most promising thing in A2 HDD mods for a while. Good luck and have fun soldering your new connector!

[Packgrog]

Good luck with this, Ath. If you're successful, you might consider product-izing this and selling your own custom-built adapters to those of us too chicken-sh*t to do our own soldering. I know I'd be willing to pay for a nice adapter that would allow me to upgrade to a nice beefy drive.

[SilentEcho13]

Great work Ath, I hope the adapter comes out great.

If only we had some form of 3rd party replacement housing with a slightly bigger rear cover..

[condecontar]

Is there any progress with the adaptor?

[gourmand]

up

I wrote message ti Ath, waiting for answer...

[Ath]

Sorry for the looooooog delay.

The 8mm thickness is simply too thick. but the new 5mm 80gb hdd used in ipod classic 80gb might be possible. I'm not going to persue to make the upgrade as it is to too expensive and unworthwhile for an old player like this.

For the detailed post of the attempt, you can visit my blog at(with photos):
http://ath-i.blogspot.com/2008/05/at...-to-100gb.html

[ziou]

Ath hi! i was looking for a new hdd and I found this one is the MK1231GAL it has 120Gb an the 5mm thickness but I don't konw if the connector is the same that the MK3006GAL. how can I know that? the interface in each one is PATA and ATA-6 respectively.

[PhilK]

ziou - that looks interesting. Theres even a 240gb one in advance of that !
Are the ones used in A2 "zif" or "ata" ?
ATA I believe, and if so, these bigger drives are useless.

[castaway]

Hi folks,

A warning to those who plan to follow this. I orderer a new MK3006GAL, and *then* opened my A2. It turned out that mine is (presumably) a newer model (A2 30G), and comes with a MK3008GAL instead, different drive connector altogether than the 6.

Also, happily, mine wasnt broken as I thought, just the drive connector was loose. So reconnected, and returned the drive.

Check your drive first!
(I bought mine new in the UK in April 2007-ish)

[danchik]

looks very promising, found it that drive on ebay wondering if i'll fit. Maybe we should ask the seller about the connector

[Dalmane98]

Originally Posted by danchik

looks very promising, found it that drive on ebay wondering if i'll fit. Maybe we should ask the seller about the connector

Someone already asked about the connector on Nov-25-08:

Q: Is that a ZIF interface? I have a 50 pin interface and I want to buy the proper converter. Thanks, Eric
A: yes, it is ZIF interface