ARCHOS AV500 30 GB with solid state memory mod

[flipje]

I forgot that i posted my modification here, but it's really nice to see that it helps other people.

So hows my own mod holding up after a year? Well actually perfectly fine. I placed a 16gb CF card and used the archos together with a helmet cam to film snowboarding. Except the shortened battery life because of the cold it functions pretty well. I'm able to record long video's without any problems.
After reading the posts above I would like to point out the following for one last time:

THIS MOD WILL ONLY WORK WHEN YOU HAVE A WORKING HARDDISK TO START WITH OR WHEN YOU NEVER UPGRADED THE FIRMWARE.

For all those people who's harddisks broke down and that have a newer firmware version ....too bad this mod will not work and I cannot help you.

[AnotherFan]

Hi,

I'm thinking of upgrading the hard disk in my AV500 to get more disk space. The instructions here look simple enough and thanks for making these available. I'm wondering if there is any upper limit to the size of disk the AV500 will support. Basically I'd like to use the largest parallel ATA 2.5 inch disk I can find. I was thinking of using the WD Scorpio Blue WD3200 320 GB. Does anyone know of any limits?

Thanks.

[fredc]

I can confirm the AV500 has the 24 bit LBA limit and so cannot read more than around 127GB (depending on how you measure it).

I tried this method with my 100G AV500 and it did not work. I downgraded with the medios file from 1.5.12 to 1.3.12, then installed the archos 1.3.12, put in a test 80G drive, formatted fat32 and blank, and the AV500 would not get past the drive check and boot up.

I wanted the max space possible so bought a 160Gb drive from this site

http://s289462194.e-shop.info/shop/page/1?shop_param=

and supplied my old drive serial number. The new drive worked straight away in my AV500 (now back to 1.5.12).

The system screen showed ~150GB spare, but an AV500 internal format reduced this to ~130GB, thus proving the LBA limit. It has been reported with a 160GB drive in the AV300 that although the system screen will report ~149GB or whatever, if you fill the drive, the Archos cannot read above ~128GB and those files at the end of the drive will be invisible to the menu system.

Nevertheless I am happy with my purchase (the site confirms the AV500 LBA limit) and will keep the original 100G drive as a spare in case of eventual drive failure.

[piecutter]

Have you thought to try partitioning the space so that you have a 128GB and a 32GB partition? It'd be interesting to see if the unit would actually see the other partition.

[fredc]

yes, I tried this several times with various different sizes of partition. My AV500 cannot see the second partiton through its usb connection, you only ever got one drive letter, whereas the same drive in a standard usb drive box has the 2 partitions visible and able to be used on the same laptop and pc usb sockets.

This is different to the AV300. My AV300 with 160GB drive has the 128GB and the "hidden" 24 GB partition visible and usable through the AV300 usb connection, though naturally the second partition is invisible to the archos system.

Incidentally the AV500 internal format reduced the 160 drive to a 130 drive - if you delete the partition in windows (XP disk management) it remains a 130 drive. The only way I found to regain a 160 drive was to format the drive in a 504 - this made the drive 160 again, but deleting the 160 partition in windows then gave a 130 drive again with no way in windows to get the extra space back. If I was bothered I would try and find the manufacturers unformat program which writes 00s to the whole drive and replaces the fat but since the drive is meant for the AV500 and I cannot use the extra space once the drive is screwed in I don't see the point in the effort since you want a max ~130GB drive to make sure you don't write to an area the system can't read.

[Marcisboik]

It almost worked for me

I need to upgrade my 100GB Archos AV500 from HDD to CF, because I have to use it in a harsh environment - autosport onboards.

Here is my setup and steps I made to upgrade:

I have a 100 GB Hitachi IDE HDD


IDE to CF adaptor


The nice final setup, I used a little piece of static bag to separate the adaptor from the AV500 board.


Now the software part:
I did the firmware downgrade as described above - it worked fine for me
I changed the HDD to CF and I got this:


I can see/copy to the CF card when it is connected to a PC.
I tried to format it from Archos, but it won't finish.
I tried other 4 GB CF card.

What could you suggest me. Is there a solution for the problem?

[fredc]

first point, the firmware downgrade needs to have the archos 1.3.12 installed after the downgrade to 1.3.12 - I only mention this to be sure that's what you tried.

second point I also failed with the method on my 100G version, so looking at the thread maybe the method works for the zif 30G AV500 and does not work for the 2.5in 100G AV500??

[Marcisboik]

I did install the Archos 1.3.12 firmware.

[fredc]

thanks, so the question is has anyone with a 2.5in AV500 succeeded?

[Gator8]

I'll do it, but I need to know from Marcisboik first if what he did is reversible.
Can his 100G hd be recognized again?

[scgfull]

I note that the archopen site is no longer available.

Does anyone have a copy of the Firmware downgrader available that I could have?

My AV500 has started to play up a little but is still working so would wish to change the HDD.

Thanks

Steve

[fredc]

I have the downgrader and the 1.3.12 firmware. But it won't work with 2.5in drives, only with the 30G zif drive according to this thread. If you want them leave an email address.

[scgfull]

hi fredc, my email address is s???????????@???????.com.

[fredc]

ok, sent.

[scgfull]

Many thanks for that.

Steve

[scgfull]

Downgrade achieved.

Stage 1 complete.

I have ordered a replacement HDD and will initially fit that as a direct 1 for 1 replacement before moving on to a SSD.

Many thanks to Fred for providing the "Downgrader" and to all the others who have contributed information.

[fredc]

Great, let us know how you get on.

I still have a Gmini400 which I upgraded to 30Gig because generation 4 stuff did not have the hard drive lock. I bought a 50 pin to compact flash card pcb when the Toshiba drives went out of production and intend to put a large CF card in there if the drive ever fails. Swapped the internal battery twice so far, and its still going strong and is fine for mp3s.

[CharlesLakins]

I'm looking for the downgrade file or a replacement drive before my good drive happens to fail

I have an adapter for zif & cf already but can only find other versions of the firmware file not the Av500_1512_to_1312_Downgrader one

does anyone have a current working solution?

-Charles

[rebjin74]

no, you'd better ask the question in other forum


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