How to replace a 605 160G hard drive

jh1 · Post by **jh1** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:02 am

I opened up my 605 out of curiosity and confirmed that it had a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160G drive inside. I just happened to have the same exact drive inside my portable USB enclosure.

As an experiment I wanted to see if it was possible to replace the drive myself in case the original one died. First, I installed the 605 drive into my enclosure and used Ghost v8 to do a Sector by Sector clone (option -IA). the backup file ended up less than 2G since I hadn't loaded any video/music/pics yet. Then I installed my own 160G into the enclosure and did a Ghost restore. When I installed my own drive into the 605, it kept going to the USB/HDD Recovery option screen. I popped the original drive back in and it booted up ok again.

What did I do wrong?

rokero · Post by **rokero** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:15 am

No idea, you lost me at hello.

blah534 · Post by **blah534** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:25 am

I don't think anyone has ever done this before.

Post by **Kodiak** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 1:13 pm

There was a very long thread about hacking the 605 that people talked about doing this. I don't think they were successful either.

sae1969 · Post by **sae1969** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:52 pm

I understood your explanation. I never occured to me to Ghost the Archos HD. An interesting concept... My assumption is that Archos must use some kind of flash or bios chip on the hard drive to make sure it is the original one. I don't have any idea how to check that out. Good luck! l'd love to see pictures of a disassembled Archos 605/705! I just don't want it to be mine

jh1 · Post by **jh1** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:54 pm

Kodiak wrote:There was a very long thread about hacking the 605 that people talked about doing this. I don't think they were successful either.

I wonder if the flash contains an id that is unique to the hard drive which it checks against on boot up. It's not that I want to upgrade to a higher capacity drive...I just don't want to have to ship it back to Archos if I ever need the HD replaced.

The 605 is extremely easy to open up. Once you undo all the screens, the back just comes off...no prying, no little parts that go flying etc.

liliputman · Post by **liliputman** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:16 am

jh1 wrote:
Kodiak wrote:There was a very long thread about hacking the 605 that people talked about doing this. I don't think they were successful either.
I wonder if the flash contains an id that is unique to the hard drive which it checks against on boot up. It's not that I want to upgrade to a higher capacity drive...I just don't want to have to ship it back to Archos if I ever need the HD replaced.

The 605 is extremely easy to open up. Once you undo all the screens, the back just comes off...no prying, no little parts that go flying etc.

you might be right, ithe flash much be hardcoded to only the SN of the Hard Drive. But out of curiosity, maybe the you didnt make the new drive FAT? MAybe you left it at NTFS?

liliputman · Post by **liliputman** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:18 am

By the way can you please post some nice shots of the steps in opening it up (there's one floating around but the shots are just with a cameraphone so its not so good)? Wasnt there any warranty stickers that you voided?

jh1 · Post by **jh1** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:39 am

liliputman wrote:
jh1 wrote:
Kodiak wrote:But out of curiosity, maybe the you didnt make the new drive FAT? MAybe you left it at NTFS?

It shouldn't be the case. Using Ghost to make a sector-by-sector copy should in theory create an EXACT clone of the drive...it doesn't care about the file structure since it is doing a low level bit copy. I even restored it to an identical model drive.

jh1 · Post by **jh1** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:25 am

liliputman wrote:By the way can you please post some nice shots of the steps in opening it up (there's one floating around but the shots are just with a cameraphone so its not so good)? Wasnt there any warranty stickers that you voided?

No warranty stickers. The screws go into threaded metal holes in a subframe so the construction quality is high and they can be removed multiple times as long as you don't cross-thread. It appears the the 80/160G models have the battery under the drive whereas the 30G model has the drive under the battery.

Here are the pics.

edit by roylovelock - reason pic fix

liliputman · Post by **liliputman** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:45 am

jh1 wrote:
liliputman wrote:
jh1 wrote: It shouldn't be the case. Using Ghost to make a sector-by-sector copy should in theory create an EXACT clone of the drive...it doesn't care about the file structure since it is doing a low level bit copy. I even restored it to an identical model drive.

Maybe you can mount it in one of those HD containers and connect both of them into a working laptop to just compare?

liliputman · Post by **liliputman** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:47 am

jh1 wrote:
liliputman wrote:By the way can you please post some nice shots of the steps in opening it up (there's one floating around but the shots are just with a cameraphone so its not so good)? Wasnt there any warranty stickers that you voided?
No warranty stickers. The screws go into threaded metal holes in a subframe so the construction quality is high and they can be removed multiple times as long as you don't cross-thread. It appears the the 80/160G models have the battery under the drive whereas the 30G model has the drive under the battery.

Here are the pics.

Cant seem to access the pictures, might be the firewall in our office

anyway might be a good idea to place in some foam for scock protection?

Just a thought, but then again it might heat up the Archos! hehehe experiment experiment!

kooltilldend · Post by **kooltilldend** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:16 am

^^ naah i can't access the pics at my apartment either

edit: right click on the pic, choose copy image location and paste it in a new window...that seems to work

alpine · Post by **alpine** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:20 pm

Unfortunately there is these days an accessable serial number on hard drives. Introduced at the request of our DRM and licence control buddies, Microsoft. Ghost will not be able to access and replicate this.
Did you try accepting the reinitialise option? The danger would be if this does write the serial number to flash, when you put back your original drive, it might insist on reinitialising it again.

kurosan · Post by **kurosan** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:21 pm

From my tests you can replace the drive with one of the same size:

I've tried this with another 40GB like the original drive and with a 120GB one that is recognized correctly, but lock you to the original drive size.

If you want to try out yourself:

1) download the hidden linux image --> http://www.2xupload.to/file/589d330a982 ... g.bz2.html
2) strip out the first 512 bytes --> dd if=after_data_partition.img of=hidden_linux_partition.img bs=512 skip=1
3) Make one big FAT32 primary partition on the new drive leaving the last 25 cylinders free
4) Format the new partition and copy contests of the data partition from the original disk
5) Copy the linux hidden partition to the new disk starting with the first free block --> dd if=hidden_linux_partition.img of=/dev/xxx seek=n (where xxx is the drive as view by the linux machine and n is the 1st block after data partition)

Post by **roylovelock** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:42 pm

kurosan wrote:From my tests you can replace the drive with one of the same size:

I've tried this with another 40GB like the original drive and with a 120GB one that is recognized correctly, but lock you to the original drive size.

If you want to try out yourself:

1) download the hidden linux image --> http://www.2xupload.to/file/589d330a982 ... g.bz2.html
2) strip out the first 512 bytes --> dd if=after_data_partition.img of=hidden_linux_partition.img bs=512 skip=1
3) Make one big FAT32 primary partition on the new drive leaving the last 25 cylinders free
4) Format the new partition and copy contests of the data partition from the original disk
5) Copy the linux hidden partition to the new disk starting with the first free block --> dd if=hidden_linux_partition.img of=/dev/xxx seek=n (where xxx is the drive as view by the linux machine and n is the 1st block after data partition)

Are you saying you have successfully changed the hard drive on the unit?, do you know if this will work on the 04 range?, i was under the impression that this cant be and hadnt been done as yet
roy

kurosan · Post by **kurosan** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:22 pm

Are you saying you have successfully changed the hard drive on the unit?, do you know if this will work on the 04 range?, i was under the impression that this cant be and hadnt been done as yet
roy

Yes, with a drive of the same size... or if you don't mind loosing extra space on the new drive. The problem is using fully a larger drive (I don't know at the time if hd size it's hardcoded in the flash or in the script in the cramfs). I'm only talking of my direct experience on a 605 unit with a 2.5'' drive, and only with the method explained. Other tests with different methods failed, excluding a sector by sector copy with acronis on an identical drive.

Post by **roylovelock** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:32 am

I tried arconis on my friends 504 (as i own the 604) and it was no go. We tried a like for like drive and it didnt recognise it at all. It maybe that the firmware isnt yet completly locked down to the drive on the 05 range, but rest assured if it isnt archos will lock it down completly in the end.
I would be very intrested in hearing if anyone else has success with this method, if its is successful overall i may even buy one....
roy

Garmac · Post by **Garmac** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:42 am

It has to be something on the boot. When I suspend my 605 and switch the drive, then I wake that archos up and it has no problem using the new drive and seeing the entire space (I switched the 80gb with a 120Gb)... But of course as soon as I shut it down completely, then it does not work... I wonder what the id.sys file is. It was dumped on the drive when I formated it first...

Garmac · Post by **Garmac** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:25 am

kurosan, where did you get that linux image? Was it made from your 40Gb drive? If that's the case, what if we make the same kind of image but from a Archos that had 160 Gb drive, could someone with a 80gb download the image, place it on a new 160Gb drive and get it to work on his archos?