Upgrading HDD in an old AJBR

busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Hi there...

I have owned my AJBR6 for over 3 year and upgraded it a number of times during that time.

More recently to a 30GB IBM Travelstar HDD. However I now have a Toshiba HDD2182 40GB drive and wanted to use that.

Formatting the drive is no problem (I have read all about the WinXP 30GB issue) so I have used Partition Magic and created a primary partition. However the AJBR will not recognise the HDD and reports a error on boot (I don't have the AJBR with me at the moment so can't quote the error message here). If I repeat the same thing with the IBM HDD it is fine.

I have tried creating a smaller 25GB primary partition on the Toshiba and set it as active....but still that doesn't work.

So the problem seems specific to my AJBR and either 40GB+ drives or just the Toshiba one. My AJBR is one of the first so I can't flash the bios with Rockbox as I wondered if that might be of help....

Anyway I'd appreciate any suggestions or advice.

Cheers

gofurygo · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:48 am Post subject:

Hi Dan,
I asume you made the primary partition bootable? (sorry, if primary partition already means bootable - it has been a while since I upgraded). If not, your archos won't boot up. The error message probably is: "HD-Error" or something like that? At least my unit behaved like that, when I didn't make the partition bootable.

Obviously partition magic doesn't work too well when it comes down to partitoning and formating new drives for an upgrade. A few people here had problems to get along with it. Well, I don't think it's the drive (asuming it's physically okay) - so I'd try to repeat the whole procedure with SwissKnife: http://www.compuapps.com/download/swissknife/Swissknife.htm
It's obviously very easy to partition and format with swissknife. G'luck Wink

Fury
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Hi Fury,

Thanks for the reply and suggestion... I will give SwissKnife a try.... Smile

I believe that the partition is bootable...but there is nothing physically wrong with the drive...apart from it previously had NTFS installed on it.

I'll have another try tomorrow though.

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 8:28 am Post subject:

Hmm.. weird..since it works perfect with your old drive...

Check this out:
http://rockbox.haxx.se/docs/repairbattery.html

That discribes exactly the error that occurs with your drive..
Maybe you open it up and try to investigate those solder points.. Smile

Fury
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Yes the battery solder points are a problem...the negative point in the top right corner of the AJBR...where the cross over wire has broken.

I have been getting around this by holding down the power button...this seems to work with the IBM drive that I still have. Another way around this I have tried is to cross between the broken points..then the battery power stays on......I'll resolder the points but wanted to get the HDD working first....

At the moment the AJBR is powered up from the mains and the error reported has changed to...

SC1 (85) 255
SN1 (170) 255
SC2 (170) 255
SN2 (85) 255

Thanks for your help Fury....I'll check out the Rockbox DOCS in a mo...

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:47 am Post subject:

busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Hmmm... if the solder connection was broken would you expect the same error to occur with a different HDD...namely the 30 GB IBM Travelstar.... strangely that one was fine last time I tried.

The other thing about the solder point is that I am slightly confused now exactly what I need to solder... In the top right corner it looks like the wire folds over the top of the battery spring, in a similar way to how it also wraps around the side of the spring to a solder point just below the rectangular gold contact point (reverse side of the board which has the spring on it).

I have a broocken piece of solder that is like a small loop... but I can't exactly see where this originally fitted....I think I may have to take some digital pics of the boards...

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:55 am Post subject:

Maybe this helps to clear things up a little bit.. unfortunately some pictures are redXed because the site I took it from just disappeared.

Fury
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Cheers Fury - will check them out in a mo....

I have just formatted a 20GB IBM Travelstar in my laptop with SwissKnife...and also get the HD error.... I haven't tried the 30GB I have at home since though....

Unsing Partition Info on my laptop I get the following info for the 40GB Toshiba

It all looks fine to me though in terms of the drive and partition configuration:-

PowerQuest PartitionInfo 7.0 -- Windows NT/2000 Version

Disk Geometry Information for Disk 2: 4864 Cylinders, 255 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track
System PartSect # Boot BCyl Head Sect FS ECyl Head Sect StartSect NumSects
==============================================================================================
JUKEBOX 0 0 80 0 1 1 0B 767 254 63 63 78,140,097
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
0 0 80 0 1 1 0B 4863 254 63 63 78140097

Partition Information for Disk 2: 38,154.4 Megabytes
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects UsedSects FreeSects
==============================================================================================
D:JUKEBOX FAT32 Pri,Boot 38,154.3 0 0 63 78,140,097 78,140,097 0

Boot Record for drive D: (Drive: 2, Starting sector: 63, Type: FAT32)
==============================================================================================
1. Jump: EB 58 90
2. OEM Name: MSWIN4.1
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 64
5. Reserved Sectors: 32
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Reserved: 0x0000
8. Reserved: 0x0000
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 0
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 255 (0xFF)
13. Hidden Sectors: 63 (0x3F)
14. Big Total Sectors: 78140034 (0x4A85282)
15. Big Sectors per FAT: 9534
16. Extended Flags: 0x0000
17. FS Version: 0
18. First Cluster of Root: 2 (0x2)
19. FS Info Sector: 1
20. Backup Boot Sector: 6
21. Reserved: 000000000000000000000000
22. Drive ID: 0x80
23. Reserved for NT: 0x00
24. Extended Boot Sig: 0x29
25. Serial Number: 0x10D8132E
26. Volume Name: JUKEBOX
27. File System Type: FAT32
28. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:14 am Post subject:

Are you saying, you get the same error no matter what drive (20GB IBM, 40GB Toshiba) you throw in your jukebox?
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Yes Fury, that thread certainly seems to cover the problem i am having... just can't understand why the other HDD worked originally though....

However I am definately missing a grounding point..... I just can't see from the pictures where it should attach to....

About halfway down in that thread there is the picture with the two green lines and one red....

I have the lower green connection and that still seems to be intact.

The upper green connection is missing however, this looks to be also the solder point to hold the frame plate of the AJBR together and is so used as a grounding point... however where does this green wire connect to on the other side of the PCB.... looking at my AJBR it looks like it attaches to the battery spring.... if that was the case though I can't see why it is necessary as the spring is already by the lower green connection isn't it?

busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Fury,

I can't test with the 30GB HD at the moment.... but the other evening when I first tried to upgrade, the new 40GB Toshiba always failed....however the current 30GB IBM was fine (as long as I held down the power On button)

A second 20GB fails but I am not sure if this is possibly because the batteries are dead now..... I am having to run from the power adaptor now...but still get the errors whatever I do.

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:34 am Post subject:

Okay, I'm pretty sure we can fix this. So you say you got the lower green line connected. But you should have both green lines. The wire I'm talking about (follows the green lines) sort of touches the spring, wraps around the pcb board on the battery end and is connected to both parts of the frame (the aluminum plate - also shown below).

I'm almost certain, that it's not the drive which causes the error (also approved by the rockbox docu). If you can solder the wire back on the frame you shouldn't be getting the error again. Also, if your jukebox is already open, check the other solders as well - that can never hurt though.. Wink

Fury
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Yes Fury...that's exactly where the connection has broken from....

So the green wire is simply one single length that wraps over the spring and connects on the back of the PCB at the two points shown in the picture.... The connection to the spring from the lower green connector is fine so I think I can simply bridge the two green connectors on the back of the PCB.

The Jukebox is in bits at the moment and I have now noticed that the 3 grounding contact points... between the mainboard and the frame are also broken....possibly from when I have pulled the thing apart...I would think a little heat from my solder iron will reattach these however. (these are the two points the USB connector end of the AJBR and also the one just above and left of the On button).

Many thanks for your help on this! Smile

Just hope the damn thing works after all this tinkering Rolling Eyes

busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Just noticed there is one on the right side, middle too.... that one has also broken Sad

If the don't hold, I wonder if it would be possible to link them all together with a single wire from the top grounding points.... or would that be pointless?

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject:

Can you take a picture of the areas with broken solders? If you don't have a webspace you can add it to, you can always send it to me and I'll add it to mine in order to continue discussion (maybe you could resize 'em). Also it could clearify what you mean by "link them together with a single wire". Wink

Fury
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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Hi Fury

At work at the moment so can't post an pics but yes I would be able to do this

Holding the naked Embarassed

AJBR up in front of me (the microphone at the top)

In the top two corners there are small solder points on the mainboard that are attached to the battery frame underneath....these ones seem to be fine.

Then halfway down, left and right sides of the LCD there is the same thing again.... these contacts are brocken though from the battery frame underneath.

And finally at the bottom, left and right again.... the same thing....broken contacts... I assume that these 6 points are also grounding points...these are in addition to the two grounding contacts on the top left battery spring.

In terms of the wire....the idea there was that if the broken contacts could not be resolder to the battery frame maybe I could link them from the top of the mainboard with a small core wire and loop this back to the two contacts on the battery spring. This idea may not be feasible or necessary just wondered if it might improve the grounding of the AJBR though....

gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:27 pm Post subject:

Okay, I took a picture of http://www.dondario.de/archos/ (which has good and high-resolution pics of a AJBR20) and modified the pic for you. Since I only own a AJB-Player I can't promise I caught all solder points you'd have to check. But I think I got 'em almost.. Wink

On my player, there are 2 more solder-points that hide behinde those 'caution' labels. They are obviously supposed to connected frame and board as well.

Hopefully this helps you to check/solder all broken points. Cool

Fury

BTW... mine is still disassembled for more than 6 months now and I saw TODAY, that there are 2-3 broken solders on top as well... Rolling Eyes

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gofurygo · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:51 pm Post subject:

Good Job Dan... but I hate to tell you that the red wire you soldered back on is wrong... at least a little.
1. You'd need a blank wire without insulation
2. The wire has to touch the spring - otherwise it's not grounded. Connecting the two sides of the frame doesn't ground it. The wire's gotta taste some 'juice' Razz

See this picture ( I tried to light it up a bit) for how the wire has to make it's way through the spring: ...and end up as shown in green above.

Also a little tension on the spring when soldering is necessary to make there is always contact between the wire and the spring after you're done.
3. Make sure your batteries are fully charged and in good shape - one bad cell can cause a common 'HD-ERROR'. At least you got rid of the SC1(bla)bla errors.

I don't think there is a huge size difference between those drives.. 2.5'' drives are 2.5'' drives... you could still messure them to see if there's a difference.. Good Luck! Wink

Fury

PS: You can edit your posts Dan.. Smile

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busterdan · Junior Member Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

Hi Fury...

I can't edit messages I add as Guest!...keep forgetting to log in Cool

Yeah I see what you mean on the battery spring, but in my case the lower wire is covered in solder beneath the spring itself, consequently the link i have made has bridged the ground. Evenso I could easily strip the wire and solder it on the back.

This HDD thing still remains a bit of a mystery though... I have the AJBR in front of me with the 30GB IBM and it is fine....just not with the 40GB

Is there anyone maybe on the board that knows about specifically FAT32 issues, or disk storage as a whole.

Thanks again for all your help....much appreciated!!