ok, some of you remember me, some dont... Im the guy that planned (key word here) to install a HDD in his gp2x...

while the taks is ultimately doable (I have tested it myself and I KNOW it would work) for cost conserns I just cant do it. Im sorry.

I didnt want to NOT post and just let it die quietly because I am hopeing someday someone will actually DO this and show the gp2x team how and they will up and make one commercially available but for the price it would cost me to make it Im just nto willing.

the bigest problem I have with this is the caseing.

the power conserns are easily fixed by doubleing the bateries-4 tripple A (AAA) batteries provide enough juice for the whole project for a 4 hour life span. the onyl thing to remember is that they have to be NiMh batteries installed in PARALELL. meaning you attach the positive and negative ends of two pairs together. so you have 2 pairs of paralell installed AAA batteries giveing off 3 volts @ nearly 5000mAh (depending on the set you use some results may varrie) or if in doubt you can still use double As (AA) ither way the power needs are met completely. the HDD to be used would be the same model out of an iPod or a creative Zen. this would be attached to a modified 1.5" HDD to USB adapter attached to the usd lines on the dev port.

the only caviats to all this is first how to get the drive connected to a PC for data tranfer to it once installed. and 2 the chasis itself.

while I am sure that a simple software mod would fix the first problem I realize I could never make a case myself that looked the way I wanted (I.E. professional, prety, and most importantly FUNCTIONAL, I have to be able to reopen the device once its built so screw mounts would have to be made and crap like that) all this was an engeniering nightmare and I just could not find a way to do what I wanted for under a $1500 price limit.

for that price Ill just buy a bunch of sd cards and swap em out when I am feeling like a change.

I'd still like to see this done! but Im just not up to it on the caseing side... if someone out there with plastic modding expertise would like to take on the plastics portion of the project I would be happy to continue, we'll trade hardware, you make the plastics, Ill build the electronics side. but I cant do the plastics.

sorry. unless someone volentiers, I'm out.

how predictable Please don't start with this again, with all that modding you'de be better off buying a laptop, it should fit both the budget and the size

Please consider installing a spellchecking plugin.

"I didnt want to NOT post and just let it die"

Wow, this guy apologizes, and you all criticize his work and his spelling. Am I missing something? :?

Well granted I don't see this idea very feasible...the only benefit is the higher gb space...Still I don't think there is an honest to god way to cool that hard drive...I mean come on a hdd in that cramped box can only cause a heating nightmare... then tack on the hdd you get load times.....well not so long load times but still there are load times...besides...your better off using a cradle if you need hd access...either that or just wait for 32gb sd cards to get to a reasonable price...me I'm gonna go with the 2gb until the 8gb or 16gb go down in price...

Nope. These people... I don't know what to say.

Keep going, man! A GP2X with an HDD would be like a cooler budget OQO!

Thanks IcoNyx. I was looking forwards to see this mod, a lot more than other projects.

Just ignore post number 2 to 4. This board is becoming a troll kingdom these days.

To all the naysayers... I figured you'd be here...

To all the well wishers, I’m sorry, but with my finances devastated by this silly divorce its just not possible for me.

and to those wondering how it could have worked to begin with, trust me, I have thought of everything, there is no aspect of this that would nothave worked. heat, power, interface, everything was thought of. I even went so far as to figure out a method of adding a mount line in the mounting scripts to allow the user to mount it in the USB mode allowing it to be seen by a computer as simply as you would mount an sd card or the nand. There was nothing I did not overlook.

The only reason this is dieing is because I cant figure out a cost effective way of creating a new case for the unit so that when I'm done it fits several criteria, first, I have to be able to reopen it without breaking it. Second it has to look professional. And finally, it has to feel comfortable to hold.

I can not make anything that meets these criteria, I researched vacuum form molding, I looked into fiberglass, I even considered paying someone to make it professionally. Every option ether remained subject to my artistic abilities (something to fear) or was too costly. I won’t do this if its just going to look bad or cost so much that it’s financially infeasible. Sorry.

Like I said, if someone is willing to help me with the plastics Ill pick it back up.

hmm... interesting... this new gp2x (f200) looks to be a promiseing little upgrade... and if the rumors are true that it can handle sdhc, then screw this project, it will be totally unnecessary anyway!

FWIW, the microdrives and such count as HDDs, and yet are the size of a CF card and could probably be squished in there somewhere (and old ones are cheap on ebay.)

All told though .. this is why SD exists after all

Do it for fun, but dont' do it to make anyone _else_ happy

jeff

You do realise what you said translates to "the higher gigabit space..."? That makes absolutely no sense. I realise exactly what you mean but something inside me just wishes to patronise you.

He was obviously saying higher gameboy space. As in more space for the gigabytes of gameboy roms one would want to store on it. Obviously.

We're all nerds here, but you take the cake. Sam.

What the, all gameboy roms in the world wouldnt surpass even 200 mb. well, unless you have "personal copies" of everything, including your roms.

I feel the need to interject and give a brief example where having 60+ gigs of storage space would be of benifit... when travelinghaving a large library of movies, music, and games at your disposal would mean less boredom. this would lead to less time spent "tapping your foot" in airport bathrooms. catch my drift?

It was an interesting idea but having seen the inside of the gp2x with my own two eyes I know there's barely room for anything in there. A laptop HDD is huge and even a microdrive is pretty big, maybe putting a tiny laptop HDD enclosure in your pocket and running a lead to the gp2x or hanging it on the back of the unit would work better, but inside; I just don't see mechanically how it could be done.

You definitely don't need to apologize though. It was a good try and if it didn't work out, oh well.

What about the tiny Toshiba drives that fit inside Ipods?

I think the whole thing is a moot point anyway - there are amazing advances happening in solid state memory, for example the upcoming ASUS Eee notebook uses solid state memory and doesn't even have a HD. Not mention the possibility of SDHC (up to 32GB apparently?)

I think within the next 3-5 years we will begin to see the complete replacement in all portable devices (laptops, notebooks, mp3 player) from Traditional Hard Disks to solid state memory.

Dammit sam well I meant gigabyte rather than gigabit because if I said gigabit then the whole post is useless... which in my case was a typo that I didn't notice mainly because I was probably not paying any remote attention...

and yea yea Iconyx I catch your drift...granted I guess if you were a traveling jerk who wanted all his junk shoved on a hard drive...and just couldn't be satisfied...

Just wait for the SDHC cards, i doubt any harddrive would fit, maybe you could mount a lot of flash memory inside but there just isn't more space..

I really think that microdrives could be a possible solution, as long as you set the microdrive to sleep after x minutes of inactivity and supply a better power supply
a study once stated that the difference between IBM's and toshiba's drives may differ to almost double the power consumption, so I would really recommend an IBM one, although if you're dropping the ball, all these avices would do no good

Ok, I’m sorry if I come off as flaming, I’m tired, I’m sick, I'm sick and tired...



My intentions were to completely retool the plastics, in other words I wanted to rebuild the GP2x entirely including the plastic housing to include the new hardware. The mod called for 4 batteries, this NECESSITATES remaking the plastics to accommodate the additional batteries, and of course the hard drive (which I was planning to use a 1.5” 60~80GB hard drive). The primary reason I QUIT is because I couldn’t figure out how to make said plastics in a manner that looked good.

As for the external drive… no, that defeats the idea. The idea is to have an INTERNAL hard drive. An external jobbie would add a level of complexity that I don’t want. besides it’s been done.

Thanks for the kudos though.




As for the drive type… yeah, I was planning on using a drive out of a creative vision M… same thing really.

And as for the SDHC… yeah, that’s reason 2 for halting this… that and the F200 having a decent (looking) D-pad… yeah… Project died.




Dude… I have a 1.5Terabyte array in my server at home simply because I can… I am the epitome of the “storage whore”… OF COURSE I want to “all my junk” shoved on a hard drive.




*sigh* <holds bridge of nose> here we go again… a hard drive would fit man, if you plan to rebuild the plastics FOR a hard drive… also I was not planning to use a laptop hard drive, I was planning to use a SMALLER drive. Smaller physically… the drive dimensions would EASILY fit in the existing plastics if one were to remove the batteries actually. But because I needed 4 batteries to run the thing I would have to rebuild the housing to encase it all… that is why I quit, because I could not make it look good.

And secondly… yes. I like the SDHC support idea. It makes this all moot and is a MUCH cheaper option… HOWEVER, you can’t use SDHC on the old gp2x, you will have to buy the f200 or “hack” your firmware… which is dangerous at best.




yes, yes. I considered all this, and trust me, it WOULD have worked.


Ok, in the end here is the LAST thing I will say:

This WOULD HAVE WORKED. I had planned for everything, on paper and based on the projects of others this would have all worked beautifully! The problem was pretty much a mater of cost and of how to make the new plastics. I couldn’t make ti LOOK good. That was IT! there was NO OTHER FLAW IN THIS PLAN. Just the plastics.

Now that there is SDHC support there is no reason to continue with it. Thank you for your input. I just posted originally to apologize to those that were looking forward to seeing this. But now with changes in the gp2x community It wont be done. It doesn’t NEED to be done. So that’s it. Thanks and good night!