New iPod Classic 120GB hard drive compatible with MBA?

[Satori]

please does anyone know what input/output error means?

Just a guess but if you are getting the same error for both drives it may be a problem with the ZIF socket. Have you pulled the lever all the way back up?

 

[yaemes]

I thought the ZIF socket didn't have a lever, i just firmly pushed the cable in hoping i would not break it. it is a little bent now but from the looks of it it's still perfectly fine. i'd bust out the ohm-meter but those contacts are painfully small and i can't really follow the traces as they're obscured.

details: if i put the 120 back in the ipod, and plug it into my leopard mac, it can format just fine with disk utility. however if i put it inside the air, i get i/o error.

should I try putting it back into the ipod and formatting it with Tiger?

the ipod is not *quite* a usb drive. its almost one but i beleive there is something a little different about it from say a zif drive to usb adapter.

i don't know what to do!

Edit: also note that you can not boot into tiger with an MBA, it's not compatable.

 

[aleksandra.]

I thought the ZIF socket didn't have a lever, i just firmly pushed the cable in hoping i would not break it. it is a little bent now but from the looks of it it's still perfectly fine. i'd bust out the ohm-meter but those contacts are painfully small and i can't really follow the traces as they're obscured.

details: if i put the 120 back in the ipod, and plug it into my leopard mac, it can format just fine with disk utility. however if i put it inside the air, i get i/o error.

should I try putting it back into the ipod and formatting it with Tiger?

the ipod is not *quite* a usb drive. its almost one but i beleive there is something a little different about it from say a zif drive to usb adapter.

i don't know what to do!

Edit: also note that you can not boot into tiger with an MBA, it's not compatable.

And if you put 80GB drive in the iPod, does it work? If so, maybe the problem is the connection in your MBA?

From http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3226&p=14 :

We found that the connector on the Samsung HDD Apple used had a more snug fit than the SSD we received from DVNation, we're not sure if this is a modification Samsung made for Apple and if it's possible to get a drive after market with the same drive-end connector. Having a snug fit is very important as we found that unless we taped the cable in place very well, the drive would sometimes not be detected by OS X upon boot. Make sure the connector is secure and then reverse the process to install the new drive.

If the 120GB in the new iPod is indeed Toshiba's, it might be hard to fit the ZIF connector well enough for it to work.

I'm sorry if you've already checked it twenty times and I sound stupid, I'm just trying to help.

 

[yaemes]

Oh wow, good catch... Yeah I tried about 20 times, very painful and my zif connector is worn out now although i think it still works. the new drive is toshiba and the old is samsung

right now i am in the process of installing leopard back onto the 80

i tried putting the 80 in the ipod but it could not be mounted. so the zif cable being incompatible is a possible problem...

 

[yaemes]

I am very sorry to announce this but after that near miss with the laptop I don't have the courage anymore to do the mod.

So if anyone else wants to attempt it, contact me and I'll walk you through the steps.

Thanks everyone for your support

 

[fsosx]

Any idea if it has to do with the drive itself as other drives are recognized properly, even 8mm drives (the cover won't close obviously)?

Maybe a special firmware for the iPod?

This is strange. I can see the drive in Disk Utility as a Toshiba MK1231GAL drive, can zero it but I always get the I/O error.

 

[Lumpydog]

Pata/sata

The Rev A uses PATA... is the iPod's 120GB drive SATA?

 

[fteoath64]

Toshiba and Samsung 1.8 inch differences.

Could it be that the PATA ZIF ribbon cables has a different pinout on the drive side ?. I remembered some UK sites warning that specific ZIF cable works for Toshiba 1.8 inch drives only. The standard cable that comes probably works for the Samsung N2 drives only.