Topic: iRiver H120 CF Mod Attempt - Success!

[AlexG]

With Alex's help, I got my iHP-120 outfitted with the Transcend 8GB CF card. It's pretty cool that it works at all, but my Real Time Clock mod isn't enabled (no biggie) and the balance meter (from the REP build) is missing. Other than that, it's nice.

petur: what's the odds that the balance meter will be (or could be) incorporated in the daily RockBox builds? The sizable metering is cool, but not critical, but I have come to rely on the balance meters from the REP. I'll continue to use the last REP installed on my HD when making critical recordings for now.

Thanks and +T, Alex, for the help.

Hey no prob glad I could help.  I pulled down the latest Rockbox svn last night and I was able to build it so my environment is set up correctly.   Just for grins tried to apply the REP patch at the top of the REP thread but if failed miserably.   I would really like to just track down the individual patches I use and only apply them.  Try and create a new personal REP build.  Petur is there a place where 3rd party patches live?  I'll start digging myself but I figured I could ask too   I have to say the new version of rockbox looks way fancy compared to the REP build I was using.  It sure would be nice to resurrect this rockbox fork with a newer build.

[Chuck]

With Alex's help, I got my iHP-120 outfitted with the Transcend 8GB CF card. It's pretty cool that it works at all, but my Real Time Clock mod isn't enabled (no biggie) and the balance meter (from the REP build) is missing. Other than that, it's nice.

petur: what's the odds that the balance meter will be (or could be) incorporated in the daily RockBox builds? The sizable metering is cool, but not critical, but I have come to rely on the balance meters from the REP. I'll continue to use the last REP installed on my HD when making critical recordings for now.

Thanks and +T, Alex, for the help.

Hey no prob glad I could help.  I pulled down the latest Rockbox svn last night and I was able to build it so my environment is set up correctly.   Just for grins tried to apply the REP patch at the top of the REP thread but if failed miserably.   I would really like to just track down the individual patches I use and only apply them.  Try and create a new personal REP build.  Petur is there a place where 3rd party patches live?  I'll start digging myself but I figured I could ask too   I have to say the new version of rockbox looks way fancy compared to the REP build I was using.  It sure would be nice to resurrect this rockbox fork with a newer build.

Man, that would be cool, Alex. Is your iRiver modded with the Real Time Clock too? I like that feature, but could live without it, if I could just get the balance meters back!

[mrruin]

any chance you can upload that build somewhere so people who are not as proficient with building their own builds can get this done? It would be much appreciated.

Or do you absolutely HAVE to compile that stuff yourself?

EDIT: NM found the answers in the wiki. It is not very easy to read but finally found what I needed.

[Rapide23]

Rapide23, I just installed a 4 GB Transcend 133x CF card in my H320 yesterday, and it works as advertised (meaning Rockbox works perfectly, but the original firmware can't read from the card).

As the CFModGuide that petur linked above is a bit cluttered, note that the first thing you'll need to do is download the H300.zip file from that page (which is a modified version of the 1.29J firmware) and upgrade your iRiver with it (do this while you have the hard drive in it - and both the hard drive and CF work with it). I personally transferred the .rockbox files onto the CF card before installing it, but I believe you can copy those files to the CF card after installing it in your iRiver and plugging in the USB cable (while it's off so it goes into bootloader USB mode).

Also, I personally bent over the pins for the jumper, ground down part of the plastic on the adapter, and cut a little notch in the rubber that sits between the battery and the hard drive so everything would fit better (other people may have done as little as bending over the jumper, but I don't want to risk damaging my battery by squeezing everything in - as it's a tight fit; though it's less than a millimeter too thick after also removing the piece of rubber that sits between the bottom of the hard drive and the circuit board). The pictures below show most of this. (I ground the plastic on the adapter at an angle as it sits at an angle in the iRiver, and the little rectangle in the second picture is where I cut a notch out of the rubber.)

Another thing is that opening up an H300 series iRiver isn't as easy as the H100 series. If you haven't already done this, this page details how to remove the back cover (the rest of the instructions aren't important). I personally started on the top and bottom (which are easier to pry apart than the sides) then moved to the sides using a knife that's beveled on one side and flat on the other (plus a credit card once there was room for it). I had the beveled side facing the back of the iRiver so it would push the tabs back (so they could be unhooked without breaking them).

I've opened up my H320 to replace the battery already, so I'm not worried about opening up my player.

Which bootloader are you using? I thought that the latest version of rockbox already has CF support (according to the CFmod Guide. I am using version r17153-080418)...

Oh, and I'm using a 1GB Sandisk Ultra II CF card, which is in FAT32 format and already has the rockbox files and some music copied onto it from my current H320 HD.

[petur]

Petur is there a place where 3rd party patches live?  I'll start digging myself but I figured I could ask too   I have to say the new version of rockbox looks way fancy compared to the REP build I was using.  It sure would be nice to resurrect this rockbox fork with a newer build.

Not that I know of. I really am short of time now, maybe I can have a look next week at the earliest

[eupeptic]

Which bootloader are you using? I thought that the latest version of rockbox already has CF support (according to the CFmod Guide. I am using version r17153-080418)...

Oh, and I'm using a 1GB Sandisk Ultra II CF card, which is in FAT32 format and already has the rockbox files and some music copied onto it from my current H320 HD.

I'm using the bootloader that petur modified.

My understanding (and experience) is that while the latest version of Rockbox does support CF cards, depending on what CompactFlash card you have (as AlexG noticed at the beginning of this thread, as well as others on the Rockbox forums) you may also need a recent (modified) bootloader. If you just load the latest version of Rockbox on an H300 iRiver as per the instructions in the manual then your bootloader will be version 5. (Also see this thread.) I suspect that if you build the bootloader yourself from the source (as a binary is not included in the precompiled SVN release) then that may work, but as petur's already tested a modified bootloader with his H320 you don't need to take much of a risk. (See the threads in the link I gave to the Rockbox forums for more detail.)

The Sandisk Ultra II CF cards may work with the v5 bootloader, though (my Transcend 133x does not), as a number of issues seem to be related to old cards and new cards (such as Transcend's 133x and 266x, and the A-Data Turbo 266x), but not midrange cards (such as the A-Data speedy or the RiDATA 150x).

[AlexG]

any chance you can upload that build somewhere so people who are not as proficient with building their own builds can get this done? It would be much appreciated.

Or do you absolutely HAVE to compile that stuff yourself?

EDIT: NM found the answers in the wiki. It is not very easy to read but finally found what I needed.

When I get a working build of course I'll post it.  I was hand merging the Histogram patch the other day but I blew it all away by accident so I have to start over again.    I'm hoping to have something done in the next week or two depending on my free time.

[Chuck]

any chance you can upload that build somewhere so people who are not as proficient with building their own builds can get this done? It would be much appreciated.

Or do you absolutely HAVE to compile that stuff yourself?

EDIT: NM found the answers in the wiki. It is not very easy to read but finally found what I needed.

When I get a working build of course I'll post it.  I was hand merging the Histogram patch the other day but I blew it all away by accident so I have to start over again.    I'm hoping to have something done in the next week or two depending on my free time.

I know nothing about programing, but I do remember that when Mmmm was building the REP, he got the code for some of the features from other people. Maybe there is a balance meter patch or a histogram patch  Not that I'd know what to do with them if they existed... 

[petur]

I know nothing about programing, but I do remember that when Mmmm was building the REP, he got the code for some of the features from other people. Maybe there is a balance meter patch or a histogram patch  Not that I'd know what to do with them if they existed... 

indeed, the REP is nothing more than a collection of different patches. Alas the person who wrote most of them hasn't been along for over a year, no idea what happened to him...

The rockbox patch tracker is located here

Edit: In fact, the histogram/balance/... patch is right here

[Chuck]

I know nothing about programing, but I do remember that when Mmmm was building the REP, he got the code for some of the features from other people. Maybe there is a balance meter patch or a histogram patch  Not that I'd know what to do with them if they existed... 

indeed, the REP is nothing more than a collection of different patches. Alas the person who wrote most of them hasn't been along for over a year, no idea what happened to him...

The rockbox patch tracker is located here

Edit: In fact, the histogram/balance/... patch is right here

Thank you petur! +T

Alex!  Is that what you need? 

I have to say that the balance meter saved me again, last night at Wilco. I was close to the stage but very far right. The balance meter helped me center the audio image.

[Mr. Bull]

After reading this whole thread I am thinking that there should be no problem modifying the 115.  Right?   
I just had my hardrive freeze up last night.  It would not shut off.  It burned out the batterie completely and after recharging it booted up again. So I thinks its time to modify.

[Rapide23]

Yeah! Got the adapter today, and now my H320 has become a H301!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't be happier! Didn't even need to use the special bootloader that was posted on here earlier. Had some freezing and file transfer issues at the start, but its completely fine now!

I think I'm ready to go out and get a 32GB CF card. Which ones work? I'm currently using a Sandisk Ultra 1GB.

[petur]

I think I'm ready to go out and get a 32GB CF card. Which ones work? I'm currently using a Sandisk Ultra 1GB.

They should all work, but most require the modified bootloader... see the CFMod wiki page on rockbox.org

[AlexG]

I know nothing about programing, but I do remember that when Mmmm was building the REP, he got the code for some of the features from other people. Maybe there is a balance meter patch or a histogram patch  Not that I'd know what to do with them if they existed... 

indeed, the REP is nothing more than a collection of different patches. Alas the person who wrote most of them hasn't been along for over a year, no idea what happened to him...

The rockbox patch tracker is located here

Edit: In fact, the histogram/balance/... patch is right here

Thank you petur! +T

Alex!  Is that what you need? 

I have to say that the balance meter saved me again, last night at Wilco. I was close to the stage but very far right. The balance meter helped me center the audio image.

Yeah that is the patch that I was playing with earlier but blew away my work.  I'll try and give it a go this week again and see what happens.

[Rapide23]

I think I'm ready to go out and get a 32GB CF card. Which ones work? I'm currently using a Sandisk Ultra 1GB.

They should all work, but most require the modified bootloader... see the CFMod wiki page on rockbox.org

I don't really understand the stuff in the wiki though....