Chosen Solution
Just curious - has anyone tried to replace the hard drive with a newer, higher capacity solid state drive? I like my old bomber a lot, but I wonder if it could be more energy efficient and hold way more music by hot-rodding with SSD? I’m going to get some specs and see whether the size and connections and so forth even allow it. If anyone has blazed this trail ahead of me, give a shout. If it works, I’ll post the results on iFixit.
Mark B, yes you can, for as long as you find the right SSD. You need to know that the 3rd gen iPod use a MCD-D50 Drive Side Connector Series by DDK Connectors. I attached the pinout for the HDD, so your SSD will have to match the pinout. There have been plenty of conversion to CF card on the 4th gen and since it uses the same interface, it might be worthwhile to look into that. Check on here for a conversion.
Hope this helps, good luck.
I have had much difficulty since trying this hack although it’s been a lot of fun so far and Casey has been such a great help with advising me thus far! I’m using an iPod 3rd Generation 128GB Komputer Bay 600mbs UHS1 SD card CF Compact Flash to 50pin micro-IDE HDD Hard Disk Drive mini adapter SD to CF adapter I cannot seem to get this to work- I have been following Casey’s instructions on Head-Fi and I’m getting stuck on the following. After plugging the SD card into an external card reader on windows 7, I’m using the GUI version of FAT32 Formatter to format in FAT32. I then plug the SD card back into the adapter and boot up the iPod. I get the Apple Logo followed by the Folder icon with exclamation. Windows gives me the “unrecognized usb device” notification- that’s all. At this point I reset the iPod as per Casey’s instructions and boot into diagnostic mode… then from there I select USB disk. Nothing happens at this point. Sometimes the “unrecognized usb device” notification appears but that’s all. I have completely uninstalled iTunes and reinstalled iTunes 7.6 to see if this makes a difference but nothing works. On Mac, Disk Utility doesn’t see the iPod or the storage device. If I connect the SD card to the mac with an external reader, I can format in FAT but once I try connecting the iPod to be recognized, nothing happens. Every tutorial I have read out there says it’s as simple as replacing the drive, connecting it to iTunes (sometimes in Disk Mode) and restoring the iPod. But for some reason this just doesn’t want to work. I have tried different iPod HDD cables but nothing changes. I was wondering if maybe I have purchased the wrong CF to IDE adapter as this one is a 50 pin where is I have been reading that you actually need 44 pin such as this one here When the CF to IDE adapter is connected to the iPod HDD cable, there is 6 open female connections at the end Does anyone think this has something to do with the issue I’m experiencing??? Does anyone have any other suggestions? I swear that once I have successfully completed this project, I’m going to create a definitive guide so people in the future like me can create something like this and not have to struggle through it.
I had no trouble doing this, but then again mine is Mac formatted. See my battery replacement. http://www.ifixit.com/Story/9597/New_Bat…! I formatted the card when I put it together and when I plugged it in I restored it. Are you noting which pin is pin 1? Considering that there are more pins on the adapter plug than on the cable? Does your version have pin 1 marked? The extra pins should fall on the left side.
I used a KingSpec 32GB because you have to format as FAT32 that is the maximum the format will recognize or allow you to use. Formatted from Windows and notably the FireWire connection caused iPod and mac computer to crash, so must sync with USB and of course charge via FireWire.
Hi I have a 3g 40gb that I’d like to mod to a 128gb and new battery. Reading options of sdxc or cf but wonder can I replace with just an ssd? Do I need any adapters like with the previous ways? And if so, can anyone recommend a 1.8 ssd that would work with this model? Also I have a Y connector that allows usb and firewire for charging. Should that be sufficient enough to restore And update on iTunes via my iMac? Thank so much for any help you can provide. Joey. S.
