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      12-18-2009, 08:59 PM   #1
darkl4805
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Nav Hard Drive Upgrade?

Has anyone attempted this? If so does anyone know if it's using a SSD, flash storage or a standard mechanical drive? If it's using a standard hard drive is it 2.5" or 3.5", SATA or IDE?

The software piece will be the fun part... if it is even physically possible to swap out the drive.

Any information will help, thanks in advance.
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      12-21-2009, 10:28 PM   #2
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good question. Also interested....
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      12-24-2009, 12:26 AM   #3
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I dunno if anyone has attempted it, but its a 2.5" hard drive attached to that little rectangular port on the front of the CIC - it slides right out, presumably for servicing (or upgrading!)
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      12-24-2009, 03:33 AM   #4
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would be great if we can upgrade, nice diy write up if possible
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      01-11-2010, 05:16 PM   #5
darkl4805
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This is the drive in my 2010,
http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pat...ucts/MK8050GAC

Researching the 'automotive specs' to see what is unique in an automotive spec hdd.

It's a 2.5" PATA 80gb drive. I was a bit surprised by the size... was expecting a 20 or 40gb drive.
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      01-11-2010, 11:41 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Booster4075 View Post
I dunno if anyone has attempted it, but its a 2.5" hard drive attached to that little rectangular port on the front of the CIC - it slides right out, presumably for servicing (or upgrading!)
what is cic?

also, i think this could very well be upgraded, unless 80 gb maxes the "automotive" specialty drives that perform under extreme temperature or altitude.
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      01-12-2010, 03:29 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jabwind51 View Post
what is cic?

also, i think this could very well be upgraded, unless 80 gb maxes the "automotive" specialty drives that perform under extreme temperature or altitude.
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      01-12-2010, 10:46 AM   #8
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would be nice to test with a 128gb SSD
only problem is how to transfer the software/data from old HD to new one
and if the OS will see the extra space or not
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      01-12-2010, 11:04 AM   #9
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It shouldn't be too hard to do a disk to disk copy using something like Nortons ghost or Acronis true image. Biggest thing will be finding a pata ssd that large, most are sata now. But they should be good for the same operating conditions as the toshiba hard drive.
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      01-12-2010, 12:08 PM   #10
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One could use PATA to SATA adapter...
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      01-12-2010, 02:07 PM   #11
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The drive fits very snug without much room to add a converter inside of the CIC. Ideally a SSD would be best because operating conditions really become moot. One thing I'm contemplating is running a PATA cable to the glove box so that space is not an issue. Max length of a PATA cable is 18 inches and max length of a passive sata cable is 1 meter. Drop in replacement is the goal though.

I've found several competing mechanical automotive drives but the only one which provides larger storage is the Hitachi (100gb).
Hitachi: http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/sit...rastar/J4K100/
Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...Series_5400.2/

Transcend makes a 128gb SSD PATA drive that runs about $400

My next step is to attempt to move the OS/drive image to a non-toshiba drive and see if the system still recognizes it. There is the potential that the firmware in the CIC only permits a certain brand or model of a HDD to be used (much like the xbox 360 does). If it's easy enough to migrate the OS then it's just a matter of finding an acceptable replacement drive.
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      01-12-2010, 02:11 PM   #12
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CIC might also be tied to a particular kind of HDD controller...
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      01-16-2010, 03:28 PM   #13
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Question

You folks are really brave! My inner-dweeb fully supports this endeavor.

Question: what's the goal?

1. more space for music files
2. faster nav
3. climb Mt. Everest "because it is there"
4. a lot of time on your hands
5. need outlet for energy due to lack of boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/dog/cat
6. bragging rights at the next Consumer Electronics Show convention in Vegas
7. wish to work for BMW
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      01-17-2010, 12:46 AM   #14
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My goals are (replace it with a solid state disk),
1. Faster boot up and operation of system.
2. Eliminate hard drive noise in the car. It's there especially when you enter the car for the first time or right after you turn it off.
3. More storage space for music

Update,
Good news: Successfully copied the 80gb drive to a new 320gb drive (using a sector-by-sector backup/restore) and had no problems loading it up and driving around. I used a 5400 rpm drive which has a much lower seek time than the Toshiba. Bootup for the unit was noticeably faster with this drive and had no issues writing data to the drive or reading previously stored stuff.
Bad news: OS and File System is QNX 4... I've been able to resize the partition but cannot resize the virtual drives inside the partition. Neither Linux or Windows plays friendly with QNX and there aren't any tools out there other than installing QNX 4 and finding a way to manually adjust the virtual drive size inside of the QNX 4 OS. More bad news is that QNX 4 doesn't want to run inside of vmware so I'm going to have to rig up an older PC to boot straight into it and play that way.

Other Notes,
It looks like each application is given it's own virtual drive. Acronis True Image worked perfect for creating the image. BootIt Ng worked as well and was the utility I used for increasing the partition (not the virtual drive). See attached jpg to see the layout.

Currently Contemplating,
Replacing with an SSD and not attempting to expand music storage capacity and achieving 2 out of the 3 goals. Really depends on how long I want to leave my 2 week old car in pieces ;P... not a fan of continually disassembling the radio console.
Attached Images
 

Last edited by darkl4805; 01-17-2010 at 12:47 AM.. Reason: missing word
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      01-17-2010, 01:44 PM   #15
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This is great, thanks for sharing. Can you share what components did you use to connect the Toshiba drive to the computer (i.e cables, adapters, etc.) and the relevant procedure? I'm interested in this for back up purposes rather that increasing the drive or partition size, in case the drive fails particularly after the warranty ends.
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      01-18-2010, 12:06 AM   #16
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I used a 44 pin IDE to USB converter. You should be able to pick one up at any local Frys or Best Buy. 44 pin is the same as 2.5" IDE when you're looking at the converters.

I then plugged the drive in to my PC and used Acronis True Image 2010 to do a sector-by-sector full backup of the entire drive. You want to make sure you select the drive and not just each partition. This way you'll get the master boot record copied.

When restoring the the image make sure you select sector-by-sector restore. I would recommend restoring the image to another 2.5" drive and verifying that the image/restore is valid by booting it up at least once.

Other Notes:
1. I have not tried starting the car w/out the hard drive.
2. I disconnected the battery because I noticed that the car will sporadically spin up the hard drive.
3. There is a white piece of tape covering the tray that pulls out in the CIC. This could risk violating the warranty so proceed at your own risk.
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      01-18-2010, 07:06 PM   #17
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Thank you.
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      01-23-2010, 09:03 AM   #18
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I was wondering how long these drives will last, and how long replacements will be available?

I can see this in 5 years...Sorry, your disk has failed and no replacements are available. We can replace your complete CIC with the current version for just $3,000.

Since they cost less than $140 maybe I should buy a spare?
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      01-26-2010, 03:27 PM   #19
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Great thread. Thanks darkl4805.

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      01-25-2011, 05:00 AM   #20
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someone please sell the old 80 gb disk with system, or can someone please give the disk image file???
Thanks a lot
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      01-25-2011, 10:27 PM   #21
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I wanted to do this with my old G35 to have more storage for music but I never bothered since it was a lease Seeing as I don't have my 1er yet, maybe I can try to help.

Here's my idea:
In past versions of the linux kernel, there was a loadable module that supported QNX filesystems. I haven't seen it for quite some time and I doubt it's a precompiled loadable module in 2.6 kernels, but you can find a semi-recent driver for it at this link: http://qnxfs.narod.ru/ - hope you're familiar with compiling linux kernels or modules!

Once you've got the module loaded up, mount all of the filesystems. Back each of the partitions up to another drive using 'tar' (this will preserve dates, permissions, directory structure, etc that are essential to the OS). Make sure that you know which partition you backed up to which tarball. Once you've got 'em all backed up to another drive, delete all the partitions on the imaged drive, recreate larger partitions with the same filesystem ID (4D) using fdisk, create the filesystems using dinit (also available at above link), and then un-tar the backups to their respective locations in their newer, larger partitions.

I imagine it would be useful to know which of the partitions you want to make larger and that might take some investigating, but I don't see why this wouldn't work.
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      01-25-2011, 11:22 PM   #22
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You can install QNX 4 in VMWare, I've done it. Some things you can do to try and make it work.

Under OS type select "DOS"
Make sure the virtual partition is 2GB or less
Make sure the virtual machine doesn't have a "virtual floppy disk" attached/enabled
Boot using 16 color VGA mode

If all else fails boot QNX in safe mode, and start install.
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