gee52

Please share by telling us who you bought it from, who manufactured it and the model number? Also if their are any firmware codes.

There's too many microdrive horror stories out there and I would like a working Microdrive! If one of my hx4700 comrades out there can tell me what I'm asking for in the abovementioned, I'm off to buy one.

PLEASE keep this post only to those who have one that works and also, please keep the MuVo2/Carbon thing out of this!

abb1

I would not opt for a microdrive. They are fine for anything that is not mobile, but for anything else- forget it, stick with flash drives. A microdrive has moving parts that is prone to shock, will skip when running or jogging, and be permanently damaged if the Ipaq is dropped meaning that all data will be lost. The Ipods have that sort of covered as their drives are insulated and dampened to absorb shock, but the CF slot in an ipaq is not. Don't do it, if you want that much space, get a 4gb flash drive.

hydro27405

I have a 2GB and a 4GB by hitachi, they were formerly made by IBM but Hitachi bought there hard drive line. Watching movies in bed with a headset with a short cable they have both dropped a couple of feet while in my 4700 and everything is still working fine.
Hydro

Raiderhp4700

THE HITACHI 4GMD IS rock solid. it works just fine in 4700. its also designed to take a 2 g drop.. which is from about waist high onto the floor. most normal hdd are desiged to take more than that. if i had to do it over agian.. i would buy the ULTRA FAST 4-6-8 G CF.. when they are available and dont cost zillions.. i figure my 4hdd will last until the prices come down and the speed goes up on the cf cards.. the cf card just uses much less power.. not that the 4ghdd is a drain or anything ..its not..

promatchrcr

I agree with you guys I have a Hitachi 4gb microdrive and love it. It has been dropped several times and I have had great luck. I use it for movies and mp3 with no problems. I love my microdrive.....can you tell?!?!?!

linguistdude

I pulled a 5 gigabyte Seagage St1 drive (not technically a microdrive, but same thing..) from a carbon rio. I don't know if you can still do it or not on the new models. Anyway, it works great!

windmilltilting

Originally Posted by hydro27405

I have a 2GB and a 4GB by hitachi, they were formerly made by IBM but Hitachi bought there hard drive line. Watching movies in bed with a headset with a short cable they have both dropped a couple of feet while in my 4700 and everything is still working fine. Hydro

Can one of you guys with the hitachis tell me if the drive uses power while it is idle, and if so, how much. I just sent back a magicstor because it cut the runtime of my device by 50% just by sitting in the slot. I would really apreciate it if you could, I want the gigabytes, but need the runtime.

Raiderhp4700

hitachi 4g off the shelf..plugged it in..works its that simple. one glitch about microdrives.. they go in easy..and are a pain in the butt to get back out...

windmilltilting

Originally Posted by Raiderhp4700

hitachi 4g off the shelf..plugged it in..works its that simple. one glitch about microdrives.. they go in easy..and are a pain in the butt to get back out...

Thanks, but what about the power consumption. The magicstor "worked", it just cut my battery life in half.

frasej

I play music and watch movies off of my Hitachi 4GB drive. I've also got an extended battery. I figure I can get about 9-10 hours watching movies. Playing music with the screen off, I can get around 13 hours.

rjbouw

I also got my 5gb seagate from a Rio carbon and it works great. On the pc i put it in a usb2 cardreader, and it copies files bloody fast.

About batterylife... i use mine for watching videos and playing mp3. I find that if i seek in video's or skip music a lot it drains pretty fast. However when i play a video file for 1.5 hours the battery is half empty when finished. Oh, and the backlight is down to a minimum then because i watch in bed when its dark. The light hurts my eyes when its on full. I think i wouldnt recommend using it for fileacces, better use a flash card for this. Check mypda for speed benchmarks for the drive.

In Betaplayer and pocketplayer there are options for caching files and reading ahead, this may also save some batterylife. I havent fiddled around with this so i couldnt tell if this works ok.

Oh, if anyone of you wants to rip a card from a rio carbon also, remember that the new ones have the drive locked in IDE-mode so you need an older one.

rjbouw

Oh, sorry i just read about the 'keep the muvo/rio out of it' part. Oh, well...

windmilltilting

Originally Posted by frasej

I play music and watch movies off of my Hitachi 4GB drive. I've also got an extended battery. I figure I can get about 9-10 hours watching movies. Playing music with the screen off, I can get around 13 hours.

That is encouraging. What PPC are you using, and if you have WM2003se, what is your standby time on a full charge with the radios off?

imported_jb2001

I've got a 4Gb CF card, it says it's 40X but copying to it via a USB2 card reader is PAINFULL anybody had issues with write/read speeds.

Is there any benchmarking freeware software avalible to test read write speed devices ??

__________________
HP Jornada 548 -> Toshiba e540 -> Dell Axim X5 (see my PDA) -> HP iPAQ HX4700 -> HTC Hermes (SPV M3100)
2 x 1Gb MMC, 1 x 4Gb CF, 1 x 2Gb MicroSD

IpaqHQ Forever.........

windmilltilting

Originally Posted by jb2001

I've got a 4Gb CF card, it says it's 40X but copying to it via a USB2 card reader is PAINFULL anybody had issues with write/read speeds. Is there any benchmarking freeware software avalible to test read write speed devices ??

www.mozongoware.com has an article about these issues. I don't know about software to test.