dmnxia

Does anyone know how it may possible to hook up a USB portable hard drive such as those made by Archos, in order to listen to music and watch movies?

Someone told me that there was an expansion card, which would allow you to connect USB devices???


DMNXIA

cageyjames

There is a CF card, but I'm not sure if it supports HDs. I think its really just for connecting a mobile phone or a GPS unit.

schrags11

That would be cool though. Just as long as you had the drivers for it im guessing.

TheAce

OK guys, just some thoughts here: this would be awesome if it actually worked, at least for those of use who have some soft of portable USB hard disks (I also have the Archos JBMM20).

There is this site http://www.deje.gmxhome.de/index.html from a guy who claims to have created such a driver (dont know how he actually managed to connect though), and there is also a mention about this on http://shanebrinkmandavis.com/homepa...ish%20List.htm

If some of us put our minds and search capabilities together, I suppose we could find something useful ;)

jaja_75

Quote:

Originally posted by cageyjames There is a CF card, but I'm not sure if it supports HDs. I think its really just for connecting a mobile phone or a GPS unit.

USB 1.1 Host Adaptor CF Card
http://www.ratocsystems.com/english/...ges/cfu1u.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/firewire...usb11hosa.html

"Add USB 1.1 Host downstream port to your PDA.
Only one and fast USB Host Adapter CF card in the world.
Works on Dell Axim"



Toshiba e750, 30 Gb HDD, DeJe mass storage driver :

"Well, here's the results of my latest test. I created a large, movie-length avi file using DeJe's Divx encoding guide. I encoded to 320X176, frame rate of 22 fps using a bit rate of 362 kbps. Audio is MPEG Layer-3, 56kbps at 24000 Hz. stereo.

The avi file came out to be 371078 KB (2 hours 18 minutes running time length).

I then played the avi spinning off the USB disk. Results are:

Dropped: 0
Played: 182299
Total: 182299
Ave FPS: 22

I think both the bit rate and frame rate can be pushed higher. As time permits I'll encode at higher rates and test.

So, there you have it. The battery operated Tripper with 30 GB hard drive can serve as a "USB media server" for the e750, storing hundreds of MP3, MPEG and AVI files."

http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...0&pagenumber=2

Toshiba e330, e740, e750, e550g, Casio e-200, may be
USB 1.1 Host Adaptor CF Card and AnyPak HDD :
http://www.anypakusa.com/powerPc.htm

cageyjames

Quote:

Originally posted by jaja_75 <snip>

Are you telling me you got the CF card to work with a hard drive on the axim or are you just guessing it will work? That CF card does not support hard drives, just Mass Storage like USB memory sticks or digital cameras...

TheAce

Straight from the RATOC site:

"Works on Compaq iPAQ and Dell Axim, expands your application and ideas of PDA based systems."

"Supports USB Flash Memory reader/writers, USB Flash Memory sticks, Zip, Mo and other removable storage devices. Allows to save, restore big data from/to your PDA, to exchange big data simply with WindowsPC"

Under "USB devices", you can clearly see "Removable HDD"

Not to mention that the package includes MassStorage drivers, which could be fanshioned to work.....

cageyjames

That is incorrect...

According to the User Manual on page 6:

Quote:

Storage devices such as hard disk drives don't run with the CFU1U.

cageyjames

OK I sent an email to them asking them what the story is. I'll post the results when I get them.

TheAce

Quote:

Originally posted by cageyjames OK I sent an email to them asking them what the story is. I'll post the results when I get them.

cageyjames

Here is what they sent me...

Quote:

Dear customer, Thank you for your inquiry. Basically, if the device is recognized as REMOVABLE drive without any installation of the special driver on PC, which means that the drive is recognized by standard driver, it should be OK. The drive is needed to format as super floppy drive, which PC and PDA can access the drive. The manual is trying to say that the normal hard drive, not removable drive, doesn't work so far. There is following problem with normal USB hard drive. Actually normal hard drive is working on PDA. We can read/write data from/to the drive. But file format is not compatible with the PC. It is only compatible with the other PDAs. Since the removable hard drive is compatible with the PC, I believe it is software issue. That is why normal hard drive is not listed as supported device. Sincerely, Tsuki.

cageyjames

After all that no one is going to comment? :D

TheAce

Quote:

Originally posted by cageyjames After all that no one is going to comment? :D

Hey, give me a break!!! I went to see Reloaded for the second time, and I got home at 01:00, so I didnt have time to look at the forum.....:D

Anyway, if I understand the reply from Tsuki (??), their USB CF card and their Mass Storage driver can read/write with no problems to removable storage devices (like Zips), but not to a HDD, although he says that its purely a software issue......

Therefor, the guy that created the Deje driver seems legit when he says that he managed to connect the 740 to a 30GB HDD (although it would be nice to know the model).

Sounds like with a bit of pressure, we could have a certified USB HDD driver tomorrow ;) I for one would order the USB CF card tomorrow (hell, even today :D) if I had some sort of assurance that the guys at RATOC connected succesfully any USB HDD (of course, if it was the Archos I would be more happy ;) )...

TheAce

I have also contacted RATOC, because after the above reply, it seems to me like a very possible future for my Archos and my Axim......;)

cageyjames

Please let us know what you find out...