Creative Muvo 2’s 4GB Microdrive
:: Saturday, February 21st, 2004 @ 11:25:10 pm
:: Tags: Computers
I finally bought a Creative Labs Muvo 4GB MP3 Player, took it apart, and ripped out the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive nestled inside. This is a FANTASTIC deal! Hitachi 4GB drives are around $500 purchased separately, and the Muvo 2 is only $199. J&R had them in stock last week.
I did run into one hitch, however. When I took the drive out, I immediately stuck the thing in my Canon 1Ds and formatted it, resulting in a 2GB FAT partition and 2GB of unused space. Those of you who are familiar with Windows XP know that it is impossible to repartition CF media using the operating system, but luckily, there are two Powerbooks in the house. OS X was able to repartition the drive, and now have a huge 3.81GB microdrive working in my camera, at full capacity.
Note that it is possible to format the drive to 4GB FAT by using XP, Linux, and some trickery. But since my camera supports FAT32, I didn’t have to resort to those methods.
UPDATE - it appears that my 1Ds doesn’t work with the Hitachi 4GB drive. I tested it on Elliot’s Digital Rebel, and it works just fine (with the full 3.81GB available)! I’m going to have to figure this out. :(
UPDATE 2 - here’s a link at robgalbraith’s site that talks about the fix. I ended up using Elliot’s digital rebel to do the actual formatting, and now it works!
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nice work, even though you might have hit a few bumps.
That’s one way to do it…
Interesting blog entry by Eric Cheng detailing how he purchased a $199 Creative Labs Muvo 4GB MP3 player and ripped it up just so he can use the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive in his digital SLR. If this catches on, there’s…
If you solve this problem, you will be a hero to geeks everywhere. I’ve just been reading about people doing the same thing to iPod minis—cannibalizing them for the encased 4GB microdrive, but others are also having problems getting them to work in cameras. So far, you’re already ahead of a lot of ppl by getting it to work in the 300D.
Shit. Sorry. Just saw your update 2.
the other solution is to use Windows 2000 to do the partitioning. Win XP can’t even attempt to partition it, and Mac OS X partitions in in a different way, I guess.
computers are stupid.
Nice work!
I want to know if anyone got the 4gig microdrive to work wid a olympus camera or know of any that will work?
Does your oly camera support FAT32? If not, it probably doesn’t, unless you do the trick in the link above, in which case it might work.
Also so you guys know, the 4gig drive will work on the Canon S50. Of course I haven’t bought a muvo yet because I don’t NEED to take 1700+ pictures yet ;-) Maybe when I do it’ll be down to $100 for the cf card:)
Bad luck on my D70 with muvo2…
Putted the formated FAT32 4gb card (didn´t make the firmware update first )on my D70 and i gotted an error (CHA)then putted the card again on muvo2 and º_º got another error “MEDIA ERROR”
So…i got one thing: Flying money :(
If someone can help me pls email me.
Thx in advance
Someone has hacked Creative’s MuVo² FM 5GB Seagate CF:
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=1249&s=1
Got a Hitachi 4gb MD for my sony f828 but keep on getting CF card Error when I try to format or access any tips? Im going nuts with it! please email me with ideas
anyone used one of these ripped off hitachi 4gb md on an axim x5 pda? if yes, what did u do to make it work?
I’m tryin to use iPOD 4gb md on my hx4700 , but device informed me with “unrecognized card” error in both fat and fat32 formats.Do you have any idea about this ??