REPLACE BROKEN HARD DRIVE IN RIO CARBON WITH CF CARD

By mowcius
Rank: Guru
Rating: 90%, 265 votes

posted on May 13, 2008

Everybody says that this does not work but it definitely does!

My Rio got dropped and I completely buggered the hard drive so after reading many forums saying that it didn't work I read one that said that someone had told them that sandisk ultra II ones worked (very vague!)

Because I had nothing to lose I went out and bought a 1GB sandisk Ultra II CF card. I then took apart my rio and replaced the hard drive with the CF card. Still not thinking it was going to work I plugged it into my computer and installed the latest firmware (from the rio website) and then HEY PRESTO!!!!!! it works.

I have yet to try an 8GB ultra II card but when I do i will keep you posted.

If you don't believe me then I don't blame you but If you send me a request then I can send you pictures and more details...

Rio will live on

Please give any comments, I would love to hear them

Mowcius

Comment by mowcius, posted on May 14, 2008

For people wanting to know how to take their Rio carbon apart to access the hard drive here is an extra section for my tip:

How to disassemble a Rio Carbon:

First take off the front plate (you may want to warm it up, not fry it, with a hairdryer to make the removal easier.
Then you will see near the bottom there are two holes which if you get a very small screwdriver then you can unclip 2 of the clips holding the back plate on.
Then pry your screwdriver between the back of your rio and the rubber and lever the back off slightly (you may want to get a cocktail stick/match stick etc. to keep this open) then on each side you should see two more metal clips holding the back plate on. Lever each of these clips and the back plate should pop off - don't force it or you might break the plastic.
Then you will be able to see the hard drive and the battery underneath it.

How to remove the hard drive:

Make sure your player is turned off and not plugged in.
Then carefully lift the drive out of its cradle/holder. It will be attached by a ribbon cable to the main circuit board.
At the bottom of the hard drive carefully lever the connector off the drive, make sure you do it evenly so as not to bend the pins if you want to be able to use it afterwards.
You will then be have a 5GB Microdrive and a Rio carbon shell.
You can then connect up your CF card or new Microdrive.
If connecting a compact flash card then you may want to put a bit of foam on top of it to stop it rattling in the case because it is slightly thinner than a Microdrive

Hope this helps you not to break your Rio even more when trying to fix it!

Mowcius

Comment by mowcius, posted on May 18, 2008

Other cards:

I can now confirm that the 2GB sandisk CF ultra II card works.

I now loosened off the clips holding the back of the Rio carbon on so I could take it without a screwdriver so I can change my two cards around.

When firmware has been loaded on....

I didn't need to with my other card but with the 2GB ultra II card once I had loaded the firmware on I took it out and it said something about being formatted wrong and asked me to plug it back in. I then reformatted it and added a folder for music and it works with no problems (that I know of).

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Comment #1

posted on Jul 28, 2009

By ahauer
Rank: Apprentice
Rating: 0%, 0 votes

I've been trying it with a couple of different CF cards with no success. I've tried 8 GB and 2 GB Kingston. I can load the firmware and actually put music on the player, but once i hit 'play' it goes into eternal reboot. I had read something about the firmware intending to spin up the hard drive, but dont recall the details or if there's a work around. There was a website called Riovolution with more info, but it's gone now. Tips? Is Sandisk set up differently than Kingston?
I love my Rio, but I mountain bike with it and have broken several hard drives lately. That's getting old.

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