RNS-510 HDD replacement/SSD swap DIY

[johnc]

I don't want to state the obvious, but did you remove and check the 20 amp fuse at the rear of the unit?

[gasb]

Hi,

May be someone can help me. I have done everything this post says about rplacing my HDD. However after putting it together my RNS510 won't start. It apears there is no power to it. Tried and reinstalled original hdd same problem. If anyone knows please help.

[Ryan_R]

Excellent write-up. I'd have a go at this if I could be bothered pulling the radio out for the 50-millionth (read:4th) time

[johnc]

kamold, those instructions worked a treat mate. Easy to follow, and I didn't have any issues during any of it. Thank you so much for that. Really glad to be back on 2760 too.

I've updated the initial post with a link to your thread which explains how to do it.

Will post it in here for those initially subscribed http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/foru...510-62954.html

This is just the perfect compliment to this SSD upgrade.

[johnc]

I'll give it a go. Problem is, i'm (regrettably) on the 3970 beta, so I'm not sure if I can get back to a 276x FW.

[kamold]

Is anyone willing to test the firmware load to repartition with 276x firmware?
I will confirm that it works for me and have someone else validate before posting instructions in the interests of getting a working solution out there.

[johnc]

That'll work.

[Corey_R]

Coolies. So creatworld have a 128GB PATA SSD for ~AU$252 delivered. Much better priced than the first one I found.

[johnc]

The 128GB does work. Someone in the US or Europe (can't recall) that came across my thread on another forum did the 128 and it worked fine. Just partitioned poorly as I'd expected.

That's not the same seller, but it's the right spec. Mine was from creatworld, but I'm sure there's no real difference. That's the same brand too.

[kamold]

Yeah looks like the same one. I don't know if anyone has confirmed that a 128gb drive will work but my guess would be that it will (I remember a 127gb drive support limit for the ata controller on 440bx pc boards so this may be similar in worst case).

You can adjust the ratio at will (in theory holds true for 3xxx firmware so could do say 80/10/10 partitions for the newer Firebolt 40gb drive layout)

I'd say go for it and would have gone for a 128 myself if they were a little cheaper

[Corey_R]

Coolies.... so this one for example.

That appears to be the 128GB version of what you used in your first post. Is it the same seller?

[johnc]

Great work kamold.!! Look forward to seeing how you managed it. There's going to be a bunch of very happy people.

You can get PATA SSD's from ebay. That's where I've bought the 3 i've installed from.

[Corey_R]

This is awesome news kamold. I look forward to seeing the instructions. Maybe a 120/128GB SSD might be on the cards for me....

... just one question... where the frak do you get PATA SSD's ?

[kamold]

Ok so trying to change the partition sizes after the fact seemed like it wasn't the best way to go.

I changed the approach and tried modifying the firmware load files instead. Went down a few rabbit holes and did multiple loads/recoveries but....

Happy to report that after some faffing about and a few coasters to show for my very low skill in scripting I have successfully modified the partitioning scheme! I now have 90% for partition 1 and 10% for partition 2 (map data).



From the 64gb SSD that gives me 53gb instead of 40 under the default 67/33 scheme of the oem setup.



I did a lot of mucking around before understanding what i was doing so I will need to retrace my steps before posting instructions.

[kamold]

The file system in use for the music partition is marked as 'Vienna Flash File System'.
Never heard of this and a cursory glance over a few articles doesn't reveal anything useful.

Anyone have any experience of it?
It doesn't appear to be encrypted just not known by most partition tools. I can read the directory names of my music folders directly from the disk in a hex editor eg acronis disk editor.

I manually resized this partition by changing it's end cylinder/head/sector in the partition table after shrinking the nav FAT32 partition and moving it to the end of the drive.

Annoyingly although the FAT partition can be read properly in it's new location on the disk and the RNS510 starts up and runs fine, it still only sees ~40gb available space for music.

Will do some more research into this, there has to be some sort of 'nix tool that could manipulate this or it could be done by directly editing the blocks on disk however this is beyond my meager skillz in this area.