RNS-510 HDD replacement/SSD swap DIY

[kamold]

During my initial investigations when trying to modify the partition scheme I tried half a dozen different clone tools.
Also tried manually editing the partition table with a hex editor.

However the RNS uses a proprietary file system that none of the tools I tried was able to recognize: the Vienna Flash File System.
Its possible that this Clonezilla tool may work I am not familiar with it personally. However I spent a great deal of time going down this route until deciding it was a fruitless task and then moving on to the much easier method that I discovered actually works - namely modifying the firmware load scripts.

An SSD will not make any difference to the speed of the unit except when browsing your music library.

[Ozsko]

I have found with mine that the boot times get longer, substantially so as you load more onto the drive. I have about 55 gig on it now and it can be quite annoying but then the problem was created by me so I am not complaining. It will be interesting to see how long it takes when it gets more on it, perhaps the load times will become a factor then to the point it becomes not worthwhile. Mine BTW is 126 Gig I think.

[aussietig]

That's why my tip is to load your music collection onto a classic iPod and have that permanently hooked up via MDI.

Storing music on the HDD is just too long of a process and PITA if you're one that upgrades your FW at every opportunity that arises.

[Ozsko]

That's why my tip is to load your music collection onto a classic iPod and have that permanently hooked up via MDI.

Storing music on the HDD is just too long of a process and PITA if you're one that upgrades your FW at every opportunity that arises.

I don't have an Ipod, or I anything else so that let's me out. I don't update my music just add to it, the only thing I change often is audio books and I keep them on an SD card for convenience. The reason for that is I can leave the book and use the HD when someone else is in the car or I want to listen to music without losing my spot in the book. I do agree that the loading of music on the HD is a laborious process and there should be a data port for that purpose. I guess the other option is use MDI and hook up an SDD to that but I have heard some people have had issues with the sound quality of the MDI.

[aussietig]

Not had any issues with MDI, but depends on whether you have Dynaudio and/or coded your RNS510 properly in terms of loudness.

If you do go down the MDI route ... what I'm saying is stick with an ipod as opposed to a hard drive.

The in-built playlists, album and artist sorts on the iPod are immediately available on your RNS510 display once connected.

No need to play silly buggers and create folders to organise your music yourself on a SD card or hard drive.

The unit is slow to process content within multi-layer of folders!
So the idea is to leave all that processing to the iPod which has no such problem.

[ririm69]

hdd fail

Hello and thank you all for sharing with us your knowledge.
I will itemize all of my history because I dry a little.
I bought a bit ago rns 510, 1T0 035 680 hw 0520 down motherboard and I replaced a motherboard firmware B version HW11 3980 which is happening in D.

It works very well indeed, the concern is that I've realized that my Hitachi HDD is faulty, not detected in media and on my pc.
So I installed another hdd ide 2.5 inch a place and that, it is detected, I can even copy mp3.
My problemis that I wanted to format my new hard drive to install v9 card.
I do not own the image of the old hard drive and it is impossible for me to gain recognition on my pc because it tells me not initialize status.

When I load any version of that 1100 or 2660 I authorize the downgrade on the RNS 510, the update starts, but I do not see the gateway appear in the progress bar or the hosts or APPS or HDD,
RADIO, MPEG only SWL bar starts, and the final installation of the unit tells me error ecu.Txt error hw version of I precise that when I run the recovery cd, my car radioback in operation, but still with the non-partitioned HDD.
Another problem noted yesterday, my car radio isnot recognized in my vehicle, I said, no sound, not to tune, however thenavigation function works very well on the DVD only
And VCDS along coding gets error 31 request out of range, even in the two bytes missing.
I precise that my new HDD is format the drive to ntfs and I create a ntfs partion in thisproblem arises there also.?
There was there a firmware that solves this problem?
My new HDDis to blame?
Thank you for caring about my problem.
Thank you very much.

[kamold]

Hi Ririm69,
The firmware loads are failing to read the hardware version of your mainboard, so cannot complete.
It might be possible to restore functionality, but the right software and hardware tools are needed.

Given you are in Europe, I would advise getting in touch with user 'josi' or 'oem repair' on the vwnavi forums.

[ririm69]

Thank you very much for your help Kamold.
I will follow your idea.

[Mikkaa]

Hi all,

I am interested in upgrading the hdd in my rns510 - octavia vRS, but don't really have the technical skill to do so. Is anyone interested in giving me a price to do this for me? I live in moorebank in sydney, and can drive to you. If needed, I can also buy the ssd from ebay if you would rather that.

thankyou.

[darrenr0]

Hey John, great post but was wondering if there are any accompanying photos along with your teardown guide? Thanks Darren, UK

[kamold]

John has left the community unfortunately and the hosted photos have expired.
Next time I take one apart I'll try and get the photos replaced.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[greg32]

I tried this upgrade about 18 months ago. I used a 160gb PATA drive at the time as others had success. What happened with my RNS is that it stopped the dvd to stop working. I put the original drive in but the dvd still didn't work. I tried a second hand dvd and everything was OK so I thought it may have been something I did to fry the drive and repeated the SSD swap. That is when I had a second fried DVD. I gave up and returned it to the HDD and a new DVD drive. I don't quite understand why this happened and have been reluctant to repeat the experiment.

[The_Hawk]

I'm looking at giving this a bash for something to do since I like tinkering but wanted to ask a couple of questions first.

Most of the reasoning behind the upgrade for me is the speed to initially boot, especially to get to the RVC since I reverse out of my driveway and the less time I have no camera (or have to sit waiting for it) is good. So how much faster is boot up time?

Secondly, is there any recommended PATA SSD that is known to work better than others?

I'm looking at this one at the moment:
OWC OWCSSDMXLE060 60GB Mercury Pro Legacy 3.5"... in stock at OWC

[kamold]

It won't make any difference to boot times as only the maps are installed to the HDD (and voice files).
That drive wouldn't work I dont think as its a SATA drive, with a PATA bridge cable. The way the drive sits plugged into the board requires a PATA interface on the drive itself. The only known quantity as far as drives go that are tested are the Kingspec PATA drives.

[The_Hawk]

awwwwww...

So what's slowing down the boot time? And is there any way to speed that up?

I note the Pioneer in the Van takes some time to boot but the Camera works instantly and what seems to be completely separately to the main OS vs the RNS 510 which seems to need to be booted up to work