The 80GB Gmini120

Gmini120 firmware Version 1.9.3 showing  76289MB free space.

The Archos Gmini120 is an MP3 player/recorder and USB hard drive. Unfortunately, it comes with a rather smallish 20 GB hard disk. The Gmini120 can be bought for about US $200, an 80GB drive is still a bit expensive (about $160).

The following 80 GB Toshiba notebook drive was used for this experiment:

Model# HDD2188/MK8025GAS Capacity: 80GB Average Seek Time: 12 ms Buffer: 8MB Rotational Speed: 4200 RPM Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA-5 (http://sdd.toshiba.com)

• Backed up old data
• Turned off Gmini120
• Opened Gmini120
• Removed old hard drive
• Installed new hard drive
• Should have closed the Gmini180
• Powered on the Gmini. It complained about being unable to find a FAT/FAT32 hard drive.
• Formatted the 80GB USB drive using FAT32
• Restored backup to the new drive 

Testing

Filled hard drive with junk (approx 75000MB, copied the same 1GB file to a new file). Took around 6 hours to complete. The Gmini got a bit hot, but it didn't seem to mind. Then copied a test MP3 onto the hard drive and successfully played it back.

The Gmini does not appear to be able to recognize the 2nd or 3rd partition, or, at least I couldn't figure out how to make it see the 2nd partition in a 3 partition test (Primary 2GB FAT32, Primary 2GB FAT32, junk).

Final Words

At this point it is not known whether there are any detrimental long term effects on the battery or any other components. 

Don't do it - your Gmini may die.

You have been warned.

Thanks to Strath for his useful disection pictures and a place to put these pages.