Modded my Zune - Swapped out 30gb HDD for 80gb HDD

T

Theorie

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 4, 2005
Messages
154
haha ZUNE HAX!!!!! omfgzorz

saw that it was possible to swap out the 30gb hdd for an 80gb hdd, so i ordered one off ebay ($169) and swapped mine. works great! i guess microsoft is only selling the 30gb model for now...im proud to say i own one of the few 80gb zunes now. only took 15 mins to swap it out too! very easy mod

before (factory standard 30gb hdd):
zune_80gb-hdd_1.jpg


after (80gb hdd installed):
zune_80gb-hdd_2.jpg


results!:
zune_80gb-hdd_3.jpg


i dont know how you guys feel about zune players...but i gotta say - i've had 1/2 a dozen mp3 players (including ipods), but i LOVE the zune. it works great, huge screen, radio, wireless, accepts any video format (with registry fix). AWESOME lil device :)
 
Very nice mod :D. Lol you have so much space on that zune its almost ridiculous.
 
Not something I hadn't thought about myself, but since you're the first person anywhere that's actually done it, had success, and posted such nice pics about it...

FUCKIN' A DUDE... :)

Congrats, and way to go.
 
Viperlover said:
is ridiculous*
Click to expand...

Thanks for adding to the thread, but if you really feel like being a nazi, I should have put an apostrophe in between the it and s.:rolleyes:

Anyway, to the op: How do you plan on filling up that drive? You could put in a dvd boxset in that thing ^^
 
I don't think he was correcting your grammar or spelling, he was saying "it's not almost ridiculous, it is ridiculous!"

;)
 
FlyinBrian said:
I want one of these, does it have a car stereo connection like ipod ?
Click to expand...

uhh.. you can hook any mp3 player up to a car stereo. Just connect to the AUX input via RCA to mini adapter. If you want power as well, just plug the zune car charger in and dock it.
 
Very cool - thanks for sharing your experiences.

I'm a Zune owner myself and have been very happy with it. Wish the battery life was a bit longer, but that's the trade-off when you have an enormous display.
 
Nice, but with a 80gb hard drive the case does not close does it? You didn't take any pictures of the side so I could not tell.

What did you do to fill in the gap?


Questions from a new zune user :)
 
how is the video output on that thing?

I'd like to get one to put some nice bluray rips on it to give it a test drive
 
Grentz said:
Nice, but with a 80gb hard drive the case does not close does it? You didn't take any pictures of the side so I could not tell.

What did you do to fill in the gap?


Questions from a new zune user :)
Click to expand...

yeah it fit fine. the case closed no prob. from the outside its looks 100% stock...but on the inside its an 80gb :D
 
i couldnt deal with the poor battery life myself..... the damn thing died after 4-5 hours with the display OFF and just playing music after a full charge
 
CrazyJ said:
I'd like to get one to put some nice bluray rips on it to give it a test drive
Click to expand...

This would be like taking a surround sound HD recording and playing it through a kazoo. While the display on the Zune is the best on the market, the resolution isn't nearly high enough to take advantage of Blu-ray content.
 
CrazyJ said:
how is the video output on that thing?

I'd like to get one to put some nice bluray rips on it to give it a test drive
Click to expand...

You would have to lower it way down in resolution and bitrate with a re-encode to x264. Then, that would defeat the whole purpose so you might as well just use a DVD rip because you would notice zero difference on the Zune screen. If you absolutely wanted true HD content for some odd reason, it would be much cheaper with HDDVD, and re-encoding an HDDVD is much easier than Blu-ray. Re-encoding isn't an easy task either. The only person I've seen that knows how to make a respectable rip of an HDDVD or Bluray is Esir. Hell, I'm guessing 95% of the community here doesn't even know how to rip a HDDVD or Bluray without using AnyDVD-HD, let alone re-encode it properly.
 
Darn. The more I see of this device, the more I like it. My only problem with it is that they force you to use the Zune software package. NO, says I! I'm running Windows Vista, and by golly I want my device to be natively supported in Media Player 11.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Darn. The more I see of this device, the more I like it. My only problem with it is that they force you to use the Zune software package. NO, says I! I'm running Windows Vista, and by golly I want my device to be natively supported in Media Player 11.
Click to expand...
That's why you just use windows explorer to drag and drop your music/video/images with a registry hack that takes about 10 seconds. :)
 
osalcido said:
i couldnt deal with the poor battery life myself..... the damn thing died after 4-5 hours with the display OFF and just playing music after a full charge
Click to expand...

that's very strange. i only charge my zune every few days and i use it on a daily basis...on the subway, walking around, at work, etc.

maybe you have a bad battery in yours?

also, there is a battery upgrade that you can get for only $20:
http://www.ipodmods.com/shop/3003-microsoft-zune-extended-battery.html

now that i have a bigger HDD i think i might get this battery upgrade...
 
InorganicMatter said:
Tried that, it gave me a ton of write-protected errors.
Click to expand...

ya know, at first i didnt like the zune software myself....but once i played with it, and added a few registry hacks...i really like it now. works great imo

the drag and drop function only works if you have the zune software installed/running, and the registry hack installed.

kind of pointless though, because i dont see whats wrong with just importing the files though the software.

i think with new firmware/software (i hear 1.3 is coming out soon) its rumored that you will be able to use the zune as a portable HDD (via windows explorer) without registry hacks.
 
Theorie said:
that's very strange. i only charge my zune every few days and i use it on a daily basis...on the subway, walking around, at work, etc.

maybe you have a bad battery in yours?

also, there is a battery upgrade that you can get for only $20:
http://www.ipodmods.com/shop/3003-microsoft-zune-extended-battery.html

now that i have a bigger HDD i think i might get this battery upgrade...
Click to expand...
'

you're probably right.. i just thought thats how it worked and so I got rid of it. it always lasted the same amount of time whether watching videos or listneing to music with the display off....

ah well live & learn i
guess
 
Did some more reading and found the 80gb does fit, just without the metal cage:

[qoute=ipodmods]
We will NOT reuse the hard drive cage when installing a 60GB or 80GB drive. the drive is too large and we cannot close the case if we install the new drive using the metal drive cage. for the 40GB drive you can simply use the above guide as everything will be reused because it is the exact same size as the 30GB drive
[/quote]

I wonder if that affects anything by not having the cage (protection, etc.).

Fascinating as I only have 9gb left on mine and just got it a few days ago :p



BTW, for the zune software. It is not really that bad once you get used to it, very similar to WMP. Only thing I dislike is that Last.fm does not support it for some reason :mad:

The biggest issue you will have if coming from itunes (like I did) is that the zune software looks at Contributing Artist as well (which is what it should do) but itunes ignores that. So when syncing to zune you may have more artists than you did before since it lists the artist and contributing artist. I also had a few songs that did not come over properly, but with a little cleanup session I am happy.

Also, Zune software supports mp4 when WMP does not! Very fascinating for some (I have a few mp4 tracks).
 
What I really wanna do is mod my ipod with the 80 gig model battery.

I still have the unupdated 5G version and it would great if I could have that 6 hour video play that they supposedly have.

EDIT: Just learned i can't do that, meh.
 
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