Increasing HDD size on an ESCIENT E2-300

m.parigi · 17th July 2006, 10:06 AM

I'm running out of HDD space on my Escient E2-300 music manager. I would definitely need to get a larger HD: having opened the player, I've seen that it currently has a 300GB PATA MAXTOR HDD.

Since now all major HD manufacturers have put out models with capacities up to 750 GB, I was thinking about changing the HDD in the Escient.

My plan was to take the HDD out of the unit, to mount it inside my PC together with the newly purchased drive and to clone its content on the larger drie with Norton Ghost or a similar tool.

Does anybody know what this would involve and whether it would be possible at all? Has anybody tried it already? Suggestions?
Thanks for your help!

rbroer · 17th July 2006, 11:49 AM

My music manager (not Escient) didn't allow the harddisk to be replaced (refused to boot, BIOS protection) by default, only after
some hack code.

So I would suggest this is something you could easily try for yourself ? Let us know the results.

If you're willing to pay $4000 for this device, spending a few hundred $ for a larger harddisk isn't a lot of money, and it's not even wasted when there's no success, just upgrade your desktop pc

m.parigi · 17th July 2006, 01:39 PM

I didn't pay $4000 for it, I bought it used on Ebay for a fraction of that price!

In any case I definitely need the extra HD space, so I'd be interested in whatever sugestions you could come up with. If I understand it correctly, you had to hack the BIOS of your machine. How did you do it?

m.parigi · 18th July 2006, 07:20 PM

Can anybody help?

Schaef · 19th July 2006, 01:11 PM

I did a brief search for info on the unit yesterday. Because the unit is so expensive, it doesn't appear many people are willing to hack these units.

However, here's how I would approach attacking this unit:

Step one, pop open the unit and see what's inside. I'm going to assume they're using a standard ATA hard drive. Pull the hard drive and mount it in a desktop PC. Now here's where things get a little tricky. I'm going to assume you don't have a linux box, so we're going to have to use windows. Boot it up and see if windows recognizes it. More than likely it won't. I'm guessing they're using a linux variant on the box, which means the drive won't be FAT32 or NTFS, but more likely EXT3, JFS or some other linux file system. If you can, download or find a live CD of linux, boot that and start trying different mounting options to see what you can come up with. Assuming you can eventually get the drive mounted in the PC, then you can start to figure out how to install a larger hard drive.

Another option would be to look at the board itself and see if you can figure out who really makes the board in the unit, chances are these guys didn't do the board design themselves, but bought it from someone else. See if you can find the original manufacturer and maybe get some details there. Also, look at the board and see if you can identify some debug ports on the board. There's probably a JTAG port on the unit and a serial port or two internal to the unit that would probably need a header soldered to it to access. Then you can probably watch the boot cycle and learn even more about the unit.

If you can identify the software that's running on the unit and how it boots, it shouldn't be too difficult to modify things to make it work better!

If you post some details about the internals, I might be able to help out as well.

17th July 2006, 10:06 AM	#1
m.parigi diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Italy	Increasing HDD size on an ESCIENT E2-300 I'm running out of HDD space on my Escient E2-300 music manager. I would definitely need to get a larger HD: having opened the player, I've seen that it currently has a 300GB PATA MAXTOR HDD. Since now all major HD manufacturers have put out models with capacities up to 750 GB, I was thinking about changing the HDD in the Escient. My plan was to take the HDD out of the unit, to mount it inside my PC together with the newly purchased drive and to clone its content on the larger drie with Norton Ghost or a similar tool. Does anybody know what this would involve and whether it would be possible at all? Has anybody tried it already? Suggestions? Thanks for your help!

17th July 2006, 11:49 AM	#2
rbroer diyAudio Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Netherlands	My music manager (not Escient) didn't allow the harddisk to be replaced (refused to boot, BIOS protection) by default, only after some hack code. So I would suggest this is something you could easily try for yourself ? Let us know the results. If you're willing to pay $4000 for this device, spending a few hundred $ for a larger harddisk isn't a lot of money, and it's not even wasted when there's no success, just upgrade your desktop pc __________________ Rudolf Broertjes

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17th July 2006, 01:39 PM	#3
m.parigi diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Italy	I didn't pay $4000 for it, I bought it used on Ebay for a fraction of that price! In any case I definitely need the extra HD space, so I'd be interested in whatever sugestions you could come up with. If I understand it correctly, you had to hack the BIOS of your machine. How did you do it?

18th July 2006, 07:20 PM	#4
m.parigi diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Italy	Can anybody help?

19th July 2006, 01:11 PM	#5
Schaef diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cuyahoga Falls, OH	I did a brief search for info on the unit yesterday. Because the unit is so expensive, it doesn't appear many people are willing to hack these units. However, here's how I would approach attacking this unit: Step one, pop open the unit and see what's inside. I'm going to assume they're using a standard ATA hard drive. Pull the hard drive and mount it in a desktop PC. Now here's where things get a little tricky. I'm going to assume you don't have a linux box, so we're going to have to use windows. Boot it up and see if windows recognizes it. More than likely it won't. I'm guessing they're using a linux variant on the box, which means the drive won't be FAT32 or NTFS, but more likely EXT3, JFS or some other linux file system. If you can, download or find a live CD of linux, boot that and start trying different mounting options to see what you can come up with. Assuming you can eventually get the drive mounted in the PC, then you can start to figure out how to install a larger hard drive. Another option would be to look at the board itself and see if you can figure out who really makes the board in the unit, chances are these guys didn't do the board design themselves, but bought it from someone else. See if you can find the original manufacturer and maybe get some details there. Also, look at the board and see if you can identify some debug ports on the board. There's probably a JTAG port on the unit and a serial port or two internal to the unit that would probably need a header soldered to it to access. Then you can probably watch the boot cycle and learn even more about the unit. If you can identify the software that's running on the unit and how it boots, it shouldn't be too difficult to modify things to make it work better! If you post some details about the internals, I might be able to help out as well.

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