(no subject)
I'm full of geeky excitement. I think I have found a solution for my beloved Rio Karmas. I have three of them, but only one currently works. The original Karma has, by far, the best sound and software of any (beats the iPod hands down), but its construction quality was lacking. One of the things that happens is that the battery swells when it gets old, and presses against the hard drive, eventually ruining it. That happened to at least one of my Karmas, and I don't know the condition of the hard drive on the other - the battery swelled, but I don't know if it ruined the hard drive before it burst its case.
So I got some new batteries. And I've been looking into possibilities for the hard drive situation (the original Hitachi drives aren't produced any more, they're almost impossible to find, and they were pretty fragile, anyway - not to mention only being 20GB). I found an SSD drive that could work, but it's almost as expensive as the machine was to begin with - that may be an option for the future. But then I discovered that there are people who have modified their Karmas to accommodate CF cards! So I ordered the adapter (two of 'em - somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.50 each), and I'll test them with CF cards I already have. If that works, I'll shell out for a 32GB CF, and then I'll be golden. The battery can swell as much as it wants and there will be plenty of room, and it can't hurt a CF card, anyway. And then I'll have three working Karmas, and all will be right with the world.
So I got some new batteries. And I've been looking into possibilities for the hard drive situation (the original Hitachi drives aren't produced any more, they're almost impossible to find, and they were pretty fragile, anyway - not to mention only being 20GB). I found an SSD drive that could work, but it's almost as expensive as the machine was to begin with - that may be an option for the future. But then I discovered that there are people who have modified their Karmas to accommodate CF cards! So I ordered the adapter (two of 'em - somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.50 each), and I'll test them with CF cards I already have. If that works, I'll shell out for a 32GB CF, and then I'll be golden. The battery can swell as much as it wants and there will be plenty of room, and it can't hurt a CF card, anyway. And then I'll have three working Karmas, and all will be right with the world.