My nav HD has gone out and cannot find a replacement from any vendors. Does anyone know of a hard drive replacement that will work with gen1 drives? I have my image of my original drive.
Thanks
Bill

OEM Fijitsu model M2724TAM
1.6 GB ata-3
128k buffer
4000k rpm
12ms seek

 

Google works well to find dozens of options. I snagged one on e-bay for under $10 including shipping. They were widely used in Compaq laptops in the day.

Or you can buy a CF memory card to IDE 2.5 adaptor for about $5 shipped from China on Ebay and a 2GB CF card. That works great and is lot faster and more reliable than a 14 year old drive. The Nav function is lot snappier. I used a real (not fake) SanDisk Extreme card, but I think that might be overkill at $30. just copy over the "system" folder. These disk are used read only so speed may not be such an issue. You might buy a full length adaptor so you can wedge the end against some firm foam to stabilize it as you no longer use any of the mounting hardware that the drive had as the circuit board is just secured by the connector.

There are also SD memory card to IDE 2.5 converters for similar prices but these use more electronics to convert so I'm not sure they would work.

And there’s an open PCMCIA slot that looks like it might take an adaptor too as an alternative drive. That is what Mercedes uses and there are lots of these on line very cheap.

 

This is the full sized one that I found to work. You might need to cut the pin to match the "keying" of the IDE connector. There are smaller and cheaper ones under $1! but they have no way to mount other than hanging on the connector.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Compact-Flash-CF...item27ba45e1cf

I used a Sandisk Extreme IV 2.0GB Compact Flash card. I suspect that is way faster than required.

 

Someone was asking - Use FAT 32

 

SUCCESS!!!! Using Girvin's method above works perfectly and a bit faster going through the GPS.
Parts needed
Use the adapter that GIrvin provided in post #3
"Compact Flash CF Card to IDE 2.5" 44P Converter Adapter" ($5 shipped from Asia)
Bought a used Sandisk Extreme IV 2GB off ebay ($15 shipped)
Compact Flash Reader

Installation:
1 - Format Sandisk CF card to FAT (I used a program called "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool")
2 - Copy your nav files to the card. "System" folder should be in the root of the drive.
3 - Attach CF card to Adapter and install into GPS unit in the passenger side trunk.
4 - Stabilize the card from moving around in GPS unit. (I used 2 layers of double side tape to secure the top of card to the unit.
5 - Turn on GPS and enjoy!

Thank you Girvin!