How to - Firestore FS-4 HD 40GB to 120GB

dcrin3

Well-known member
----THREAD HAS EOL----

WARNING, DOING THE FOLLOWING BELOW VOIDS WARRANTY!
I AM NOT LIABLE OR RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES CAUSED BY YOU.
BLAME IT ON THE RAIN, BUT DO NOT BLAME IT ON ME!
OH, there is a reason Focus Enhancements didn't reply to my email.
Read below at your own risk! Now lets do it!

when i say, "reference purpose only", i mean do not take the image literally. Your setup will

look different.


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1) First take out the battery to expose the two hidden screws.
All screws have been checked.

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2) You will be stopped immediately, if you try to lift the lid open.
The ide cable is too short. You will need a flat head screw-driver, to separate the cable

from the board.
While the flathead is at the bottom of the cable, VERY GENTLY turn the flathead side ways to

lift each part. side, middle, side, until you can lift the cable out!



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3) As soon as the ide cable is disconnected, you can flip the top side(black plastic) over so

it lays on its back, hard drive facing top. You dont need to take the front case(black) out

at all. The picture below was taken later, the board is missing the front cover. You may or

may not need to disconnect the fan cable.



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4) The disk drive will need to be disconnected from the back panel plastic.
Five screws are clamping it down.



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5) Notice the two drives next to each other.




The Fujitsu is 40GB, uses +5V, 0.60A, while the Western Digital is 120GB, uses 5VDC, at

0.55A.
The Fujitsu drive is in class ATA-6.

So get a laptop drive thats ATA-6,
Interface ATA-6
Capacity 120GB
Cache 8MB
Average Seek Time 12ms
Average Latency 5.5ms
RPM 5400 RPM
Price on newegg, $69.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136130
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6) Take out the screws from the side metalic casing. Two on each side. I have my western

digital mounted already, so the image is for reference purposes.



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7) Left Empty.
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8) Here you need to be very careful, you maybe opening your FS-4 HD again if not done right.

Take note of the ribbon cable below. The first pin is highlighted black if the drive is

laying down(image1). Image2 - where the other side of the ribbon will dock. Together with the

disk drive(note the drive is upside down now), black side facing the right side(image 3).





9) Left Empty.

10) This is very risky, YOU MAY SKIP STEP 10. Get a plastic bag, wrap it around your hand.

Testing the fs4 while its completely open! Hold the board by its side(like a dvd disk). The

bag is for protecting the board from your fingers while you press the buttons!



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You can disconnect the board from the front black panel/facing/plastic. Five screws are

stopping you. Take them all out. Obviously you will need to connect the disk drive back into

the board to attempt this stunt. Look at step 3 image(reference purpose only).

Image below, the screws will need to be removed. The three top screws are underneath the disk

drive. The image is for reference purpose only.


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NOTICE HOW I USED THE STATIC BAG TO SEPARATE THE DISK FROM THE BOARD. YOU DONT WANT TO SHORT

ANYTHING, OTHERWISE YOUR FS-4 WILL BE KAPUT! DO NOT TURN THE FS-4 ON, UNLESS YOU HAVE THE

BOARD COVERED BY THE STATIC BAG OR ANY PROTECTION LIKE A PAPER BAG or HARD PAPER. look at

image above.

Turn the FS-4 ON.
Your FS-4 should find the drive and ask you to partition it if its connected.

The image below says "NO DISK DETECTED" because i didnt connect the cables right(image is for

reference purpose). Thats why i put step 8 above. You can guide(press buttons) your FS-4

using your bag covered fingers. By this point, I wont blame you if you start dripping sweat.

:P



11) If all is well it should indicate the partition is done. Your total recording minutes

should move from 203 minutes to 610 minutes.

RISKY!!
Shut it down, lay everything down carefully. Disconnect the ribbon cable from the board.

Leave the disk and the cable connected using instructions from step 8. Screw down the board

to the front plastic(5 screws)

12) Now mount the drive to the metallic casing(observe step 6 - 4 screws).
Mount the drive and the metallic casing back to the black plastic panel(5 screws).
Make sure the fan cable and the power cable are connected. look at step 3 image.

13) Here comes the final most tricky part. Remember step 2? We are going do it backwards.

You are going to close the case like the image below, then line up the ribbon connector to

the pins and push down with your index finger. Make sure the pins and the holes line before

you push down. You do not want to bend any pins!!!! Left side, Right side, then middle.. be

careful not push down too hard. You may compromise your board. Repeat the step again, left,

right then middle until the pins are close to 100% covered.



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14) Press on the back panel, join the two together, then start screwing down up, down, then

sides.

15) Congratulations, you have now upgraded your FS-4 HD 40GB to 120GB!
From 203 minutes to 610 minutes
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16) Drinks on the house!


Miscellaneous images!


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Last edited:
Get the Tekkeon MP3450 battery and increase your recording time to 9.5hrs! Using the 12V output.
 
does the fan still work?

does the fan still work?

I know the thread is getting old. But, does your fan still work now? I replaced my drive with a WD 160. The drive just shows up as 2 volumes because it cannot be larger than 128 gig. Anyway today i was copying 110 gigs of video I recorded yesterday and suddenly it beeps and a message comes up saying it is overheating. Sure enough the fan is not turning, although it was jerking a bit as if it was sticking and trying to turn.

Tested from the off position and a normal FS-4 ProHD would run the fan full speed for a second on startup. Not this one.

So I decided that it needed a fan very badly and I took apart another working FS4-ProHD I have that has a working fan. I swapped the fan and there was no difference. Still the same jerky action. I checked the other one I put back together and sure enough it worked correctly. Hmmm.

So I just swapped the motherboard/top cover so my 160 gig drive was on the other board. Now the fan does not work with that one.

So, I am thinking there is something in my new drive that is not allowing the fan to trigger correctly. Different battery drain. (BTW, no difference with power plugged in)

Yesterday the drive ran continuously for 13 hours and everything I recorded is fine. It was hot but I did not think to look at the fan. I have tried feeding power directly to the fan but it is something special with small chips on it. I would even be happy if I could get the fan to run 100% of the time.

Sorry for the long story. Any suggestions? I have 4 HD models so that is how I can swap the parts. BTW the 160 gig is good for just under 10 hours of video.
 
not sure...

not sure...

I know the thread is getting old. But, does your fan still work now? I replaced my drive with a WD 160. The drive just shows up as 2 volumes because it cannot be larger than 128 gig. Anyway today i was copying 110 gigs of video I recorded yesterday and suddenly it beeps and a message comes up saying it is overheating. Sure enough the fan is not turning, although it was jerking a bit as if it was sticking and trying to turn.

Tested from the off position and a normal FS-4 ProHD would run the fan full speed for a second on startup. Not this one.

So I decided that it needed a fan very badly and I took apart another working FS4-ProHD I have that has a working fan. I swapped the fan and there was no difference. Still the same jerky action. I checked the other one I put back together and sure enough it worked correctly. Hmmm.

So I just swapped the motherboard/top cover so my 160 gig drive was on the other board. Now the fan does not work with that one.

So, I am thinking there is something in my new drive that is not allowing the fan to trigger correctly. Different battery drain. (BTW, no difference with power plugged in)

Yesterday the drive ran continuously for 13 hours and everything I recorded is fine. It was hot but I did not think to look at the fan. I have tried feeding power directly to the fan but it is something special with small chips on it. I would even be happy if I could get the fan to run 100% of the time.

Sorry for the long story. Any suggestions? I have 4 HD models so that is how I can swap the parts. BTW the 160 gig is good for just under 10 hours of video.


Not sure jayscot as to what could be happening. Last time I checked mine was still running the fan but I never went beyond 13hrs, only when testing the full battery running time and then it was around 9.5hrs.

Call FS to see whether there is a way to get a replacement fan also try the original 40GB and see whether the fan still works.
 
Thank you for this guide, I found it using Google, I'm now about to try this, putting in a solid state drive, I'm hoping I can then do away with the fan and get a better battery life.
 
I have actually been thinking of reviving my old FS-4HD, and putting in a CF card adaptor.... something like this
Guess I'm wondering if it would still register. Any thoughts?
 
Just noticed after doing a search for the part number of the original HD from the firestore, it was used in the IBM ThinkPad 39T2534 (ORIGINAL LENOVO GENUINE THINKPAD LAPTOP NOTEBOOK HARD DRIVE 40 GB) Wow!!!
 
Hi, i just register into the forum for ask this
I have one Hitachi Disk works at 0.55v
And i recently own a Canon XL2 Camera (btw is there any cheap mod i can do it?) , and as i dont have 700 euros for spare in a Firestore-4 HD, i wonder if i can adapt in some way my Hitachi HD 30GB to record with my Canon
I was thinking, on the IDE connnector the HD's have can be adapted to a Firewire connection(the one who the camera uses) and be readed for the camera (Canon XL2) to be as an external disk.

Can be done??
 
Hmm... well I followed the original poster's info to the letter - right down to the exact make/model harddrive ( found it off ebay for cheap )... and... 510 minutes... not 620? No idea why.

Additionally - I now have the same issue others have reported - my fan does a half-hearted twitch only on startup.

I switched back to the original 40gb disk - and voilla - the fan once again does it's initial spin then stop.

Switched back to the WD 120GB and once again the half-hearted twitch of the fan only like it wants to move but doesn't have enough power.

Anyway - I'll run with the 120GB for a while and see how things go. I was on a 9 hour shoot a couple weeks ago ; where I was 65-95 mins constant shooting - then 5-10 min break ( where I frantically copied the files from the FS4-HD to my laptop as fast as I could before the director started up again... by the end of the day - the FS4-HD was quite toasty hot. ( this was with the 40GB installed ) - so I question if the fan ever worked properly.

I'll report back in a few weeks after seeing how the 120GB WD does... even if it's only :-( 510 minutes...

-Michael
 
Hi, i just register into the forum for ask this
I have one Hitachi Disk works at 0.55v
And i recently own a Canon XL2 Camera (btw is there any cheap mod i can do it?) , and as i dont have 700 euros for spare in a Firestore-4 HD, i wonder if i can adapt in some way my Hitachi HD 30GB to record with my Canon
I was thinking, on the IDE connnector the HD's have can be adapted to a Firewire connection(the one who the camera uses) and be readed for the camera (Canon XL2) to be as an external disk.

Can be done??

Answer - no it can not. The Canon XL2 ( I own one ) - does not have the firmware needed to properly take a hard-drive and directly write to it. Your choices are - take the firewire direct to your laptop/desktop - and record from there; or buy a Firestore. [[ I personally use my FS4-HD on my Canon XL2 all the time ; works great in DV-Recorder mode and Syncro with the Canon XL2 - I also love the retro cache for those times when the director surprises me and starts action without enough warning for me to get to the record button right away on my remote ]]

-Michael
 
mine reported 610mins as you can see in the pictures above. I have not tested this thing for a while now, it just seats around and collects dusts mostly. :/ blame it on the dslr.
 
mine reported 610mins as you can see in the pictures above. I have not tested this thing for a while now, it just seats around and collects dusts mostly. :/ blame it on the dslr.

I can now confirm that as of now, May 16, 2012, the fan runs full time when I have the fs on. No issues yet with it but I don't use it much.
 
mine reported 610mins as you can see in the pictures above. I have not tested this thing for a while now, it just seats around and collects dusts mostly. :/ blame it on the dslr.

Hey thanks for writing back. Yeah I'm a bit confused on how you got 610 and I'm only getting 510. I'm pondering pulling the drive sticking it onto a windows laptop and partitioning it there - and then shoving it back in and see if that is the issue.

I just popped the drive right out of the ebay box - and into the FS4 - it said - please wait - and presto then said 510.

-Michael
 
After 4yrs since the writing of this tutorial, I charged the battery overnight and I was able to run the FS(just on, not recording) from 6:50pm-9:15pm with the stock battery. Might test recording later.
 
Hey thanks for writing back. Yeah I'm a bit confused on how you got 610 and I'm only getting 510. I'm pondering pulling the drive sticking it onto a windows laptop and partitioning it there - and then shoving it back in and see if that is the issue.

I just popped the drive right out of the ebay box - and into the FS4 - it said - please wait - and presto then said 510.

-Michael

did you format the drive using the FS itself?
 
did you format the drive using the FS itself?

Yep.

As mentioned previously though it was a used drive from Ebay - and I didn't check it on a computer 1st ( like perhaps the previous owner partitioned it with some special software or something ) - I was making the assumption the FS4 would just wipe out any existing partitions and then format the drive. But... who knows... maybe it only formatted the partition that was already on the used drive.

-Michael
 
After 4yrs since the writing of this tutorial, I charged the battery overnight and I was able to run the FS(just on, not recording) from 6:50pm-9:15pm with the stock battery. Might test recording later.

hehe... I'm jealous - my battery has been mostly dead ( doesn't really hold a charge for years ) - I just run 15v to it - and it's happy.

Suppose I should get a replacement battery sooner or later. ( If I can find one anymore ).

-Michael
 
I switched out my internal 2.5 with a IDE to Dual Compact Flash adaptor, and put a 32GB CF card in, and it is working GREAT! Regarding the battery, I am using a Lithium 12V cell, which allows me to record the maximum length for my card; but, I did notice tonight, when recording a graduation, (this was a 3rd camera) the unit starting beeping. I did reconnect the internal battery, figuring it wouldn't hurt; but the beeping is rather distracting. Has anyone found out where the little speaker sis located on the FS4HD? Any recommendations?
Thanks!
 
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