After recently purchasing the Epson P-3000, 40gb or storage was definitely not enough, after reading a few posts online suggesting the P-3000 could be upgraded with a normal parallel 2.5" laptop hard drive, I thought why not try it for myself.
I have outlined what I have done in the following post.
Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for any damages that you may incur on your P-3000/P-5000, if you choose to follow the procedures outlined in this post, you agree to do so at your own risk and I will not be held liable for any of your actionsThe following things are needed to complete the hard drive upgrade:
- A 1.5 hex screwdriver
- A really fine phillips head (it's labelled "00" on my set) and another one the same size you would use for computer parts (it's labelled "1" on my set)
- A 2.5" Parallel laptop hard drive to the size you want (I use a 120gb Fujitsu laptop hard drive as the P-3000 ships with a Fujitsu hard drive and I thought it would be better to stick with the same brand)
- A USB2.0 (or firewire) external hard drive enclosure (it is not necessary, but it does make things a whole lot easier)
- Acronis True Image 10 software (you could probably use Ghost or any software that clones/backs up a hard drive, but True Image was used from another tutorial I saw for the Epson P-2000, and its relatively easy to use)
- I would highly recommend you backup all your images on to a computer or another hard drive and delete them off the Epson P-3000 before cloning the hard drive, so you have a fresh, factory default clone of the hard drive.
- Windows XP SP2 (this is what OS I am currently using, I don't see why this couldn't be done on MacOSX or Windows Vista)
DisassemblyFirst thing's first, you need to disassemble the P-3000. We'll start with the side that has the SD and CF slot in it. Using your hex screwdriver, take the two screws out on each side of the unit.
Flip the unit over and you will see another hex screw, take that screw out.
Open the battery compartment door, take the battery out and take the two screws out.
When you take the cover off, there will be a speaker that is connected to the main unit, I couldn't take it out of its slot, so I just took the two screws off the speaker
Turn the unit so the screen is flat on desk and you will see two rubber pieces on the unit, take these rubber pieces off to reveal five more screws, take these screws out.
Once the five screws are off, there are three more screws that holds the back plate. One.
Two
Three
Take the back plate out and viola! The hard drive is almost exposed
Before you can take the hard drive out, you need to take the housing off the hard drive, there are six screws on this side that needs to be taken off.
Four screws to be taken off this side. There is one screw that has a metal plate in front of it, the plate can easily be bent so the screw is exposed.
Like so
Once all twenty five screws have been taken out, gently take the IDE connector off the hard drive.
Once taken out, you are now ready to back up the drive.
Backing Up the Hard Drive
Put the original 40gb Fujitsu hard drive into a hard drive enclosure. When plugged in, Windows XP automatically detects the drive, showing two partitions, EPV_SYSTEM and P-3000. Start up Acronis True Image 10 and select
Backup to start the wizard.
Click
Next.
Select
My Computer and then
Next.
Here you will see all the drives on your computer, but you want to select the disk that has the P-3000 drive on it, this this case its
Disk 3, make sure
both partitions are selected, and then
Next.
If you have just installed True Image, you will get the following screen, just hit
OK.
Select where you want to save the Image and then
Next.
Select
Create a new full backup archive and then Next.
Select
Use default options and then
Next.
No comments are really needed for the Image. Click
Next.
A summary of what is being performed. When ready, click
Proceed.
Operation in Progress.
Once completed, click OK and you are now ready to restore the Image.
Restoring the Hard DriveTake the original hard drive out of the enclosure, and plug the new one into the enclosure, Windows XP will detect the drive, but won't have a drive letter for it as it has not been formatted yet. If you are using an old drive, make sure you delete the partition using partition magic or something similar so you have an unformatted disk. Start up Acronis True Image 10 and select
Recovery to start the wizard.
Click
Next.
Locate the Image file and click
Next.
Select
Restore disk or partitions and click
Next.
Select the partition you want to restore first. Restore the P-3000 data Partition first and click
Next.
Select the disk you want to restore the image to, if you have a brand new disk, you will see the disk has
Unallocated space, select this disk and click
Next.
For the data partition, you want this to be a Primary type partition (I haven't tried the other settings, but this is the way partition magic read the disk, the P-3000 partition as Primary and the EPV_SYSTEM partition as logical) and click
Next.
Select
FAT32 and click
Next.
Resize the P-3000 partition so you have roughly 690mb left for the system partition (the system partition is 650mb, but the extra 40mb of space isn't going to hurt). Using a 120gb Fujitsu hard drive, I have 111.1gb allocated for the P-3000 data partition. Once resized, click
Next.
Assign a drive letter to the P-3000 partition. I did this because the first time I tried restoring, I selected
No thank you, I do not want to assign a letter and when I plugged the Epson P-3000 into the computer, I was not able to see the P-3000 partition as a removable storage device (it only showed the two memory card readers), I then tried assigning a drive letter, and it worked perfectly. Ideally you want to assign D: and E: (for the data and system partitions), this is because when you plug in the device, and the drive letter is already taken by another device, it will automatically, assign it to the next available letter, if you assign the drive with a Y: and Z:, it will always be Y: and Z:, because chances are, you won't have drives on your computer up to Y: and Z:, call me pedantic, but I prefer to have it in sequence. If you already have D: and E: assigned to something else on your computer when trying to restore it wont allow you to use those letters, just change the drive letters of those drives (using disk management, which is in computer management, found in administrative tools in the computer panel) when you restore the Image, and then change it back after you've restored the Image. Once assigned, click
Next.
Now its time to restore the EPV_SYSTEM partition. Select
Yes I want to restore another partition or hard drive and click
Next.
Select the EPV_SYSTEM partition and click
Next.
Select the disk you want to restore the image to, you will see the disk now has the P-3000 restored and there is 690mb of
Unallocated space, select this disk and click
Next.
As the EPV_SYSTEM is being restored, select
Logical and click
Next.
Select
FAT32 and click
Next.
Resize the EPV_SYSTEM partition so there is no more space on the hard drive. Using a 120gb Fujitsu hard drive, 111.1gb has been allocated for the P-3000 data partition and the EPV_SYTEM parition has been allocated 690.3mb. Once resized, click
Next.
Assign the next available drive letter for the EPV_SYSTEM, I have assigned the drive to E: for the reasons outlined previously. Once assigned, click
Next.
Select
No, I do not and click
Next as all partitions have been restored.
Select
Use default options and then
Next.
A summary of what is being performed. When ready, click
Proceed.
Operation in Progress.
Once completed, click OK and you are now ready to re-assemble the P-3000.
Plug the newly restored larger hard drive back into the IDE connector and before re-assembling everything back, put the battery inside the P-3000 and confirm the P-3000 boots up with the new hard drive.
Re-assemble the unit, power on, check the drive capacity, and presto! You now have 111gb on your P-3000.
