Microdrive Madness: $15 Solution for Your Extra Microdrives

For those of you who came from my other instructable on the iPod upgrade, welcome!

Do you have no idea what to do with your extra microdrives, taken from old mp3 players, iPods, cameras, etc...?

Well, I have the most grand solution for you!

All you need is two items.

• CF card reader. $14.99 at any computer store. Make sure it supports TypeII. Microdrives are TypeII, the thinner ones are TypeI. Just make sure it has the pins inside to attack to the holes on the microdrive.

Some sites you can look at are:
CompUSA's selection
Newegg's selection
NexTag

• Microdrive, any GB, but it must be compatible with the CF reader.

They can get expensive, which is why I took mine from a broken iPod.
CompUSA's microdrive

You probably will not get all of the GB out of that microdrive. It's like a HDD, if you buy a 300 GB one, you get like 280GB or something along those lines.

Secondly, Apple might have used a bit of the space on the microdrive to store data to make it function.

Below is a picture of my CF card,

See, that I have a capacity of 3.76GB. It will usually be less than what is actually advertised.

BUT, an easy solution to this is called, "formatting" the drive. Right click on the icon of the removable disk. Click format, then click "Start". It takes 45 seconds, and all the memory should be cleared.

Plug your microdrive into the reader, and you are on your way.

You can now transfer movies, files, pictures...etc to and from your CF card reader!

So, if you have any extra microdrives lying around, use them! They are a great source of extra removable storage!