To get to the hard disk you need to remove 4 screws (phillips size 0) from the side/bottom (they’re all attached to the side panel). Removing the side panel takes a little bit of effort due to some plastic tabs. In here is the hard disk with some big rubber things on each corner, presumably to minimize vibrations.
The hard disk as a ZIF connector which can be removed by pulling really hard or really easily if you flip the tab first. The ribbon cable connects to the camera and it can be removed from there by flipping a bit up.
The camera runs just fine with the hard disk removed. It seems to think the drive is there and will report errors if you try to use it. Simply tell the camera to use the SD card for videos/stills and you’re good to go.
Or rather, you would be good to go if the SD slot wasn’t broken. I don’t think the SD slot in this camera has ever been used and I had to try a few cards before it managed to do anything at all. It said to format the card and it did that but then it said the card was full. Bummer.
So instead of using an SD card I’m going to get a CF to ZIF adaptor and a 133x (slow) 8GB CF card. These will fit nicely in the space vacated by the hard drive. It’ll cost about $55 and the CF card will give me 2 hours of high quality or 4 hours of normal quality recording. More capacity doesn’t seem to be worthwhile for what I’m expecting to use the camera for. Less capacity doesn’t actually cost less to buy. I could get a faster CF card but I wanted this to be cheap and I need to transcode everything as it comes off the camera anyway.
The CF to ZIF adaptor has been ordered. I’ll test it with a spare/borrowed CF card before getting the 8GB card.
