Unfortunately, being a relatively bulky product and no longer supported makes it a problem for the owners still wishing to make it go further. One of the major hurdles is that the firmware is essentially gone since the various companies using it have disappeared from the radar.

It was first replaced with the HyperDrive HD80 (apparently, the same electronic content under a slightly different mechanical design). But it did not last very long. However, they both share the same firmware (according to all that I read in all these years – I owned a CompactDrive only up to when I broke it in my bag).

So, here I offer the firmware for these two dramatically good portable hard drives in hope to help its owners.

• CompactDrive PD70x – firmware v2.1
• HyperDrive HD80 – firmware v2.1
• HyperDrive HD80 – firmware v2.2 (I’m told this one is the latest and is working on both devices)

The newest firmware resolves compatibility issues with certain Lexar CF cards; Fixes bug in usage of fragmented non-contiguous hard disk space (requires reformatting of hard drive); But, it is still unclear if this solves all the 2GB/4GB card problems.

The new firmware increases the battery charge time (to better compatibility with most recent large capacity batteries).

Of course, as you can expect, I make no guarantee that this is working but it’s more than worth the effort.

Nota Bene: If the company now holding the rights to these two designs are willing to contact me, I’ll be pleased. And we can immediately agree to replace my local storage of these firmware files with the more official ones. I’m not intending to break any copyright, just bringing support to some poor chaps with the files I could finally collect from other people using the PD70x and the HD80.

For the last few years, I have been strongly recommending the Sanho disk-based photo viewers and portable memory, to empty your Flash cards into a big portable disk drive. Visibly, they have a very powerful technology which leads to features like:

• Extremely fast copying from card to hard disk drive
• Superb autonomy
• Compatibility with many card formats

Now, Sanho is launching a new product (or product series), the HyperDrive Album, and it boasts pretty nice and precise cons:

• 2GB per minute downloading, with full data verification
• 640GB configuration for $599.00 (or 160GB for $349.00 and any other intermediates)
• 4.8-inch display (800 x 480 resolution)
• 200GB of transfers between battery charges
• Compatibility with the new SDXC card format (and all other common ones)

Go and buy it at HyperShop.com.