Rockbox Technical Forums

Installation / Removal => Manual Installation => Apple - Installation/Removal => Topic started by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 02:06:31 PM

Title: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 02:06:31 PM
It is not an iPod classic.

I reformatted the iPod on a Windows computer and iTunes says it is Windows formatted.  The Rockbox utility, however, gives me the warning "you are using a MacPod, refer to the wiki to convert to FAT32".  I have never used Terminal before so I am really unsure on the instructions in the PDF manual.

So I tried the manual install hoping that it would magically work, and whenever I try to unzip the build, I do not receive an extracted folder.  I've used Archive Utility and StuffIt Expander to no avail. 

Do I have what it takes to use Rockbox if I can't even get it installed?  I'm not a computer wiz by any means but I'd like to be able to get past this snag and start using it.  Thanks. 

Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: LambdaCalculus on March 13, 2009, 02:14:15 PM
You'll have to follow the instructions listed here first to convert your iPod to FAT32:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodConversionToFAT32

Just carefully read the instructions there and you'll be fine.

Also, you are getting a folder, but you're just not seeing it... OS X (and any Unix or Linux, for that matter) hide folders with a preceeding . in their name by default (which, in this case, is the required .rockbox folder).

Once you get the iPod converted to FAT32, start Rockbox Utility again and continue with the installation.
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 02:26:00 PM
Just to be sure, when I click "Get info" on my iPod, it says the format is MS-DOS (FAT32).  Are you saying to go through with the manual conversion? Do I skip to a certain step in that process? 
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: AlexP on March 13, 2009, 02:30:21 PM
A manual conversion is not just reformating, you also have to replace the partition table.  There is the manual method LambdaCalculus linked to, or you could restore from itunes on a windows pc.
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 02:42:05 PM
I was unclear in my first post.  I restored it via iTunes on a Windows computer.  Thus, my confusion.  The easy way listed in the link says nothing about having to repartition.  It says to just restore on a Windows computer and presto, it's ready, which I'm finding to not be the case.

EDIT::  In the manual instructions, I don't know what "Open a terminal and navigate to the directory where you saved the partition table in step b)" means.  I'm just opening up Terminal and typing in the things it is saying.  As I said, I've never used Terminal before.  I saved the .bin file to my desktop. 

Kudos for everyone's patience.  I appreciate the help.  Thanks again.

EDIT 2::  I have since figured out how to navigate in the Terminal, but after changing it to the desktop, I got this message:

1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 2.429651 secs (211 bytes/sec)

My iPod did not go into Disk mode either.  Should I do the play+select combo myself to put it into disk  mode?
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: bluebrother on March 13, 2009, 04:53:57 PM
Quote from: perryman on March 13, 2009, 02:42:05 PM
I was unclear in my first post.  I restored it via iTunes on a Windows computer.  Thus, my confusion.  The easy way listed in the link says nothing about having to repartition.  It says to just restore on a Windows computer and presto, it's ready, which I'm finding to not be the case.
Well, it should be. From reading your description you might hit the issue reported here: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/9833
Interestingly this issue doesn't seem to appear when using ipodpatcher instead of Rockbox Utility. Rockbox Utility, however, does use ipodpatcher internally (it's linked into it) so I really don't understand why this issue happens.

If you're in a non-working state now it would be nice if you could try some things (in that order):

and report back what worked and what not :)
As we don't have a developer with a Mac working on Rockbox Utility it's somewhat impossible to fix that issue without help.

Edit: oh, and another question: you completely shut down Itunes, right?
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 06:52:24 PM
I mean, it is able to work, but I don't have music on it. I'll try your suggestions if you can explain the first bullet and what sudo is. 
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: bluebrother on March 13, 2009, 07:10:09 PM
Quote from: perryman on March 13, 2009, 06:52:24 PM
I mean, it is able to work, but I don't have music on it. I'll try your suggestions if you can explain the first bullet and what sudo is. 
I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. Did you get Rockbox running on the Ipod? If you already have the bootloader installed these tests are pointless.

Dumping the partition table is done similarly as writing the partition table in the IpodConversionToFAT32 wiki page. The command would look like 
dd if=/dev/diskN of=mbr-xxxx.bin count=1 bs=512
The same way described on the wiki you need to replace the N with the disk number of your Ipod and the mbr-xxx.bin with an arbitrary file name.

Sudo is a tool for running a program with elevated permissions -- while started from a user account a program can get root permissions (see http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/DARWIN/Reference/ManPages/man8/sudo.8.html for details). It's called from the command line. Open a terminal and type something like this: 
sudo /path/to/rbutil-binary
Not sure where to find the binary on OS X -- perhaps someone else can give details here. Another interesting test would be to try if bootloader installation works on Windows.
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 13, 2009, 07:42:09 PM
Quote
If you're in a non-working state now it would be nice if you could try some things (in that order):

I thought you meant if my iPod doesn't work at all.  It works, but it is on factory settings.

EDIT:: I just tried dumping the partition table.

1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 0.520039 secs (985 bytes/sec)

iPod continues flashing do not disconnect.
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: bluebrother on March 14, 2009, 03:28:50 AM
Quote from: perryman on March 13, 2009, 07:42:09 PM
EDIT:: I just tried dumping the partition table.

1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 0.520039 secs (985 bytes/sec)

iPod continues flashing do not disconnect.
Well, that's correct. You now need to try the next item on the list :)
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: perryman on March 14, 2009, 08:30:40 AM
I tried the sudo thing.  The first time I opened terminal, it asked me for my password and when I put it in it said command not found.  Whenever I typed the sudo command in again, it also said command not found.

Rockbox Utility 1.0.7 is installing though so I guess that is something.  Thanks a bunch for the help.  Really helpful.   :)
Title: Re: Installing on an 80GB 5G iPod (OSX)
Post by: Chronon on March 15, 2009, 04:55:14 PM
It's possible that you don't have sudo installed on your system (though a bit odd).  You can just enter superuser mode (su) instead.