I Killed my 60 gb ipod, yes I now have an overpriced 60 gb usb drive. (Fixed)

[betamaxman]

I agonized as to if this is a hard ware or install topic and settled here as the ipod itself as a hard ware device seems fine. If better suited to hardware please move it there and accept my apologies.

Any way I was experiencing trouble with itunes not syncing with my ipod. Everything was bad, I couldn't sync in the apple os and the bootloader got fudged up some how, perhaps from booting from rockbox to apple so often, I don't know. Anyway removing the rockbox bootloader was of no use and I couldn't delete .rockbox nor could I delete the itunes loaded music from my ipod. So I had a stupid brain wave. Booted my pc into linux, ran suse's partitioner, deleted and reformatted my ipod into fat, hoping to delete any corrupted files and that I could restore using itunes. Well no dice. The apple loader is still there and disc mode still works, and the ipod still showes up in linux and explorer, however ipod updater doesn't work in either linux or windows "no disc found". Any ideas, getting rockbox back? Perhaps ipod linux would work? Thanks and has Homer would say (as that is how I feel right now) "DOE".

[saratoga]

Load itunes and tell it to restore your ipod.

[betamaxman]

Tried and failed. Been looking around the net. Should be fixable as there are replacement hard drive services. And an article on replacing a 4th gen hard drive with a new toshiba drive I think it was. The person simply reformated it in windows and restored it in itunes. Awh if it were only that easy. I get into disc mode but nothing happens, as I said even the ipod patcher sees no ipod.  However copy and pasting files is fine. The ipod hard drive seems fine.

[linuxstb]

ipodpatcher checks for magic values in the partition table as part of the detection routine - if you've repartitioned then it's possible you've removed this magic and hence ipodpatcher can't recognise your ipod.

From Linux, you could try the IpodManualRestore wiki page which includes instructions for restoring an original partition table to your ipod.  After doing this, ipodpatcher should recognise it.

[betamaxman]

Tried it but it failed. It coppied the mbr successfully.

peibox:/home/andy # cd /home/randy
peibox:/home/andy # dd if=mbr-video60gb.bin of=/dev/sdc
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 7.2069e-05 s, 7.1 MB/s

However running ipod updater from linux gives this unfavorable result.

[INFO] Scanning disk devices...
[ERR]  Firmware partition doesn't contain Apple copyright, aborting.
[ERR]  No ipods found, aborting
[ERR]  Please connect your ipod and ensure it is in disk mode
[ERR]  Please refer to the Rockbox manual if you continue to have problems.

Press ENTER to exit ipodpatcher

Thanks for your help, I feel we are on the correct path here however there still seems to be something missing.
Anyone else have more, please post.
The ipod is still under warranty for a few more months, perhaps returning it is all that is left to do as by now there is no rockbox firmware or loader 2 on it.
If only there was.
Thanks again.

I just realized I need firmware as well. My ipod is a 60 gb video that had the latest apple firmware. Do I need 5g 13.1.2.1 or 5g 20.1.2.1? Or does it matter. Thanks again.  I think I see a light at the end odf the tunnel, will try again tonight when I get home from work.

[linuxstb]

That's step 1) done, now continue with steps 2) and 3) from the page I linked you to...

[betamaxman]

Will do, thanks again.
I am going to start from scratch again, realized in my haste I forgot to unmoumt the ipod before restoring the mbr.

[betamaxman]

No luck, I first copied the mbr to /dev/sdc. Then the iPod_20.1.2.1.ipsw to /dev/sdc1, and then formated /dev/sdc2 to fat32 after umounting /dev/sdc2. Booted into windows, launched itunes. It now recogonized the ipod, or probably more correctly the ipod firmware and stated there was an ipod that needed to be restored. However after two hours it was clear it couldn't. Cpu usage goes to 100% with itunes running after the ipod is connected. Ipod patcher stated there was no ipod firmware in the correct partition, or something to that effect.

So is it usual for there to be two partitions, after /dev/xxx, for example /dev/xxx, /dev/xxx1, and /dev/xxx2? And ipod patcher's error would suggest that the firmware is not in the correct partition. Should I try again to just /dev/sdc?
 
Any way the itunes restore experience is exactly what was happening before I deleted and  recreated a new fat partition in sdc via suse's yast partitioning tool. So I am thinking the ipod partition table is messed up, or the ipod is having hard ware woes as well. Also before I monkeyed with formating in yast, I could not as admin in windows (after a fresh install of xp)  delete either the .rockbox or ipod folders. And when back in windows itunes did sync it could not delete any of the previous music only add music, and the space occupied by the music was shown as unknown. This was after a fresh install of windows.

Does the mbr patch include the propper partition table, or do I need to find the partition table and dd that as well?

Thanks for your help thus far. I am hopping that if all fails I can return the ipod for warranty repair or replacement. Should be good to go other than if partitioning is incorrect.

[linuxstb]

No luck, I first copied the mbr to /dev/sdc. Then the iPod_20.1.2.1.ipsw to /dev/sdc1, and then formated /dev/sdc2 to fat32 after umounting /dev/sdc2.

That was the mistake.  The .ipsw file is in fact a ZIP file - you need to unzip it (type "unzip iPod_20.1.2.1.ipsw" at the Linux prompt) and you'll then get a Firmware-X.Y.Z file.  It's that file that you write to /dev/sdc1

That's mentioned on the wiki page - the instructions are brief, so you need to read them closely.

[betamaxman]

I should of realized that with out a wiki, I will try again after work tonight thanks again.

[betamaxman]

Success, amazing what happens when things are done as they are supposed to be as per instructions. Ipod patcher sees my ipod and the ipod boots into ipod mode and all controls work. The rub is that itunes won't see my ipod. When I plug it into my pc booted into windows cpu usage goes to 100%. Ending the ipod service process brings things back down again so something is still not quite right. I used dd to copy the firmware after I unzipped it, however there was a second file containing text with .plst extension. Do I need it on my ipod as well, can't see why and dd will likely over write the firmware anyway if I do the same with the ,plst file. Any way I am going to try it on a friend's pc, but worst senario is only rockbox will work and that is not so bad a deal.  Thanks for the help.  8-)

[betamaxman]

Ok, update. I got the itunes issue sorted out. Xp is kind of a second thought OS on my system linux being my first. Thus xp is installed to mt F drive, I have both ide and sata drives. To get xp to install and set it self on C I have to disconect my ide drives, I didn't bother this time and xp set itself as F.  My ipod was assigned C as a drive letter of all things and I guess itunes had a bran fart when it saw my ipod and the C drive (usualy windows domain) together. Simply assigning another drive letter in computer management solved the problem. As soon as I clossed computer management up cpu usage returned from 100% back down to 0 > 2% and itunes fired up and requested how I want to setup my ipod. Life is grand again.  

Thanks to linuxstb for linking me to the proper place on the wiki and for his help. 8-)