My iPod 30g wont run.. (No really.. it won't!)

[harryett]

gaah..  I personally haven't repaired the iPod yet.  I've got the money to fix it/buy a new one but I'm not giving up that easy..  I haven't talked to any repair center yet though.

I'm afraid to say that I'm glad to hear you share the same problem kdsh7.. I hope you find  solution and are willing to share it.


Peace!
/S

[kdsh7]

Don't worry about it harryet, to tell the truth I too find solace in the fact that this problem isn't isolated and that there must be a solution out there

I spent ages saving, and waiting for the right deal before getting my ipod and it's an integral part of my life, both as a music player and a portable HD. Buying a new one is not an option right now!

[harryett]

good to hear!
where are you located and what's the first thing you're going to do in order to fix your iPod?

[kdsh7]

I'm in the UK, near London.

Actually, I've noticed a symptom. When I place the ipod next to my ear I can hear a very faint 'clicking' noise, and a very faint whirring sound.

I've decided the next thing I'm going to try is to wait for the battery to run down completely (I should be able to tell by the absence of clicking) and then plug it in to force the reboot. Fingers crossed it will work.

[Raineer]

Actually, I've noticed a symptom. When I place the ipod next to my ear I can hear a very faint 'clicking' noise, and a very faint whirring sound.

Were that a PC HDD, that sounds like a broken or stuck read head :/

[Llorean]

Considering iPod HDD players are mechanically pretty much the same concept as PC HDs, it's quite likely that it is a similar sort of problem.

[kdsh7]

it's a possibility but it wouldn't it be too much of a coincidence? Also, if it was simply the HD not running, then shouldn't the LCD at least come on, or the firmware boot and show an error?

The ipod is less than 3 months old and has never had an error of any kind before.

[Llorean]

There's no such thing as "too much of a coincidence." Please don't use that phrase again, it's rather silly. If it's a coincidence, then it's a coincidence, but that neither guarantees nor refutes relation in any manner. It just means they happened at the same time.

If the Apple Logo won't come up, though, it can't be Rockbox's fault, because Rockbox doesn't get to do *anything* until the Apple logo is on screen and has been for about half a second. Until that point, Rockbox doesn't exist as far as the iPod's concerned.

[kdsh7]

"...too much of a coincidence" was meant to be interpreted as, "I don't think it's likely that my ipod's HD, which has never suffered any hard knocks or any failures before, has broken down purely by chance on the same day I installed rockbox". My apologies for any misunderstanding you may have had regarding my turn of phrase but from my point of view, I'm not prepared to accept that a generic HD failure is the most likely cause of this problem at this point in time.

That said, I was thinking along the same lines as you. If the apple logo isn't coming up then nothing has started right? But what if the LCD isn't even coming on?

Is it possible that rockbox is still running? That it's turned off the LCD, and disabled the reboot shortcuts (blanked the memory) hence the reason nothing is coming up?

[kdsh7]

UPDATE!

Finally, today the clicking stopped (which was the sign I was waiting for that the battery had depleted) and I tried to reset - the screen flickered on! I've just plugged it in and the PC has recognised it, it's started to charge, and I even got a brief glimpse of my Zelda: LttP theme. Phew!

I thing there's a good chance it really was a case of Rockbox having crashed quite severely effectively rendering the ipod incapable of interpreting the reset button combo.

I'm going to give Rockbox another try once it's charged - it installed fine on my wife's nano and FLAC albums sound superb. But if the same thing happens again I'm going to have to remove it and possibly even send the ipod back to apple (it's still under warranty).

Harryet, give discharging the battery a go - it might work

[harryett]

Harryet, give discharging the battery a go - it might work

Since my iPod refuses to start (totally, no HD activity, nothing)  the battery is quite hard to drain..  it will prolly take a good couple of years..

you see my problem.  

[raspberry]

This is a bit scary. I have a similar problem, rockbox does not shut down properly most of the time, and leaves me with a dead-alike ipod. So far i was able to wake him, but after this i'm not so sure any more. Sometimes i had to connect it to the PC and then use select+start for about 6 seconds (even when it was 100% charged).

Anyway, i'm curious if this is a general problem with ipods, so i'm hoping to learn more about that in this topic. In the meantime i think i will remove rockbox.

[Chronon]

I don't think it's a general problem or you'd see a lot more people in here.  I haven't had an iPod for a few months now, so I'm a bit out of the loop, but I never had this problem when I ran a Rockboxed 5G iPod).  Sorry to hear of your troubles!

[DefineByte]

I have a similar problem, rockbox does not shut down properly most of the time

I think I've experienced this too (or, at least, something very close). I shut it down as normal then when I next try to use my iPod the select button won't start it up. I need to hold menu+select to get it running again. It doesn't happen every time, but quite often. I also notice that the battery is lower than I'd expect it to be when it reboots, like it was still running after I 'shut it down'.

[Chronon]

Come to think of it, when I first installed Rockbox on my new Gigabeat it was doing something similar.  It would say it was shutting down, the screen would go dark, but it would not turn back on again and it became apparent that it had hung during the shut down process.  Luckily the Gigabeat has an external battery switch to allow a hard reset.  Maybe something similar is happening for you guys.  Luckily, in my case the offending code was tracked down rather quickly and fixed.