Ipod Photo 30 cannot boot Rockbox

[ristoman]

Hi all,

I'm kind of a n00b but I'm not a computer illiterate. I find myself in the interesting position of not having a PC, having a iPod Photo 30 in HFS and a Firewire connection.

Now, I have managed to convert my iPod to FAT32 multiple times (and both iTunes and Disk Utility confirm that, disk use is enabled, blah blah blah), I have used RockboxUtilityQt with success according to the software, I have also tried ipodpatcher through Terminal, but my iPod still can't find rockbox.ipod when all is said and done. I have also tried manually unzipping the rockbox.zip file into the root of my iPod, and I have verified with Terminal that the .rockbox folder is there. But still no cigar.

My only worry is that there is no real iPod Photo 30 partition table in the FAT32 conversion page, so I had to use the Video 30 one. Could that really be an issue? I mean a partition table has nothing to do with the capabilities of the iPod, or at least I would think so. It seems to me that Photo's have a hard time with Rockbox, but I'm desperately trying to add FLAC compatibility so I really need you guys' help! Any clues as to what might be wrong?

[GodEater]

Could you post a directory listing, and perhaps the output of fdisk -l?

[ristoman]

right now i only have .rockbox in the root folder in /dev/disk3s2/, and the contents are

.                       doom                    rockbox-info.txt
..                      eqs                     rockbox.ipod
backdrops               fonts                   rocks
codecs                  icons                   tagnavi.config
codepages               langs                   themes
database.ignore         rbutil.log              viewers.config
docs                    recpresets              wps
 
fdisk -l gives me that "L" is an illegal option. And I don't know what to put in for the disk.

[Llorean]

Well "L" and "l" are different. Are you typing fdisk -L or fdisk -l, because these things are case sensitive.

[cool_walking_]

Or maybe that's some strange Mac way of saying "insufficient permissions"? On most (every?) Linux system I've seen, fdisk needs root, so do "sudo fdisk -l".

[linuxstb]

@everyone - the Mac OS X "fdisk" command is completely different to the Linux version and completely unhelpful when it comes to dealing with ipods...  Hence why the conversion instructions don't suggest its use.

The reason for different partition tables is that different ipod generations have slightly different partition layouts - for example, the firmware partition on the Video is larger than the Photo.

@ristoman - Does the Apple firmware work correctly after you've converted to FAT32?  Also, did you use a "5g" partition table or a "5.5g" ?  The 5.5g won't work due to a different logical sector size.

But if I was you, I would try and find a Windows PC with itunes installed, and restore the ipod using that - it's by far the simpliest and most reliable way to convert.

[ristoman]

@Llorean: I tried both just in case. Neither works.

@linuxstb: The Apple firmware works fine, i can boot into it and navigate it, disk mode works fine, iTunes and the Finder recognize and mount it, and so on. I haven't verified if MP3s will play just because i didn't give it that much time. But everything seems to work ok. I don't think the FAT32 conversion is giving me problems per se, but the partition table i'm using is the mbr-video30gb.bin - so I guess it would be for a 5G.

Just for reference, here's the readout when I try to boot:

Rockbox boot loader
Version: 2.0
IPOD Version: 0x00060000
TOSHIBA MK3006GAL
Partition 1: 0x0B 28537 MB
Loading Rockbox...
Error!
Can't load rockbox.ipod:
File not found
(then instructions to reboot)


Yeah, as I said, I don't have a Winbox anywhere close, I tried with Parallels but the iPod doesn't show up in Windows, only OSX.

[AlexP]

Error!
Can't load rockbox.ipod:
File not found
(then instructions to reboot)


Yeah, as I said, I don't have a Winbox anywhere close, I tried with Parallels but the iPod doesn't show up in Windows, only OSX.

Well, this just means you haven't unzipped the build correctly to your player, the bootloader is fine.  It is a little tricky in Mac OSX as the full stop at the beginning of the .rockbox folder means it is hidden, and I believe the default MAC zip utility mucks about with it.

To clarify, you should have when /DAP is the mountpoint for your DAP

/DAP/.rockbox

and inside that loads of files + /DAP/.rockbox/rockbox.ipod

Check that is the case.  If not, you need to find an unzip utility that works properly (try a search on the forums, it has come up before).

Edit:  In fact, you can just use rockbox utility but select the Installation tab, then Install Rockbox.

Edit 2:  I just reread your earlier post which seems to suggest the correct files are already present.  However, the bootloader error means they are not, so double check the exact directory structure.

[ristoman]

@BigBambi:

Yup, i've copied the .rockbox folder on my iPod in at least 3 different ways: through drag and drop in the finder, by copying the zip into the iPod and then extracting it, and by using cp in terminal. I have used /Volumes/(name)/ as the destination, is there a difference between that and /dev/diskNs2? I think I tried the latter and was given some error in that it wasn't a directory or something. Could it have to do with permissions maybe? I hate that OSX will systematically hide all dotted folders - only Terminal can help me in this case...

EDIT: Upon closer look, I seem to have 3 volumes with similar names... for some reason I used DISK3S2 as the actual iPod name, and there seem to be DISK3S2, DISK3S2 1, and DISK3S2 2. I think I might have formatted my iPod a few too many times...

EDIT2: Ok, seems to work now! I was copying to the wrong Volume I guess... Gonna try copying some music on it and see how that works...

EDIT3: Everything is resolved now, works fine, plays even better! I apparently had some duplicates among my Volumes and that was causing me and the Finder some problems in terms of destination... Thanks for the help you guys!

[Chronon]

I'm not familiar with OSX's naming scheme, but those names seem to indicate the different partitions on the drive.  I would assume that "DISK3S2 2" refers to the disk's second partition -- i.e. the FAT32 partition.