Major interface speed problems on iPod Mini

[Fallingwater]

I bought an iPod Mini 1st gen on eBay for a handful of beans (figuratively speaking) with the intent of eventually doing this with a 16GB A-Data CF card. Being very curious, I decided I couldn't wait for the CF card and new battery to get here before trying out Rockbox, so I installed it on the microdrive, stuffed the drive full of music in Ogg format and started using the player for short walks around town, when I know I won't need more than the measly two or so hours the original knackered battery can give.

I noticed immediately that the playback, pause, track forward and track backward commands didn't respond immediately, but the first few times it only took a second or so before the iPod did what I wanted it to, so I didn't much care.

Then, however, things got worse.

It's gotten to the point where it's eminently possible for me to push the pause button while playing and have to wait 20 or 30 seconds for the player to pause!
This is not a simple annoyance - it's making the player unusable. Today I pressed the track forward button and the thing showed the new title on the screen, but cheerfully kept on playing the old song for about half a minute before switching. Then after a while I paused it, then tried to unpause it, and it stood there with the play icon, not doing anything, for a full minute. I don't know how long it'd have stayed like that because I got tired and reset it.

I'm pretty sure (or at least I hope) that the Rockbox experience on the Mini isn't meant to be like this.

Where am I going wrong? How do I get it to work properly?

If it can help I have close to 4 GB of (mostly Q2 quality) Ogg files which I keep in a single folder and manage by database.

Edit: I just tried splitting the files up in different subfolders, and nothing has changed.

Thanks.

[zajacattack]

Try running "chkdsk /r" on it.

[Fallingwater]

Four files with bad clusters, 41kb of bad sectors and a big fat filesystem error. Nice.

Looks like the microdrive is on its way out and it's causing all the slowness.

I'll try running a bad sector scanner and bludgeoning it into working for another month or so until the CF gets here, or maybe I'll use a spare microdrive I have sitting around if the old one is unrecoverable.

Thanks.

[Fallingwater]

In the end I decided to wait. The CF got here recently, along with the spare battery, so I put the iPod back together with the CF in place of the microdrive and... everything's exactly the same. The interface hasn't sped up one bit. How can this be? Where am I going wrong?
Please help, I really want to use this thing, but waiting for it to do anything is driving me insane.

[Chronon]

What bootloader are you using?

[Fallingwater]

When running ipodpatcher.exe I see this:

ipodpatcher v2.0 with v2.0 bootloaders

so I assume the bootloader is version 2.0.

[bluebrother]

so I assume the bootloader is version 2.0.

If that's the version of ipodpatcher you used for installing the bootloader this is correct. If not, press and hold "Right" right after powering up the Ipod (i.e. when the apple logo appears). The bootloader will then show you the version information (along with some other stuff)

[Fallingwater]

Will do and reply once I've done it (I'm currently away from home for a day or two).
I assume the bootloader can cause problems with Rockbox's speed? What version should I use to eliminate them?
Thanks.

[Chronon]

Support for CF cards has been committed to SVN.  However, you need to build your own bootloader from SVN in order to use this capability as the version of the bootloader included in Ipodpatcher does not include this.  I am guessing that some of what you're seeing may be due to using an old bootloader with a CF card. 

Maybe the dying microdrive just happens to exhibit similar performance problems to an improperly initialized Rockbox with CF?  That's my best guess for you at this time.

[spike66]

Chronon, I was following this thread http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=14524.msg124907#msg124907 and I was getting pretty confused. Now what you say makes it very clear

Support for CF cards has been committed to SVN.  However, you need to build your own bootloader from SVN in order to use this capability as the version of the bootloader included in Ipodpatcher does not include this.

My problem is, I don't know how to do that. Is there anything that I could read or another link that I could go to in order to learn and know what to do?

[bluebrother]

My problem is, I don't know how to do that. Is there anything that I could read or another link that I could go to in order to learn and know what to do?

First option: check the wiki (start at the developers documentation). Second one: there's a (still open) task in the tracker regarding bootloader with CF cards. I've posted a bootloader binary to that task for the Mini 1G a while back, so you could also use that.

[spike66]

First option: check the wiki (start at the developers documentation). Second one: there's a (still open) task in the tracker regarding bootloader with CF cards. I've posted a bootloader binary to that task for the Mini 1G a while back, so you could also use that.

Thanks! I've been reading some information I found where you suggested (MiniCF, CFModGuide, IpodBoot) and at this point it seems kind of beyond my scope, I will really have to learn a lot to start thinking about compiling a bootloader (I'm starting though...) so your second option seems to me now so much nicer... I got a 2nd gen mini though, do you think your posted bootloader might work? (theoretically since you couldnt really test it?)

[soap]

I got a 2nd gen mini though, do you think your posted bootloader might work? (theoretically since you couldnt really test it?)

Not
A
Chance.
The mini 1st gen has different internal hardware than the mini 2nd gen.

[Fallingwater]

My problem is, I don't know how to do that. Is there anything that I could read or another link that I could go to in order to learn and know what to do?

First option: check the wiki (start at the developers documentation). Second one: there's a (still open) task in the tracker regarding bootloader with CF cards. I've posted a bootloader binary to that task for the Mini 1G a while back, so you could also use that.

I've found this, containing this file. Is this what you meant?
I just load it up with the ipodpatcher string and everything should Just Work?

[spike66]

I got a 2nd gen mini though, do you think your posted bootloader might work? (theoretically since you couldnt really test it?)

Not
A
Chance.
The mini 1st gen has different internal hardware than the mini 2nd gen.

I'm in trouble...