Can someone please help determine if this is defective?

[*BTK*]

Hi all, thanks for reading my post!

I bought an Ipod 5.5 Gen Video 80GB on ebay and need some help determining if it is defective or if the player software has a bug. First off, the player came with rockbox on it and had a model from mid-April 2008. Well, from the moment it boot up, the hard drive was constantly spinning and never stopped. I let it sit idle for five minutes or so to see if it would stop, but it never did.

I have had previous experience using rockbox so I tried updating the whole rockbox folder to the current build of 17731 by extracting to my root of the Ipod and overwriting the old folder. Started up the player and it still spins constantly. On both builds a small wrench (tool) icon appears by the clock in the upper right. Does this mean there is a hard drive or other problem? If so, what can I do about it? I checked the settings to see what the disk spin was set too and it was either 3 or 5 seconds, I forget which, but it was not set to 0 which is the important thing I take it. The hard drive does not seem to spin like this when the Apple firmware is loaded, so should I assume that something in Rockbox is not acting properly?

I searched the forum but didn't come across too much. I hope someone can help me out because I only have a few days to return the Ipod to the seller and be able to get a refund.

Thanks for any help!

[PaulPosition]

I'd first try to clear all Rockbox settings.  Either through the menu or by flipping the hold switch when booting (manual for your device (see at the left) should help figuring out the details).

[bluebrother]

On both builds a small wrench (tool) icon appears by the clock in the upper right.

That "tool" is a disc symbol and indicates that the disc is spinning. Your issue sounds to me like the database having issues with its update. Check if the problem still occurs with a fresh database (remove /.rockbox/*.tcd) and without any music files on the player. You might also want to chkdsk /f the drive first.

[*BTK*]

That "tool" is a disc symbol and indicates that the disc is spinning. Your issue sounds to me like the database having issues with its update. Check if the problem still occurs with a fresh database (remove /.rockbox/*.tcd) and without any music files on the player. You might also want to chkdsk /f the drive first.

I never used the build music database option and just play them thru the file menu. is this the database you are talking about or an actual rockbox software database?

The Ipod had no music on it when I got it and I added about 30GB (roughly 4,500 songs) all at once. Could it be spinning constantly just because it has to gather information for all this new data and I have not gave it enough time? I have not considered that because I thought that was what happened when you built the database.

If that could be the cause, is it possible it might take 5 or 10 minutes, or possibly longer to gather information?

[saratoga]

Go into the database menu option and see if the database is initialized.  If it is, then that disk activity could be the database.  Scanning thousands of files takes some time on my gigabeat, though I don't remember how long off hand. 

[bluebrother]

I never used the build music database option and just play them thru the file menu. is this the database you are talking about or an actual rockbox software database?

I don't understand what you mean. Rockbox has its own database that is build based on the files tags. If auto-updating the database was enabled it will scan the whole disc, and 30GB will take quite some time. So make sure the database doesn't try to initialize or update itself (you can check the status in the debug menu).

[*BTK*]

I never used the build music database option and just play them thru the file menu. is this the database you are talking about or an actual rockbox software database?

I don't understand what you mean. Rockbox has its own database that is build based on the files tags. If auto-updating the database was enabled it will scan the whole disc, and 30GB will take quite some time. So make sure the database doesn't try to initialize or update itself (you can check the status in the debug menu).

I mean that I always play music by going to the folder and selecting the files. Example: Main Menu>Files>Music>Artist>Track 1

I never used the Database feature so I thought I would have to initialize a scan instead of it doing an auto one without any prompting. I went in and checked the debug menu and it was indeed building a database so I switched the option off and rebooted and now the hard drive is not constantly spinning!

Is there any harm in leaving an incomplete database? Like I said, I don't really use the tag information to look for music so I probably won't be using the database information at all.

Thanks for the help guys, lets hope that is my only problem

[GodEater]

If you don't use the database feature, there's no point having it turned on at all. Rockbox does not *require* it in any way, that's why it's an option

[bluebrother]

If you don't use the database feature, there's no point having it turned on at all. Rockbox does not *require* it in any way, that's why it's an option

Right, but my point was that he told the Ipod was already Rockboxed, and as updating doesn't reset the settings there is a chance the database was turned on causing the issues ...

[GodEater]

Which is what I understood you to be saying, which is why I'm telling him it's okay to remove it, since it's not a requirement. Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough