problem: frequent black screen of death on IPOD Video 80G

[Starfish]

Hello, All.

I really liked Rockbox and I especially bought iPod Video 80G to use with it. Rockbox+iPod is actually unbeatable combo, since you can keep all your music in one place, listen to it and even use flac codec.

But unfortunately I'm getting frequent black screen of death on my ipod video 80g with rockbox.

First time I installed Rockbox in September. Everything worked fine till the end of October. Once I switched it off and when I switched it on it showed the black screen of death and an error like "can't find the partition" or something. I tried to reboot with aple firmware as instructions explained - but did not succeed. Looked like it always booted in rockbox loader.

So, just as on-screen instructions said, I rebooted it into disk mode - it looked fine, when I connected it to PC the USB Storage device drive letter appeared, but when I tried to access it - explorer hung up. I've tried it on 3 different PC, all with WinXP with iTunes never installed on any of them - same result, explorer hung up. Rockbox utility did not recognize the iPod either.

Finally, I ran some data recovery program and it recovered mostly all the data, including the directory structure. I installed iTunes, restored iPod, installed the Rockbox again, copied all the recovered data back to iPod (excluding system directories) and everything started working fine again. This happened a couple of weeks ago.

So, it had been working for a couple of weeks until last monday it not load again with Rockbox. It showed the black screen of death again now complaining that it could not find the rockbox.ipod file. When I tried to reboot and load Apple firmware in just stuck showing the apple logo forever and PC could not access it in disk mode, as before. Well, I knew what to do, I restored it with iTunes, reuploaded the Rockbox, copied most of the music again.

This time it worked for a day only and then came up with the same black screen of death again reporting that it can not find the rockbox.ipod file. This time I restored it in Apple mode to give it a try.

I always used Rockbox Utility to install the Rockbox and I used the latest official release of the Rockbox firmware. Though, I always switch from default theme to something else, for example one of the EscapePod themes.

There was never any damage or shock to the iPod except that a week before it broke for the first time I took it with me to the airplane. But it was off during takeoff and landing (you know, they insist on it).

Anyway, could you help me with a couple of questions:
1. To me it looks more like hardware issue. Am I right that it is not the Rockbox?
2. If it is hardware issue, what are the chances that it will show up with apple firmware? Is there any way to speed up this process? Then I'll just get the iPod fixed/replaced.
3. Is there any way to check HDD in the iPod? Checkdisk or something? Will it help find out more?
4. As long as the problem seems repeatable, I can do it a couple more times and look for what you tell me to look for.

Any other suggestions?

Thank you.

[LambdaCalculus]

One possible problem I can think of that you may be having is a dead/dying hard drive, or at worst, a bad ribbon cable to go between the mainboard and the hard drive.

When you turn on your iPod, put it to your ear and listen for any whirring, clicking, or "spin down" sounds. Whirring would mean that your drive is okay; clicking means it's dying or dead, and "spin down" sounds that repeat (hard to describe, but it'll sound like it's spinning up and suddenly stopping) would possibly indicate a bad connection.

[evilnick]

1. If it is a hardware problem then it's incredibly likely that it's nothing to do with Rockbox.
2. Yes, these issues (if hardware) would probably show up under the Apple firmware too.
3. Checkdisk would work. Apparently the command line version is more useful though.

Not sure about 4.

[Starfish]

Hi, guys.

Thank you for the answers.