Fat32 Format Fail in Ubuntu

[Rodney9]

Hello. I am trying to get my 1st gen iPod Nano to work in Linux.

So I followed the instuctions here -

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodConversionToFAT32

however I get the following error

$ sudo mformat -t 2428 -h 255 -s 63 -S 4 -M 2048 -F a:
mformat: Can't open /dev/sdd3s2: No such file or directory

doesn't matter if it is mounted or unmounted.

even though mount shows - /dev/sdd3 on /media/Rodney’s iPod type hfsplus (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)

What can I do ? I do not have windows or mac only Ubuntu 64bit 8.10

Should I use /media/Rodney’s iPod instead of /dev/sdd3
if so, do I put the /etc/mtools.conf in drive a: file="/media/Rodney’s iPods2"

Rodney

[bluebrother]

mformat: Can't open /dev/sdd3s2: No such file or directory

it's /dev/sdd3, not sdd3s2. Also, unmount the Ipod first.

[Rodney9]

Thank You, that seemed to work -

/dev/sdd3 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)

but now rbutilqt-v1.0.6-64bit tells me "Warning This is a MacPod, Rockbox does not work on this, convert to WinPod"

[GodEater]

Sounds to me like you may have skipped the step for re-writing the MBR to the Nano - so while you've somehow managed to write a FAT32 filesystem to the partition, it's not marked as such.

[Rodney9]

Well I started back at the beginning now I get the following -

$ sudo mformat -t 2428 -h 255 -n 63 -S 4 -M 2048 -F a:
mformat: Error reading from '/dev/sdd3', wrong parameters?

I think I know the problem, this is for 5gig, what is the linux command for 2gig ?

newfs_msdos -F 32 -S 2048 -v iPod /dev/sdd3 is only for Mac's I think.

[GodEater]

That's not the beginning though - the beginning is loading the correct MBR onto your device. Have you done that ?

[Rodney9]

That's not the beginning though - the beginning is loading the correct MBR onto your device. Have you done that ?

Yes, I started with -  dd if=mbr-nano2gb.bin of=/dev/sdd3
then -  eject /dev/sdd3

I think I know the problem, this is for 5gig, what is the linux command for 2gig ?

newfs_msdos -F 32 -S 2048 -v iPod /dev/sdd3 is only for Mac's I think.

[GodEater]

Yes, I started with -  dd if=mbr-nano2gb.bin of=/dev/sdd3

Well there's a problem right there then, the "of=" part should have been "of=/dev/sdd", not "of=/dev/sdd3".

then -  eject /dev/sdd3

And I'm surprised that even worked - you can't eject individual partitions, only entire devices.

I think I know the problem, this is for 5gig, what is the linux command for 2gig ?

newfs_msdos -F 32 -S 2048 -v iPod /dev/sdd3 is only for Mac's I think.

I'm not sure what you mean by "5gig", there's no such size for Nanos. Let's worry about the format command once you've got the MBR written correctly. Once you have there should only be TWO partitions on your Nano - not 3 as you seem to have currently.

[bluebrother]

And I'm surprised that even worked - you can't eject individual partitions, only entire devices.

Also, there is no need to eject the device after writing the MBR. But you *really* should unmount the player first.

[Rodney9]

If I leave the 3 off /dev/sdd3 how will it know which device to use, might it format /dev/sdd1 , sdd1 is my main hard drive.

Thank You for Your Patience.

[Chronon]

The "3" should label a partition on /dev/sdd.  My main hard drive is /dev/sda but contains many different partitions /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc.  Each device should have its own distinct letter.

[gevaerts]

If I leave the 3 off /dev/sdd3 how will it know which device to use, might it format /dev/sdd1 , sdd1 is my main hard drive.

I would recommend finding a Windows PC with itunes, and let that handle the conversion. The manual conversion is really only suited for people who know the difference between partitions and drives, or when there's no other choice, as it's easy to destroy your entire system by using the wrong device nodes

[bluebrother]

If I leave the 3 off /dev/sdd3 how will it know which device to use, might it format /dev/sdd1 , sdd1 is my main hard drive.

No. Overwriting the boot sector does not format anything. You will loose the partition information when doing it, but the data itself won't be touched (it might not be trivial recovering the data once you overwrote the boot sector, but it is possible). Besides, you always can make a backup of the boot sector first. If anything goes wrong just restore that ... formatting would destroy the data though.

[GodEater]

If I leave the 3 off /dev/sdd3 how will it know which device to use, might it format /dev/sdd1 , sdd1 is my main hard drive.

You're confusing devices and partitions.

If /dev/sdd1 is your "main hard drive", then /dev/sdd3 is NOT your ipod, it's merely another partition on the same drive, and you've probably already broken something on your PC.

I strongly recommend following gevaerts advice at this point, as it seems you're quite confused about what you're doing.