4GB iPod Mini 2g - unable to install with utility or manually

[Chronon]

Thanks for the definitive answer.  

Does that mean that the following is only possible if there's already an Apple firmware on disk?

Rockbox doesn't alter the contents of the flash ROM, which is where the Apple bootloader/disk-mode/diagnostics mode lives, so you can't remove that.  Rockbox also doesn't have its own usb disk mode, so removing the Apple disk mode would leave you unable to access your ipod anyway...

But you can completely replace the firmware on disk.  Using ipodpatcher, you have two options:

ipodpatcher [device] -wf bootloader-ipodXXXX.ipod

which will replace the Apple firmware on disk with the Rockbox bootloader.

Or even:

ipodpatcher [device] -wf rockbox.ipod

which will put the main Rockbox binary in the firmware partition, without any bootloader.

Before you use the -wf command, you may want to do:

ipodpatcher [device] -rf apple_os.ipod

to extract the main Apple firmware if you ever want to restore it.  Or you can then copy the apple_os.ipod file to either the root of your FAT32 partition or inside the .rockbox/ folder, and the bootloader will load the Apple firmware from there.

*note that this is an old comment and certain things like Rockbox not having its own USB mode are not strictly true anymore.

[GodEater]

That should still work - but what's happening is slightly inaccurate (from what I understand).

ipodpatcher isn't "completely replacing" the apple firmware there, it's just writing a rockbox image where it would normally write the bootloader.

[linuxstb]

Does that mean that the following is only possible if there's already an Apple firmware on disk?

Yes.

[linuxstb]

ipodpatcher isn't "completely replacing" the apple firmware there, it's just writing a rockbox image where it would normally write the bootloader.

No, my description is correct (if by "Apple firmware" you are referring to the part of the firmware on disk, not the flash-based Apple bootloader/disk mode/diagnostics mode).

Normally, ipodpatcher (and therefore rbutil) will append the Rockbox bootloader to the end of the Apple firmware on disk, and change the "entry point" (stored in the header to that firmware) to point to the start of our bootloader, instead of the start of the Apple firmware.

What the "-wf" option to ipodpatcher does is to completely replace that Apple firmware image with the Rockbox file (bootloader or main Rockbox).

i.e. a virgin ipod looks like:

[OSOS]
[AUPD]
[RSRC]

with a standard Rockbox install, it will look like

[OSOS and Rockbox bootloader]
[AUPD]
[RSRC]

and with a "-wf" install of the Rockbox bootloader or Rockbox itself:

[Rockbox bootloader or Rockbox itself]
[AUPD]
[RSRC]

Where "OSOS" is the main Apple firmware, "AUPD" is the image that flashes new ROM contents, and "RSRC" is the resource block (only used on the Nano and Video).

[Chronon]

No, my description is correct (if by "Apple firmware" you are referring to the part of the firmware on disk, not the flash-based Apple bootloader/disk mode/diagnostics mode).

Yes, that's what I meant. 

[rabbitsf]

Thanks...that is pretty clear.  i will load up the firm ware on a laptop with itunes, and go from there.  it seems like a pretty basic oversight for Rockbox to miss in their instructions for installing on ipods.  i think there are quite a few people putting flash drives in their old ipods.  knowing you have to restore to factory specs before installing rockbox is an important step to include in instructions.  thanks again for the help.