A Million Installation Problems...

[Kibbles0515]

I am a total NOOB at this, so keep that in mind.  I am using a 5th gen iPod Video (YES I'M SURE) and running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

First, I followed the instructions at http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodConversionToFAT32
to convert my Macpod to a Winpod.  When I apply the partition table, the iPod remounts and says it is unreadable by my computer.  Should I hit 'Ignore'?

Next, RockBoxUtility can't autodetect my iPod, so I enter the information manually.  Is there a way to fix this?

When I click 'Complete Installation' the progress box says:
Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod

How do I fix these problems?!?!?

[Llorean]

Which partition table file are you using?

You really shouldn't continue on to later steps when you get an error in an earlier one. Each time you encounter an error you should solve it before moving on. In other circumstances you could end up harming a device by ignoring error messages and continue to try installation.

[Kibbles0515]

Which partition table file are you using?

I'm using mbr-video30gb.bin with my iPod Video 5th Gen.

[Llorean]

How did you identify your sector size? Could you restore your iPod to working condition (with iTunes most likely) and then paste the iPodPatcher output?

[Kibbles0515]

How did you identify your sector size?

Could you restore your iPod to working condition (with iTunes most likely) and then paste the iPodPatcher output?

This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

[INFO] Scanning disk devices...
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod found - Video (aka 5th Generation) ("macpod") - /dev/disk2
[INFO] Reading partition table from /dev/disk2
[INFO] Sector size is 512 bytes
[INFO] Part    Start Sector    End Sector   Size (MB)   Type
[INFO]    0              63        131134        64.0   Empty (0x00)
[INFO]    1          131136      58605111     28551.7   HFS/HFS+ (0xffff)
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod model: Video (aka 5th Generation) (32MB RAM) ("macpod")
[INFO] ************************************************************************
[INFO] *** WARNING FOR ROCKBOX USERS
[INFO] *** You must convert this ipod to FAT32 format (aka a "winpod")
[INFO] *** if you want to run Rockbox.  Rockbox WILL NOT work on this ipod.
[INFO] *** See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodConversionToFAT32
[INFO] ************************************************************************
Enter i to install the Rockbox bootloader, u to uninstall
 or c to cancel and do nothing (i/u/c) :

[Llorean]

What is the exact command you type to to write the MBR?

[Kibbles0515]

What is the exact command you type to to write the MBR?

dd if=mbr-video30gb.bin of=/dev/disk2

I got disk2 by using Disk Utility and hitting 'Info."

[Llorean]

If your computer declares the iPod unreadable, what did you do when you were supposed to reformat it to fat32? At exactly which step did error messages start?

You may wish to redownload the MBR file and make sure it wasn't corrupted somehow.

[Kibbles0515]

Right after the MBR file is installed, my iPod reboots (disconnects and reconnects itself), and once it mounts itself, my computer says it is unreadable.

[Llorean]

What, exactly, does your computer say? Did you attempt to finish the conversion, only to have the other steps fail, or did you skip on to trying to install Rockbox with RBUtil at that point without trying to finish the conversion?

[Kibbles0515]

I hit "ignore" and moved on to the next step: creating a main partition with the FAT32 file system...come to think of it, the error message might come after THIS step.  My mistake.  So, to create the partition, I used disk utility, selected the iPod, hit the erase tab, selected MS-DOS (FAT), and hit erase.

[Llorean]

Well, now there's even more uncertainty. Could you be precise about exactly when the error message happens, and exactly what it says? When it "might" be isn't particularly helpful here.

[Kibbles0515]

I know.  Let me try everything, installing the MBR, creating the FAT32 partition, etc. and I'll get back to you.  Thank you so much for your help so far!
Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 08:04:30 AMOk.  I redownloaded the MBR, opened Terminal, navigated to the folder the MBR was in, and typed
dd if=mbr-video30gb.bin of=/dev/disk2
Terminal said:
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 2.525599 secs (203 bytes/sec)

And IMMEDIATELY, there is a pop-up that says "This disk is not readable by this computer"  and I can hit initialize, ignore, and eject.

[bluebrother]

You put a MBR to the player, but that is not sufficient. You need to properly format the data partition as well -- as one can clearly see from the ipodpatcher output it's not a winpod yet. And Rockbox Utility can't detect the Ipod for installation if it's not properly converted.

Try restoring using itunes on a windows machine, that's way simpler.

[Kibbles0515]

Where can I get my hands on one?  Hahahaha.
Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 02:51:23 PMI tried the entire process again, ejecting and restarting with the iPod in disk mode.  I also created the partition, and ejected the iPod again.  After connecting it to the computer again, it says that my iPod is in recovery mode.  ipodpatcher says it isn't an iPod and that I don't have permissions.