iPod 4th gen (monochrome) restore problem...

[Nobody]

Hi all.

I recently made the mistake of of allowing iTunes to do a restore on this ol' 20GB iPod. I had been using it as an external hard-drive.

I initially had wiped the drive, and created a new partition table. But... when I decided I would finally install RockBox to it, the installer wouldn't recognize a device. Okay.

I then tried iTunes, and again it also didn't recognize the device. I then assumed that it was due to the partition data. I wiped the iPod, and then reformatted it into a super-floppy (whole drive) mode.

After RockBox failed to see the device yet again, I tried iTunes for a second time.

This time it showed the device, but prompted for a restore before it would function. Now I had never had to do this before, and I went ahead and did it. Little did I know that at completion, it would prompt me to plug the iPod into a wall charger for some reason.

The problem? I don't have an official one. Is there some type of proprietary BS going on where the official Apple charger somehow activate the devices through an internal chip, or something? The iPod was charging fine through various PCs before this, and it even charged with the USB end wall adapter for my cellphone.

Now all I have is picture of the wall adapter, and an outlet on the iPod screen. It hasn't changed after several hours of charging on either an outlet, or a PC.

Darn it, is there anything I can do to regain use of this device? It won't even showed as detected when in Windows, or Linux OSes. I would even mind just returning it to it's USB memory card status if need be. I even used it for usb installs of Windows at one point.

[Chronon]

I had a similar problem recently (i.e. Restoring an iPod and ending up with the charger screen).  I ended up going to an Apple store and asking them to plug it into one of their wall chargers. 

[adasd]

Same exact thing with mine, too.  So is the official Apple Wall Charger like Dell's AC adapters with a goddamned ID chip the BIOS looks for and refuses to allow charging unless you bought it from Dell?

[torne]

No, they just expect the charger to identify itself as a charger. It's probably sufficient to short the two USB data pins together. Older iPods require two resistors of particular values between the data pins and the voltage pins, but I think the 4th gen understands the shorted pins, which is the official USB standard way of identifying a charger.

Actual Apple chargers implement both of these things at the same time. Any charger that comes with a smartphone or similar should also have the data pins shorted as most phones require the same thing. Only cheap third party chargers and really old stuff fails to have the data pins shorted.

[[Saint]]

FWIW, I have a few iPod Colors and shorting the data pins never worked in my expirements. Only my apple branded usb cables/wall adapter worked.


[Saint]