iPod Classic 160GB USB problems

[Massa]

Hi everybody,

I bought a iPod Classic with 160GB (I think it's called 6-Gen) and I installed Rockbox on it.
That was really easy

After that I was able to connect it via USB and put a current Rockbox version on it (cdb71c7-130430).
I was also able to put my music files on it (about 90GB).

At that time I already had some spurious problems that my Windows 7x64 needs a while until it detects the device.
It then told me that the device needs disk checking and reparation.
When I tried to do it, it immediately finished without any message;
trying to use the command line chkdsk directly finished with an "unknown error"
After each of that check tries, Rockbox seems to leave the USB mode (goes back to the previous screen) but then hangs and did not react to any input...
...I had to hard reset the device :-(

So next time I connected the device to the PC, I ignored the windows dialog which was asking for disk check and just opened the explorer, went to the corresponding drive letter and was able to transfer files from and to it.


Now the situation is even worst: the device tries to connect via USB and the corresponding drive letter appears and vanishes a few times after which no drive letter is present for the device and rockbox directly leaves the USB mode and the device hangs.

All of above now also happens with the fallback version which is included in EmCore boot menu.


Any ideas what's going on (I put EmCore r859 on it)?
Anybody else having such (or similar) problems with USB connection?

BTW, is somebody actively working on the RockBox iPod Classic port?

[[Saint]]

USB is unstable in later revisions for some people, particularly on Windows, for some reason.

Since we can't dual-boot on the Classic presently or use Apple's EDM, there is a fallback image of Rockbox embedded in emCORE available via:
emCORE Main Menu -> Tools -> Run Rockbox Fallback Image

You _should_ be able to mount and transfer files and or repair the disc from there (no guarantees of course). Simply reboot to resume normal function.
For what its worth, if you don't care about any of the data on the iPod (backed up elsewhere, for example), you can format the storage partition from the emCORE Tools menu as well, this is a guaranteed method of setting up the storage partition correctly.


[Saint]

[Massa]

What does "later revisions" mean?
Which latest version is known to work? Is the 3.13 release version OK?

I already used the fallback ROCKbox image which showed the same weird behavior

Then I reformatted the disk with emCORE and now I have a USB connection again (from fallback image).
But it took about half a minute until Windows detected the device and gave him a drive letter.

And when I try to chkdsk the device, it still tells me "unknown error (666174766f6c2e63 d6)" - whatever that means?

So IMHO there must be something wrong with the FAT32 format of the device...

So, is somebody actively working on the iPod Classic port?
And OT: is emCORE still in active development?

EDIT: When I try to rename the devices volume name in Windows, an error box says that an invalid name has been used (even when the name is correct); on the device side ROCKbox comes out of USB mode and...
...HANGS

[saratoga]

What does "later revisions" mean?
Which latest version is known to work? Is the 3.13 release version OK?

We actually never did a release for the Classic, since its an unstable target.  USB broke about a year and a half ago, right before we switched to git.  So any release tagged with an SVN number should have working USB.  However, things like power management and not crashing a lot were added subsequently, so you may not want to run an older build.

So, is somebody actively working on the iPod Classic port?
And OT: is emCORE still in active development?

No and I don't think so.

[Massa]

We actually never did a release for the Classic, since its an unstable target.  USB broke about a year and a half ago, right before we switched to git.  So any release tagged with an SVN number should have working USB.

Wow - that's a long time ago!
And there's nobody (read: no developer) who owns such a device and tried to (re-)fix it?
That's bad news
I thought this device is still widespread and therefore actively developed...

I bought it because it's the only remaining device which has a big storage and is still in a size which is "acceptable" - at least as far as I know.

However, things like power management and not crashing a lot were added subsequently, so you may not want to run an older build.

So to fix the USB problem together with the recent improvements, I have to find out what happened to USB code between the last SVN versions and the first GIT versions?
Seems to be hard work

Is this the only device which has USB problems since then?

So, is somebody actively working on the iPod Classic port?
And OT: is emCORE still in active development?

No and I don't think so.

Both bad news - so I'm either stuck with Apple's original firmware or I try to find and fix the USB problem myself (because in the current shape it's unusable for me).
But I fear my basic hardware knowledge and also my spare time don't allow it to come back to further ROCKbox development...

[saratoga]

I thought this device is still widespread and therefore actively developped...

Ah no, its not really actively developed and listed as unusable for a reason. 

Is this the only device which has USB problems since then?

No, various targets have issues with USB, but I don't think any are related to the Classic.

[SheepCake]

in short: dont expect a fix any time soon if ever, unless you are a programmer OR have the money to pay somebody to fix it.

and im shocked the head-fi tards arent over here causing trouble since the classic with RB has become very popular there by the size of the thread...

[SheepCake]

thanks to a fellow on IRC we have our fix for the chkdsk error, you need to format the player with an app that will let you set cluster/sector size to 512 rather then emcores default.

once this was done, bam chkdsk worked again for me without issues, I also noticed transfer rate loading the player back up was faster.

[PaperArtillery]

thanks to a fellow on IRC we have our fix for the chkdsk error, you need to format the player with an app that will let you set cluster/sector size to 512 rather then emcores default.

once this was done, bam chkdsk worked again for me without issues, I also noticed transfer rate loading the player back up was faster.

I really hate to be so necromantic, but how exactly did you manage to reformat that partition and not have emCore throw a "No partition found. Insert USB cable and fix it" error the next time you try to boot Rockbox?  I've been struggling with the inability to run chkdsk for a long time now, and your post is literally the closest to a solution I've found.