Mountpoint for iPod Classic

[Chikablam]

So i've been trying to restore my ipod classic, and was directed to rockbox. However, it can't seem to find a mountpoint. It won't autodetect, and the dropdown box for manual seletion isn't working.
Here's a screenshot of what it's like:

Any suggestions on what to do?

[saratoga]

What are you trying to do?

FWIW, rockbox utility does not yet support the ipod classic so you can't use it to install on that device. 

[AlexP]

To install Rockbox on the Classic you need to use EMCore from FreeMyipod as Rockbox doesn't yet have a bootloader.

See here: http://www.freemyipod.org/wiki/EmCORE

[bluebrother]

What are you trying to do?

FWIW, rockbox utility does not yet support the ipod classic so you can't use it to install on that device. 

You can actually install Rockbox on that player using Rockbox Utility -- you can not install the bootloader though, and that is the important part before you can use Rockbox at all. As mentioned, you need to use emCORE.

Also, that player is marked as "disabled target" in Rockbox Utility, and enabling it shows you a big notice that this isn't intended for end users. Why do you expect it to work then?

[Chikablam]

Yeah I'm using emCore
The instructions tell me to click disabled targets anyway, so I'm just following that

[[Saint]]

I find it a little odd that emCORE's instructions point to Rockbox Utility at all. It seems like overkill. I think this is an attempt at being "user friendly" gone somewhat wrong.

Since the installation of emCORE is 100% manual anyway, I personally don't think it is a huge step to ask the user to extract a binary to the device manually. This is all Rockbox Utility is doing, the interesting part of the installation is the bootloader (emCORE) and Rockbox Utility cannot install this, and while you haven't actually said so, I assume this part went somewhat smoothly.

All Rockbox utility is doing is downloading an archive and extracting it to the root of the device. Given the manual nature of the installation. You could very easily do this yourself.

If the device has a mountpoint under the Rockbox fallback image, then all you would need to do is extract the above linked archive to the root of the storage volume. That's all Rockbox Utility is doing. If, however, the device does not have a mount point on your host system, then neither Rockbox Utility or manual installation will help you at all. We need to be able to access the storage volume in order to write to it, unsurprisingly.

Can you verify that the device does indeed have a mount point on the host system?


[Saint]

[Chikablam]

It does indeed, although windows tells me that I need to format it when I plug it in, and extracting to the mountpoint seems to do nothing

[[Saint]]

It does indeed

Excellent news.

although windows tells me that I need to format it when I plug it in

Firstly, try formatting the volume via the emCORE tools menu. If Windows still chooses to have a cry about it after that, let it do what it wants. It can do no harm at all unless it decides that it wants to use any filesystem other than FAT, which itself isn't harmful, just slightly inconvenient. There's nothing on the filesystem at this point that emCORE can't recreate if it needs to. After that, if you manage to get a mount point, extract the binary I linked in my previous comment (the link will always point to the most current version of Rockbox for your device) and reboot and all should be well.

and extracting to the mountpoint seems to do nothing

Almost certainly related to the above, give that a try and report back.

Fingers crossed.


[Saint]

[Chikablam]

Hmm, it extracts to it, and the ipod seems to register that it has new stuff on it, but restarting does nothing. I've a feeling I'm missing something very obvious though.
By doing nothing I mean it just return to the emCORE menu

[[Saint]]

Please forgive me, but I have to ask this question, even if it may seem like "Well...duhhhh",

Are you selecting the Rockbox icon from the emCORE main menu? If so, what happens?

The behaviour you describe is actually perfectly normal for the default installation, emCORE will do nothing but boot to the emCORE main menu, anything else needs manual intervention. Booting directly to Rockbox is an emCORE config option available for selection, but not the default. I'm terribly sorry for the (probably obvious and unnecessary) question, but I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I were to overlook the simple things before diving in to serious debugging head first.

I assume you must be aware of the Rockbox fallback image, otherwise you would not be able to obtain a mount point at all. But I do need to ask if you are in fact choosing to boot Rockbox from the emCORE main menu, or if you are expecting this to be done for you automatically.

There is a very easy way to tell if your efforts to extract a current binary have been sucessful. If after booting the device and selecting the Rockbox item from the emCORE main menu you see any colours at all other than black, white, or grey, installation was successful. If however, you see no colours other than black, white, and grey, and the font is very tiny, then installation was almost certainly not successful. This is the embedded "fallback image" that comes with the emCORE installation, and it is always present. You could not remove it if you wanted to. This is necessary in order to facilitate device recovery and the initial update of the Rockbox binary.

TL;DR version:

Boot emCORE.
Select Rockbox icon from main menu (this will be the default resting position for the menu).
Do we see any colour in the Rockbox menu (after the splash screen)?
    Yes - Yay, installation was succesful.
    No - Awwwww suck, this is the fallback image, installation was not successful.



[Saint]

[Chikablam]

Yes I do see other colours after selecting rockbox from the emCORE menu.
I'm just not sure what to do next
CHeers for all the help by the way

[[Saint]]

So, when you select the Rockbox item from the emCORE main menu, you see this screen?



If so, that would indicate a successful installation.

I'm not referring to the splash screen that shows immediately after boot for a few seconds.


[Saint]

[Chikablam]

Yeah that's the screen I get

[AlexP]

That's Rockbox.  If you don't know what to do with that, I suggest reading the manual. There isn't a specific one for the Classic yet, the one for the Video should suffice.


[Saint] edit: added link to iPod Video manual, were a manual for the iPod Classic to exist, it would be almost identical, except for the device not supporting Recording or USB HID.