ATA Error -2147483542 iPod Classic 7thGen

[IAmTheDude]

So, made a booboo.

I recently updated RB to the latest Dev version with the zip. Overwrote everything as normal, and it asked me to reboot.

I then noticed I was running a older emcore so updated that. All seemed to work. I now had a blue emcore background instead of the snow.

Selected RB and Bam. ATA Error -2147483542: Press ON to Debug.

It then starts scanning GPIOs until I press Menu and it shows a Panic screen with the error and a few other its.

Heres what I can do:

• Boot emcore
• Boot RB fallback image
• See iPod in Windows and use it over USB as normal
• Use RBUtility from the iPod in Windows
• Move Music over to it

What I cant do:

• Play Music in the fallback image: It shows all files then 'plays' them one after another as if they were zero length.
  
• Boot RB normally

I reformatted the data partition in emcore and followed the install guide through again and installed RB through the RBUtility. All goes well until ATA again on reboot.

Im at a loss, Google and a forum search came up empty handed.

Im tempted to restore it through iTunes and start from scratch, is this my safest bet?

[[Saint]]

Not playing any audio in the fallback image is entirely expected.

It contains no codecs, so playback isn't actually possible in the fallback image at all. It exists only to facilitate USB access.

The current development image, as of this writing, behaves exactly as intended.

Additionally, restoring with iTunes and starting from scratch will do exactly nothing that formatting the storage volume didn't. It is functionally identical to doing so, except with a lot of needless steps in between.

It also pays to note that updating emCORE is relatively needless and offers very little.
Especially if it was working perfectly as intended beforehand.


[Saint]

[IAmTheDude]

Not playing any audio in the fallback image is entirely expected
It contains no codecs, so playback isn't actually possible in the fallback image at all. It exists only to facilitate USB access.

I didn't realize this until I completely uninstalled RB and used the fallback image again. Obviously it was using the settings and themes from the already installed RB the first time round, giving the impression it was a 'full' build

Additionally, restoring with iTunes and starting from scratch will do exactly nothing that formatting the storage volume didn't. It is functionally identical to doing so, except with a lot of needless steps in between.

I assumed this but as it was an ATA error and my searches turned up a few posts regarding these errors when changing or upgrading a HDD (not the iPod, other devices), my instinct was to get it back to stock to make sure that the hardware was functioning.

It also pays to note that updating emCORE is relatively needless and offers very little.
Especially if it was working perfectly as intended beforehand.

Was just my thinking of the relationship between bootloader and installed software. Newer SW = Newer BL. Spend a lot of time tinkering with my Nexus devices and on certain software updates you need a newer BL and/or Radio to get it working.

I don't know enough about RB to know that it didn't matter but with the emcore being a few years outofdate it seemed like the logical thing to do. Clearly not.

The current development image, as of this writing, behaves exactly as intended.

It isnt a working dev build then its just to reproduce ATA Error -2147483542? Is this one of the unlogged changes as I didn't see anything in the tracker, forums, Google etc.

Its running fine now its stock so seems ATA Error -2147483542 didn't cause any physical damage to the drive.

I like RB so I will tempt fate once more and attempt to install another version of it down the line and see if ATA Error -2147483542 is fixed.


;edit; Curiosity got the better of me so I redid the RB install from scratch and started rolling back revisions from here: http://www.rockbox.org/dl.cgi?bin=ipod6g

rockbox-ipod6g-20140922 3e131ab is working without the error for me.
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/ipod6g/rockbox-ipod6g-20140922.zip

So, for the rare chance anyone has the same error and finds this via Google, try booting to the fallback image and trying some older version.

[[Saint]]

Additionally, restoring with iTunes and starting from scratch will do exactly nothing that formatting the storage volume didn't. It is functionally identical to doing so, except with a lot of needless steps in between.

I assumed this but as it was an ATA error and my searches turned up a few posts regarding these errors when changing or upgrading a HDD (not the iPod, other devices), my instinct was to get it back to stock to make sure that the hardware was functioning.

The fallback image behaviour you described in your initial post already verified that the hardware was functional.

It also pays to note that updating emCORE is relatively needless and offers very little.
Especially if it was working perfectly as intended beforehand.

Was just my thinking of the relationship between bootloader and installed software. Newer SW = Newer BL. Spend a lot of time tinkering with my Nexus devices and on certain software updates you need a newer BL and/or Radio to get it working.

Were this the case, we would make it known to you.
We could easily check for version mismatch between bootloader and binary and prompt the user, but this is not the case.

The current development image, as of this writing, behaves exactly as intended.

It isnt a working dev build then its just to reproduce ATA Error -2147483542? Is this one of the unlogged changes as I didn't see anything in the tracker, forums, Google etc.

You seem to have misunderstood.

We would never release a non-functional build in the mainline branch intentionally. Neither for the purposes of debugging, or any other reason. If such a build were ever to exist for the purposes of debugging, it would likely only be presented via the Unsupported Builds forum section.

When I said the current development snapshot as of my reply was functioning as intended, I did not mean that the error and behaviour which you experienced was expected or intended, as it is clearly not.
I meant that my tests showed no such error or behaviour.

Additionally, there are no undocumented changes to the Rockbox code base. Any and all changes to the Rockbox code base are documented and available for public viewing.


EDITED TO ADD:
I feel as though I should make it clear that the disks in these devices are absolutely and completely fundamentally broken.
It is quite possible that you are experiencing the beginnings of a hardware failure. Which in these devices is ridiculously common.

The how and the why is not particularly interesting, and would involve me typing out a veritable tome of information.
All one really needs to understand in this case is that the firmware on these disks, which we have absolutely zero control over, is absolutely terrible and fundamentally broken, and that these disks almost always end up committing suicide well before the end of their usable life span.

Simply "failing" is not an accurate way to describe their behaviour, it is a prolonged suicide attempt beginning with the very first time the device is powered on.

They're killing themselves.

I have seen quite a few surface scans from these misbehaving disks that shows a fairly clear pattern of errors across the disk surface.
To the best of my knowledge Apple has never formally recognized this issue, and even if they did, there is nothing they could do about it (with software alone) anyway even if they did.



[Saint]

[IAmTheDude]

The fallback image behaviour you described in your initial post already verified that the hardware was functional.

At the time for me it wasn't as I hadn't of known the fallback image didn't contain codecs and wouldn't have played the files anyway. If iTunes could recover it and play then its 'working'.

Were this the case, we would make it known to you.
We could easily check for version mismatch between bootloader and binary and prompt the user, but this is not the case.

You seem to have misunderstood.

...

For some reason I've had the impression that the due to the Emcore install, the iPod Classic was always the black sheep of the RB family and maybe had taken the terms 'unsupported' and 'unstable' a bit too literally.

As Ive said, I know very, very little about the development of RB and only read/searched the links I found.. Seems I missed the changes since release section.

...Simply "failing" is not an accurate way to describe their behaviour, it is a prolonged suicide attempt beginning with the very first time the device is powered on.

They're killing themselves.

That sir, is the best description I have read regarding the drives in a long time 
I've never been particularly fond of them, the sound they make at times is excruciating!

Anyway, as of today I'm running a working build that doesn't give me the error. Used it for a few hours last night and it was as stable as it was before I started messing.

If it does decide that life is not worth living and pulls the trigger then at least I have been informed and will mourn appropiately 

[nathanbibb]

So, for the rare chance anyone has the same error and finds this via Google, try booting to the fallback image and trying some older version.

I just registered on this forum to let you know that I got the same error on an iPod Classic 6G 160GB, and found this thread via google  .

I loaded the '.rockbox' folder from the 2014-09-22 release you linked to onto the root of the iPod, and it seems to work now.  Thanks!

[__builtin]

It's that new ATA driver commit, possibly: http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=582035c

[ziemo]

Hi all,

I have been trying to load the RockBox on my 6G Ipod today. I also faced the problem:

ATA Error -2147483542

Unfortunately the package:
rockbox-ipod6g-20140922 3e131ab

is not available anymore. Could you please provide the packages for me? I would be gratefull.

Thanks and regards,
ziemo

[nathanbibb]

The release is too large to attach to the forum - Ziemo, I'll reach out to you privately.  Luckily I kept the zip file.

Is there a way to communicate this upstream so we can either (1) freeze 2014-09-22 cut of Rockbox for the ipod6g, or (2) ask someone to kindly look into the issue and debug?

[TheSeven]

ATA Error -2147483542

Which exact Rockbox build version does that happen with?
The error code doesn't seem to make sense for the current development build (or for that matter everything newer than September 22nd).

(internal note:
error 6A decodes to 0-5-x => no CEATA, ata_set_feature(ata_bbt ? 0x82 : 0x02, 0) failing
however that further decodes to 0-5-2-1, and 0-5-2 only exists in the CEATA driver)

[nathanbibb]

I downloaded from the dynamic build link: http://build.rockbox.org/data/rockbox-ipod6g.zip

I am not sure how to derive the build version from this, but the timestamps of the files in the zip file are all 2014-10-09.

IAmTheDude would have to comment if every version between this and the 2014-09-22 build had the same behavior.  If I have time tomorrow I can try some tests.

I am assuming if I backup my .rockbox folder and replace it with the .rockbox folder from a given build, then restart, this would be the extent of the test - is that correct?

[TheSeven]

If a build from 2014-10-09 fails, I'd expect every build since 2014-09-22 to fail, as there haven't been any relevant changes after that date.
However the error number is not conclusive for such a build.

So can you please do the following?
1. Upgrade to latest development build
2. Reproduce the behavior
3. Check if the error number matches the one in this thread exactly (and report if not)
4. Tell me the manufacturing year and capacity of the device in question, and where there are any hardware modifications (SD card mod, etc.)

The only relevant file for this behavior is /.rockbox/rockbox.ipod. A version mismatch with other files inside .rockbox will lead to issues like non-working audio playback and non-working plugins, but will not affect hard disk access.

[nathanbibb]

Recreated with the latest Rockbox build.  Steps to recreate:
1. Plug in iPod to my Linux laptop
2. Download latest ipod6g build from here: http://build.rockbox.org/data/rockbox-ipod6g.zip
3. Extracted and copied the extraced .rockbox/rockbox.ipod file to the iPod's .rockbox folder
4. Ejected the iPod from the computer
5. Got a screen in Rockbox: "Boot Changed. Reboot Now?", selected yes
6. Black screen displaying:

Code: [Select]

ATA error: -2147483542
Press ON to debug
I then restarted to the EmCORE dialog and booted their fallback Rockbox image, reloaded the 9/22 rockbox.ipod file, and ejected.  At that point I got this error:

Code: [Select]

Data abort
at 080536C0
FSR0xF7
(domain 15, fault 7)
address 0xA4B18C1C
...at which point I forced a restart, and everything came back just fine.  I'm assuming the above error may be due to unplugging too early, maybe?

I am using an iPod Classic 160G I bought in 2008, so 6G.  I can't see the Model Number or Serial Number on the back anymore.  Let me know if you need more info.

[hinafu]

Hi! I'm getting the same error and can't find the build from 2014-09-22 either, could you send me a link, maybe?

[hinafu]

Ok, I downloaded an old version from this thread: http://www.head-fi.org/t/532426/ipod-classic-rockbox-its-happening/2910 (this one: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b5xbw6cp4ikfxwn/jBMeapJhsP/rockbox-with-patches-a010b7cM-130217.zip), made a backup of the .rockbox folder, deleted it and then pasted the new .rockbox folder into the ipod (from the zip). It works now!! I suppose I'm going to restore the backup and then install a newer version (one I found dates from 2014-08-03) because, well, a newer version is supposed to work better, right?

I'd be very glad if you posted a link to the version from 2014-09-22, though, just in case the new one I try doesn't work.

One more non-related thing: I have build the Database from the files that the ipod contains currently (iTunes stores the files from a same album/artist in different folders God-knows-why) and I think this is not right. Should I delete everything and then store everything the way someone is supposed to? Music > Artist > Album? (at least that's the way I have 'em in my Clip+)