Lost Rockbox Capabilities on Upgrade of Compact Flash

[rko31415]

I used Rockbox successfully for years with my 32gb compact flash on my IPOD mini 2nd Gen.

I installed a 128GB compact flash and formatted it to exFAT ... could not get the device to show up in the Rockbox Utility v 1.4.0 'select your device in the filesystem' drop down menu.

I only was able to access the 128gb drive and copy files to it for a while, in which time I manually copied over the Release v3.12, which didn't work, and so then I deleted these files. The 128gb now contains no files. I can no longer access this 128gb compact flash on Windows XP. The IPOD now only boots with the Apple logo.

I reinstalled the fully loaded 32gb compact flash and was unable to access this on Windows XP. The 32gb only shows the Apple logo on start up which eventually turns to a file folder icon with a warning triangle (exclamation point inside a triangle).

If I plug the 32gb into the USB I can sometimes get it to go into Apple Disk mode, but Rockbox Utility does not recognize it in the 'select your device ...' menu drop down. Auto detect does not work. I cannot copy files to the d:\ drive (the IPOD).

I have moved the 32gb compact flash to a second IPOD mini 2nd Gen but have no better results.

Help!

[cereal_killer]

Have you tried resoring with iTunes and install rockbox again?

[rko31415]

thanks for the reply, but i'm hoping someone has a better idea.
K

[rko31415]

Here's what I tried next and my IPOD is still not working. Recall from the original post this 32gb Compact Flash in this IPOD worked fine before I tried to upgrade to 128gb CF.

I did a fresh install of Itunes (completely removed old iTunes following Apple's instructions and installed v11.4.0.18) on XP.

I plugged in the IPOD (various USB ports, on 2 different laptops).

By pressing Menu+Select, then Play+Select I'm able (several tries, with difficulty) to get the IPOD into Disk Mode. It often just hangs a long while on the Apple icon display before reverting to the file folder with exclamation point display.

In disk mode the D: drive shows up briefly and then disappears, but you can't do anything with it when it makes its appearance (i.e., copy files or format drive).

The device never shows up in iTunes (as a 'source' or otherwise).

The IPOD slips into the Apple logo display, then the Folder with Exclamation point display, or alternately with the Stop Symbol/Do Not disconnect display, and then the Apple logo display and then the Folder with Exclamation point display.

The above happens whether I use the obviously good 32gb compact flash, a questionable 4gb harddrive, or the new unproven 128gb compact flash. It happens with 2 different IPOD 2nd Gen minis. It happens on multiple USB ports and two different laptops (one of which is pretty much a bare XP installation).

If I wait long enough I can get the USB Device Not Recognized ... one of the USB ports has malfunctioned warning message from Windows XP (device manager exclamation point warning).

I am very well protected against viruses (BlueCoat proxie plus virus plus firewall plus very rare use of the administrator logon -- only for new installs).

I have tried all the above both signed in as an administrator and as a non-admin user.

Help!

[bluebrother]

Sounds like a hardware issue to me. I had a similar failure quite some time ago -- the disk wasn't recognized most of the time, even using Emergency Disk mode. In the end it turned out that the flex cable between disk and mainboard was broken. Since it happens to you with two different Ipods, did you just swap the mainboard or did you change the flex cable as well? In my case I ended up buying another Mini on Ebay since I didn't find a source for a single flex connector.

[rko31415]

Not quite sure what a flex cable is, but all I did was move the compact flash / hard drives around from one IPOD to the other.

Other news. I found a YouTube video that recommended putting the IPOD into disk mode while attached to a wall charger. That helped with the appearing and disappearing of the d: drive. So I now can get a steady IPOD d: drive in Windows, but it still is not recognized / acknowledged by iTunes.

I remembered I had a compact flash USB reader, so I was able to offload all my files from the 32gb CF, and I was able to upload up a good 32gb image I had onto the 128gb CF. The 128gb shows up as formatted in exFAT in Windows Logical Disk Manager, as it should.

So I assume the drives are good. I can load up all the files needed on each drive (including hidden files). My guess is there something flashed into the IPOD EPROMs getting in the way of my success.

Thoughts?

[TAC109]

You have formatted the CF as EXFAT, but it should be formatted as FAT32.

[rko31415]

The 32gb CF and the 4gb drive were FAT32 ... but just to be thorough I found a utility (fat32format.exe) that allowed me to format the 128gb as FAT32. No joy. But things are going downhill fast. I can't get any of these drives to even go into disk mode at this point.

When it's clear things are getting worse I know it's time to just step away.

I have another used IPOD mini en route from ebay. Let's see what happens.

[[Saint]]

I'm pretty sure I used to just do a manual firmware restore and let the original firmware set the disk up.


[Saint]

[rko31415]

Saint. Do you have a link showing the steps needed for a manual firmware restore? Recall I can't get to these drives except through my CF USB reader.

[rko31415]

The saga continues.

Received a used ebay IPOD and it powered up, but the wheel didn't work ... cut a deal with the seller for 1/2 refund in exchange for keeping the IPOD for parts.

Turns out the wheel wasn't the problem, but the controller for the wheel on the board must have been bad. Oh well. At least iTunes recognized the IPOD.

I installed the 32gb Compact Flash on this IPOD just to test the Rockbox updater ... the updater saw two IPOD devices and wouldn't update ... so I manually copied over the software. Success! Except the wheel still didn't work.

So I moved successful 32gb to another board and ... failure

I moved the successful 32gb back to the first board ... failure

I replaced the 32gb with the original HD and no joy ... but I received a message IPOD needs to be restored would you like to? Of course! ... failure

Any thoughts folks?

I have yet another IPOD on the way from ebay.

[rko31415]

Purchased yet another IPOD mini 2nd Gen from ebay. Installed the newly FAT32 formatted 32gb CF and Rockbox and everything works just fine.

Installing the newly FAT32 formatted 128gb gets me the sad folder icon (folder with exclamation point).

The 128gb seems fine with the CF USB reader. It shows being formatted as FAT32. Files copy back and forth effortlessly. It just won't get recognized by the IPOD.

So I've bricked two IPODs in this attempt to use the 128gb and I'm back where I started, with just 32gb.

One of life's lessons, or does anyone have any other thoughts?