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iPod Classic Gen6 Database issues

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Syni:
Hello!

I have an iPod Classic 120GB that's been with me for years, and has about 100GBs of music on it. I was told installing Rockbox does not remove all the music still on it (which is mandatory, as my managing iTunes is on a computer which is now broken and I can't currently access those files; they only exist on my iPod). I chose to install Rockbox with hopes that I could continue adding music on the fly without deleting all of my previously acquired music.

I've just followed this guide and everything seemed to work smoothly, however when I got into the Rockbox firmware nothing appeared in my database. I figured the files were probably hidden somewhere, so I checked my new iPod drive (the one Rockbox "created" for me) and even after enabling hidden files, all I can see are .apps, .rockbox, Playlists (which is empty) and the RockboxUtility files I chose to install...

So where'd my music go? Could I still access it through iTunesDB? But if so, how do I even access iTunesDB anymore? The old Apple harddrive doesn't show up anymore due to Rockbox so I'm not sure how to even access it. Once I do that, I plan to follow through with the ConvertiTunesDBtoTagCache guide, but I can't find the iTunesDB.

Any help?

[Saint]:
The emCORE installation presents a screen to the user that specifically states that the data partition will be wiped and anything and everything thereon will be lost. Installation clears the entire disk, not even the original firmware partition survives (as it is irrelevant without dual-boot, the space it recovers is more valuable to the user).

Your media is gone.

I sincerely hope the media is backed up elsewhere. If not, a lot of lessons were learned this day.

EDIT: I re-read the post; ouch.

It sucks that your first experience with Rockbox comes with such a harsh lesson, but there's quite literally nothing I can do about that now, after the fact. Unfortunate.

I feel I should note that this device port is marked as 'unusable' and that emCORE is completely unsupported by, and separate to, the Rockbox project.


[Saint]

JohnP:
The HDD isn't really 'wiped' (that requires a full over-write) it is 'only' formatted .
So, most of the data is probably still on the HDD,
you may be able to recover at least some of it with data-recovery software like 'PhotoRec' :
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
(or a licensed version of 'WinHex' ..)

There are 3 lessons to be learnt from this :
1 : Always keep a backup of your data !
2 : Always read the manual
3 : Always keep a backup of your data !!

[Saint]:
For the sake of playing Devil's advocate,

"Read the manual" doesn't apply here.

The emCORE installation documentation doesn't actually specifically state this will happen, and no Rockbox manual exists for this target.
I do imagine that it is possible to miss the emCORE installer stating this, if one were particularly excited to see "something" happening on screen and wanted the process to progress as quickly as possible (see: humans vs. ToS agreements) though.

The emCORE installer tries to make it difficult to proceed without acknowledging this will happen, but its hardly fool proof, and this is clear evidence of that. I'm not certain that Freemyipod could or should do anything differently in this regard, though.

In my opinion it is made very clear to an individual that this (neither Rockbox nor emCORE) is suitable for a mass market consumer audience, which is one of the many reasons why neither Rockbox nor Freemyipod advertise it as such.

Regarding JohnP's comment, yes, indeed, this is something I hadn't considered.

But for this to be truly viable, there would have needed to be zero writes to the disk since formatting it, and we know this isn't the case. I'm also not 100% sure how changing the file system affects this process (we use superfloppy on this target)...its possible that after a reasonable amount of time and effort you *might* be able to recover *some* of your data intact, but I would certainly not like to place any bets on this.


[Saint]

JohnP:
'superfloppy' isn't really a filesystem, the disk is still FATxx-formatted, no ?
Anyway, photorec should be able to see the device and extract whatever is left on it .
Clearly, something has been written to the disk but the OP should still be able to recover
whatever data hasn't been overwritten, provided fragmentation isn't an issue .

True, there isn't a 'manual' in the traditional meaning of the word, but the directions given on freemyipod are quite clear about the issue and you definitely shouldn't be installing firmware-mods without reading the instructions VERY carefully.
BAD things can happen ..

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