help with ipod video (5.5/5g) and ipod nano(1g)

[blutraitor]

i recently purchased two ipods from craigslist, one is a ipod video (30gb) and the other is an ipod nano (2gb)
the ipod video was horrendously slow and would take five minutes to boot, so i formatted the main partition in fat32, now it boots quickly and runs alot better
however, i have been trying to install rockbox on this ipod and the bootloader refuses to install, i have tried rockbox utility as well as ipodpatcher, both are throwing this error

[INFO] Using internal bootloader - 51988 bytes
[INFO] Moving images to create room for new firmware... (it hangs here for a while)
[ERR]  Short read - requested 8388608 bytes, received 53248
[ERR]  Image movement failed.
[ERR]  --install failed.

both the ipod video and the nano return with this error, i have tried different cables and usb ports
i also have a 60gb video that works and runs rockbox just fine, i never had any issues with that one, what makes this so different?
any help would be appreciated if any additional information is needed just ask

[saratoga]

Tried restoring them with iTunes?

[blutraitor]

as of right now i dont have access to a computer with itunes, but i will try as soon as i do

[blutraitor]

i just tried to update both ipods and was successfully able to un-brick the nano, however the 30g video is still in this weird state of limbo where somtimes it says it needs restored and somtimes it works (with the apple firmware) just fine. rockbox is running on the nano just fine