Help!, Restoring my Iflashed Ipod Classic without access to windows

[HuskyPenguin79]

Greetings!
I have an 80GB iPod Classic (Gen 6) that I replaced the HDD with an iFlash Quad and filled it with four 256GB Samsung Evo microSD cards. I used a friend's Windows PC with AOMEI Partition Assistant, restored the MBR, installed the bootloader and managed to get the RockBox firmware installed. However, when I restarted the iPod, I got the "partition not found" error. Also, I hooked it up to my computer to see if the partition scheme changed, and it did. I don't remember off the top of my head what it was.

Now, I don't want to go bothering my friend again to try and get this fixed. I have a Linux computer running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and would love some help getting my iPod working again. I don't have the old HDD any more, it was broken anyways.

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

[philden]

You could make a Windows partition and use that to re-setup your iPod. I did this on a Mac and used the free downloadable version of Windows. You don't need to pay for basic usage.

[rockbox_dev123]

It is 100% possible to format the partition from Linux.

Code: [Select]

mkfs.fat -F 32 -S 2048 /dev/sd[a-z][0-9]
Some rough info is found in step 7 here: https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodManualRestore

I discovered this myself by finding an IRC archive of a conversation where someone explained that you have to change the sector count when formatting on Linux.

I can't find the exact command I used when I last did this but I can confirm that it is possible with the right arguments to mkfs.

If I manage to find the IRC post I'll add it to this post.

[HuskyPenguin79]

Thanks for the input!
Update: Just to be sure, I double-checked my partition scheme using the GNOME disks utility, and it shows that it's a 1TB (955GB) Win '95 FAT32 partition with a Windows 95 MBR. Is this one of my problems?

[gevaerts]

Thanks for the input!
Update: Just to be sure, I double-checked my partition scheme using the GNOME disks utility, and it shows that it's a 1TB (955GB) Win '95 FAT32 partition with a Windows 95 MBR. Is this one of my problems?

Standard PC MBR (of which "Windows 95 MBR" sounds like a specific sub-type) with FAT32 is what it should be, so that sounds all right.

However:

Code: [Select]

mkfs.fat -F 32 -S 2048 /dev/sd[a-z][0-9]

This one is definitely not correct for a Classic. The "-s 2048" is *only* needed or wanted on an ipod video with the original 80GB hard drive. I don't think (I could be wrong, it's been a while) we enable support for anything other than 512 byte sectors on anything other than the Video, so formatting with 2048 byte sectors will likely result in a non-working filesystem.

One thing that *might* be worth double-checking is the sectors per cluster value (on linux, "sudo file -s /dev/sd<whatever-your-ipod-is>" will include that info, there probably are other ways too). Rockbox *should* support up to 256 (which is above what the spec says, so that should be fine), but I do seem to remember issues at the upper end, although that might only have been on the Video with 2K sector sizes. I'd say if the number of sectors per cluster is above 64 (which gives a 32K cluster size), it might be worth trying to format with 32K clusters (so "-s 64" if you use mkfs.fat). This is all very speculative though, and probably based on me misremembering things.

Sorry for not providing much actual help, it sounds like you did everything right (unless you ran that specific mkfs.fat command with -S 2048, in which case, try again without the -S 2048)

[HuskyPenguin79]

Another update:
Since my first post, I switched my Linux distro to OpenSuSe with the KDE window manager.
I tried to run the Linux installer, and while the installer ran, it didn't install RockBox.
After a brief panic with the built in Disk Mode after which I thought I might have bricked my iPod, I checked the partition scheme with KDE Partition Manager, and it showed that things changed to a three-partition scheme. Again, using KDE Partition Manager, I deleted the three partitions.
Then, I ran:
mkfs.fat -F 32 -s 64 /dev/sdb
That allowed Linux to recognize the iPod again.
I tried to install manually...Nothing. It didn't even seem to have transferred the files.
After that, I tried the installer again. Since the bootloader seems to have already been installed, the installer and I decided to skip installing the bootloader.
Again, nothing.
So, again, I fired up KDE Partition Manager, and it told me that /dev/sdb was unallocated
I ran:
file -s /dev/sdb to see what's up.
I got:

/dev/sdb: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x58+, OEM-ID "mkfs.fat", Bytes/sector 4096, sectors/cluster 64, reserved sectors 64, Media descriptor 0xf8, sectors/track 63, heads 255, sectors 250347510 (volumes > 32MB), FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 3840, reserved 0x1, serial number 0xd81e2050, unlabeled

All the while, my iPod sits there and mocks me with the "partition not found" error.

:^(

[bluebrother]

mkfs.fat -F 32 -s 64 /dev/sdb

You formatted the whole drive, not just the partition. As such there's no partition table that can be found, as you got here

/dev/sdb: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x58+, OEM-ID "mkfs.fat", Bytes/sector 4096, sectors/cluster 64, reserved sectors 64, Media descriptor 0xf8, sectors/track 63, heads 255, sectors 250347510 (volumes > 32MB), FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 3840, reserved 0x1, serial number 0xd81e2050, unlabeled

A disk formatted without partition table is uncommon but does exist (see f.e. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302873, look for "superfloppy") The Ipod requires a partition table though.

[HuskyPenguin79]

Thanks!
Any tips on what partition table would be best for the iPod?
I appreciate the input.

[bluebrother]

Any tips on what partition table would be best for the iPod?

That's not a useful question. The question here is which partition table the Ipod will accept. I'm not familar with these Ipods (restored my mini a couple of times, but that's working differently) so I can't tell from experience. I'd try with a single primary FAT32 partition and see if it boots.

[amachronic]

Thanks!
Any tips on what partition table would be best for the iPod?
I appreciate the input.

I don't use the iPod but from seeing discussions on IRC I believe it needs a specific MBR partition layout.

Might be useful for you:
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodManualRestore

EDIT: I see someone already provided that link but I guess you need to reformat the MBR again with those instructions if you destroyed it.

[gevaerts]

I don't use the iPod but from seeing discussions on IRC I believe it needs a specific MBR partition layout.

Might be useful for you:
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodManualRestore

EDIT: I see someone already provided that link but I guess you need to reformat the MBR again with those instructions if you destroyed it.

That one is about the older PortalPlayer based ipods (up to the 5G/Video), apart from giving some examples of how to format drives it won't be very useful here, as HuskyPenguin79's ipod is a Classic, which is pretty different. I *think* it boots the rockbox bootloader from flash (don't quote me on that, I'm not sure!), which would imply that it takes any MBR and partition layout Rockbox likes, which will be a lot less picky than many original firmwares. So I'd expect basically anything to work, I'd use a layout with one primary FAT32 partition. Input from someone who actually *has* a Classic would of course be very welcome.