iPod 6 Classic with Rockbos is not recognized by Windows 10 after adding files

[Trzyzet]

What memory cards did you used for the iFlash?

[QRDeNameland]

What memory cards did you used for the iFlash?

Oh, I thought I included that info...

Two of these:  https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08L87V4PH/

If it were me, at that point I'd open it up again, and either reformat the cards in a card-reader before trying again, or just give up and put that iflash and cards in a 7.5gen and try with a 128gb card in that 6th gen.

The whole idea of doing this in the first place was to have *my* old iPod upgraded to a nifty terapod.  The person who did the work for me (and they did not charge me for the work, they just have a passion for this sort of thing)  assured me it was reliably upgradeable with these parts, but from what y'all are telling me it's not.  So now I'm supposed to go out and source another iPod, tear both of them apart in the hope I don't destroy them (or myself), and hope against all experience to contrary that it will all work?  With all due respect, at that point it's far cheaper and less stressful to buy a new player that I don't have to torture myself endlessly to have working.  Like I should have done in the first place, in hindsight.

[EDIT] actually, thinking about it, I'm not entirely sure it is supposed to show up as a drive (as opposed to just a 'device') when it's in DFU mode.  Can't actually remember (and can't check because I'm in the middle of syncing an ipod).  The idea is to restore it with iTunes at that point, as iTunes should say it's found an ipod in recovery mode.

As for DFU mode, when I did the last rebuild with the Dev Build, that was the *only* way that I could finally it recognized as a disc so that I could reformat and then get the Rockbox Utility to see the mountpoint.  Either way, it doesn't see it as a disc now in *any* mode.  iTunes is useless as well, it recognizes the iPod but when it tries to start any recovery it goes to the nameless error 1675.

I was interested about disconnecting the battery cable, so I wondering if letting the battery completely drain might not achieve the same effect.  Otherwise, I'm rapidly approaching 'cut bait' time, despite the time and money invested.

[Trzyzet]

What memory cards did you used for the iFlash?

Oh, I thought I included that info...

Two of these:  https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08L87V4PH/

And that's the link you bought them, right? Just to mention - Sandisk has the biggest amount of counterfeits of their products and there was a situations even official distributors had fake memory cards.
Right now I'm buying only from official amazon Sandisk shop like the link you sent.

If it were me, at that point I'd open it up again, and either reformat the cards in a card-reader before trying again, or just give up and put that iflash and cards in a 7.5gen and try with a 128gb card in that 6th gen.

The whole idea of doing this in the first place was to have *my* old iPod upgraded to a nifty terapod.  The person who did the work for me (and they did not charge me for the work, they just have a passion for this sort of thing)  assured me it was reliably upgradeable with these parts, but from what y'all are telling me it's not.  So now I'm supposed to go out and source another iPod, tear both of them apart in the hope I don't destroy them (or myself), and hope against all experience to contrary that it will all work?  With all due respect, at that point it's far cheaper and less stressful to buy a new player that I don't have to torture myself endlessly to have working.  Like I should have done in the first place, in hindsight.

That might be a problem. I saw your configuration and most likely the iFlash adapter is doing erratic stuff, most likely (again, I'm not sure) because of 2x 512GB card configuration. At first, I would try to check different card config like 4x 256GB.
Second thing - I very often had a problem with my iFlash dual (2x full SD cards) during a bigger shock one of the memory cards was detaching itself from the slot. Maybe micro SD adapters has the same problem?
Also, about the compatibility, from the iFlash website (https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-quad/#tab-sd-cards)

Some cards cause RED X on iPod 6g & 7g – get card exchanged or try another model

There are some issues with Sandisk micro SD cards.

[QRDeNameland]

...

I had it working before with something like 550 GB of music files, so counterfeit sd cards is not the problem.  I think it also rules out incompatibility, I'm not getting a 'red X' or anything like that, it does in fact boot into Rockbox well enough to get to Committing Database phase, and just can't get past it.  I suppose it's *possible* that somehow one of the cards got dislodged, but being that I am getting the same failure mode after rebuilding it, it seems very unlikely.

[QRDeNameland]

OK, so after another dozen or so attempts to get this thing back into some kind of working state...I am about ready to just abandon the project, but I just wanted to see if anyone has seen what I am seeing.  At this point, I can reliably get it into disc mode, get it to a place where AOMEI sees the entire TB of storage, and I can delete all partitions, rebuild the MBR, and format the drive (I tried both FAT32 and exFAT).  I can then install the bootloader and Rockbox successfully, and Rockbox loads as long as it remains connected.

But as soon as I eject the iPod, it seems to break the partitioning on the drive.  Sometimes I get the panic screen immediately on ejection, sometimes not.  Either way, when I reboot the ipod the bootloader comes up 'No Partition found'.  Plug it back in, and Windows tells me the drive needs to be formatted. If I then go back into AOMEI, it will be in one of two states:

1) simply shows the drive as having 128 GB of storage, or;
2) showing the full TB but split into 3 partitions as shown in the attached image

I looked through the forums on the 'No Partition found' issue but nothing seems to fit this situation.

And one last thing, I was at one point able to restore the Apple firmware with iTunes, which despite being restricted to 128 GB, actually seemed to work flawlessly.  At this point, though, I can't repeat it because even though the iTunes restore appears to work, when it reboots, it is still starting with the Rockbox bootloader.  Not that I'd really be happy with going back to the stock firmware and 128 GB of storage, but it beats a brick which is what I have now.

Has anyone had either of these problems (maybe they are related, corrupted bootloader, perhaps?), and maybe a way to rectify?