Installation / Removal > Apple - Installation/Removal
4th Gen manual installation woes
makeprop:
Hi All,
So I've finally gotten a shipment of various SD -> CF (ii) and CF -> 1.8" ide adaptors.
1. I'm able to install rockbox on this ipod using its original HDD. It boots and loads fine with the original HDD.
2. I connected the SD-XC Extreme CF Adapator "3rd Generation" to it. It looks like the following, it was purchased from AliExpress and says Made in Taiwan
I also have on me a sandisk 64gb and another kingston 256gb microsd card.
3. I have attempted various things but will try summarise what kind of makes sense.
i) I've tried following the manual installation attempt as listed on the website, I formatted the drive to FAT32, I then dd'ed the 20gb MBR to the drive, and uploaded the firmware and formatted the last partition. When placing the SD card using this mode in the adaptors the ipod wasn't being detected at all, not by Rockbox Utility, not by iTunes or the ipodpatcher.
i_a: I also tried dd'ing just the first 446 bytes as well to hide partition information of the 20gb but this also made no difference. I had more luck with the full 512 bytes actually.
ii) when formatting the drive to FAT32 and setting it up in restore mode I was able to get iTunes to detect it but didn't have luck doing a restore.
ii) i then tried formatting the drive to exFat - no luck
iii) i tried formatting the drive to Ext4 - iTunes / Windows picked it up and i tried having iTunes restore it, the first attempt iTunes was restoring it for at least 20 minutes but then my laptop crashed because I plugged in another drive to do something in parallel
iv) I tried again and have been waiting about 20 minutes again with it finishing off saying the "iPod could not be restored".
v) I also tried using the iFlash CF adaptor from Tarkan and this made no difference, if anything I had more luck with the no brand aliExpress adaptor.
vi) At one point (I believe this was with a gnome-disks formatted attempt) Rockbox was able to read and detect the mount point, but failed doing anything else, I've not been able to reproduce this or get back to this state, but I haven't tried much more at this point because I'm determined to get the FAT stuff sorted:
vii) Note I also tried the Tarkan on an ipod 5.5 but had no luck there.
viii) I also tried having the SD card formatted to NTFS - again, in this state I was able to get the iTunes to at least detect the ipod and attempt a restore but it kept crashing.
I suspect there's something else going on here that's preventing proper comms with the disk which is why windows/iTunes/rockbox/patcher keep crashing. I've also had similar issues with detection on my linux PC.
--- Code: ---*********************************************
*************** Logger *******************
*********************************************
Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod
Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod
Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "mountpoint" "E:/"
[rockboxinfo.cpp:31 Info] Getting version info from rockbox-info.txt
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:248 Info] continuing install with stage 0
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:284 Info] installing bootloader
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "platform" "ipod4g"
[playerbuildinfo.cpp:268 Info] T: "ipod4g/bootloadermethod" QVariant(QString, "ipod")
[httpget.cpp:84 Info] setting cache folder to "C:/Users/os/AppData/Local/Temp/rbutil-cache"
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "platform" "ipod4g"
[playerbuildinfo.cpp:268 Info] T: "ipod4g/bootloaderfile" QVariant(QString, "")
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "mountpoint" "E:/"
[utils.cpp:134 Info] resolving path "E:/" -> "E:/"
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "platform" "ipod4g"
[playerbuildinfo.cpp:268 Info] T: "ipod4g/bootloadername" QVariant(QString, "/ipod/bootloader-ipod4g.ipod")
[playerbuildinfo.cpp:326 Info] U: bootloader/download_url QVariant(QString, "https://download.rockbox.org/bootloader")
[rbsettings.cpp:163 Info] GET U: "mountpoint" "E:/"
[utils.cpp:502 Info] resolving device name "E:/"
[utils.cpp:563 Info] device name is 1
[bootloaderinstallipod.cpp:253 Info] ipodpatcher: overriding scan, using \\.\PhysicalDrive1
[bootloaderinstallipod.cpp:188 Info] installed: BootloaderUnknown
[utils.cpp:502 Info] resolving device name "E:/"
[utils.cpp:563 Info] device name is 1
[bootloaderinstallipod.cpp:253 Info] ipodpatcher: overriding scan, using \\.\PhysicalDrive1
[bootloaderinstallipod.cpp:188 Info] installed: BootloaderUnknown
[utils.cpp:502 Info] resolving device name "E:/"
[utils.cpp:563 Info] device name is 1
[bootloaderinstallipod.cpp:253 Info] ipodpatcher: overriding scan, using \\.\PhysicalDrive1
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:248 Info] continuing install with stage 1
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:250 Error] Last part returned error.
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:269 Info] All install stages done.
[rockboxinfo.cpp:31 Info] Getting version info from rockbox-info.txt
[selectiveinstallwidget.cpp:269 Info] All install stages done.
[rockboxinfo.cpp:31 Info] Getting version info from rockbox-info.txt
[system.cpp:242 Info] Searching for USB devices
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x 46dc092"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x27c6521d"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x b051866"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x bda8153"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x 5ac1203"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x21092817"
[system.cpp:397 Warning] Got no device description (SetupDiGetDeviceRegistryProperty), item 118
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x80870029"
[system.cpp:427 Info] USB: "0x21090817"
[utils.cpp:674 Info] Added: "C:/" type "NTFS"
[utils.cpp:674 Info] Added: "E:/" type "FAT32"
[utils.cpp:254 Info] free disk space for "C:/" 44701106176
[utils.cpp:262 Info] total disk space for "C:/" 491245604864
[utils.cpp:176 Info] device type is 0x27fce90
[utils.cpp:243 Info] Volume name of "C:/" is "BLA"
[utils.cpp:254 Info] free disk space for "E:/" 63847759872
[utils.cpp:262 Info] total disk space for "E:/" 63847890944
[utils.cpp:176 Info] device type is 0x27fce90
[utils.cpp:243 Info] Volume name of "E:/" is "TEST"
--- End code ---
Also browsing various pages online I saw that the CF adaptor reading an SD does something to the first bit in the MBR and others have suggested changing it to 00 instead of EB (but this was after the fact, and not during it being plugged into iTunes as others have noted). In fact even when using iBored or other tools to analyse the MBR they're unable to read black 0 (or any other block for that matter), they sometimes are able to detect a drive is connected but crash or see no partition when reading it through the iPod. When I take out the SD card and look at it, it's fine.
Theres a lot more that I tried btw - for instance FAT 32 LBA vs non LBA, bootable flag vs non bootable flag. I'm not at all convinced by online posts out there saying this CF adaptor works or that SD card doesn't work. I'm trying to really pin something down to understanding what's going on at the bit level in order to get to a stage where I can get lots of devices working.
I'm at the stage now where I'm taking before/after mbr snapshots to compare and see what difference anything makes, but I cannot even get one CF adaptor working.
Is anyone able to nudge me along somehow to get me moving forward? Over the weekend I'm going to try map the CF -> 1.8 pinout.
Just added two images here of what my setup looks like. I'm mindful of loading the server here.
makeprop:
the 5.5th gen via the iFlash Tarkan was able to be restored via iTunes.
I've taken a snapshot of the MBR (when the SD card is directly plugged in) as well as a quick view of the disk management.
1. I still can't use rockbx to flash this ipod directly. (It worked fine with the original hard disk)
2. I still can't read its contents via the ipod when it's plugged in, but when looking at the disk via an SD card reader windows appears to read it fine.
Note, this is meant to be a 30gb ipod 5.5 yet the iTunes gave it a 60gb drive? (either I swapped around back covers and forgot which was the original cover/hdd for this ipod or it was modified at some stage).
In anycase I might have made a step in the right direction. I'll work towards a pin out comparison of the iFlash tarkan adaptor with these ali express adaptors and see where that gets me.
makeprop:
Update:
Seeing as the Mini 1g has a direct CF connection I wanted to try isolate the adaptor out of the equation and just look at the CF -> SD adaptor within the 1g.
I have a 1G here whose microdrive is in otherwise working condition.
I've attached an MBR snapshot of the 4gb microdrive read via victoria
I have also attached the 64gb SD in the CF adaptor read via Victoria *through* the Ipod 1G
Then to compare that its mbr is readable fine via the SD card reader I have, you can see that there's something the CF -> SD card reader is doign that corrupts the MBR somehow.
Will try another two adaptors (all the same brand).
makeprop:
Previous images didn't go through.
I tried again with another compact flash adaptor (same brand) and this one at least seemed to let me move a few steps forward.
1. Having the SD card formatted as FAT32 allowed iTunes to let me attempt to restore it, but it didn't do anything after that.
2. Having it formatted via NTFS wouldn't let me restore it, nor would exFat.
3. I then tried uploading the MBR of the 4g microdrive to the 64gb SD card via the ipod and then Rockbox, at least went through the motions, of installing onto the ipod.
However this still didn't work upon rebooting, presumably becuase the parition tables are still messed up somehow.
I suspect something is up with the adaptor such that it's messing up with the way the parition tables are being read.
Bilgus:
Interesting thanks for keeping us updated
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