Cannot boot to Apple firmware

[TCK]

Greetings.

After playing around with Rockbox on my H120 for over a year I decided when I got my iPod w/ Video that I was going to install Rockbox straight away, which works better than I imagined.  I use Rockbox for most things, but I boot into the Apple firmware so I can watch videos.  However, since the release of the new Apple firmware I have been unable to boot into their firmware.

Upon installation of the new firmware Rockbox wouldn't boot, so I refollowed the steps to install the bootloader into the firmware.  All good, except that upon attempting to boot into the Apple firmware the bootloader will say "Loading original firmware..." and after 10 seconds reboot into the Rockbox firmware.  I'm guessing I performed a step wrong when reinstalling the bootloader.  I've tried to edit the sysinfo as detailed in the iPodLinux wiki ( http://ipodlinux.org/Uninstallation ) but to no avail.  I'd rather not restore the iPod and lose all files, but if there's no other way then obviously that's the route I'll have to go down.

[Llorean]

Did you try following our uninstallation instructions instead of theirs?

[TCK]

Tried, and failed.  I think what I did was write bootpartition.bin twice without keeping the first one as a backup.  Thus, the second bootpartition.bin was simply the Rockbox firmware.

I assume there's a good reason why you don't simply host bootpartition.bin on your website, is it a legal issue or is it because bootpartition.bin files generated from iPods won't work on other iPods, even of the same generation?

[Llorean]

Yes, we don't host it because it contains the Apple firmware, so we'd be redistributing their copyrighted material without an explicit license to do so. This would be a bad thing to do, most likely.

You can actually extract a bootpartition.bin (or maybe it's an apple_os.bin, I can't remember which) from the iPod Updater using iPodWizard. I don't know how to do this, as I've never tried / needed to. Then you can take that bootpartition and write it back. Or take that apple_os.bin (assuming you got it from a slightly older updater, that had a version that still worked for you) and use it to create rockboot.bin including a working Apple firmware, and write that over.

[Kreator666]

It's a bootpartition.bin.

This all depends on whether the new firmware you are referring to have installed is the one through iTunes 7 or an older one.
iPodWizard cannot load the firmware file from the iTunes 7 iPod Updater, so you cannot extract a bootpartition.bin from there.

If, however, you don't have the iTunes 7 update, you can use iPodWizard to extract the firmware binary (Open Updater, click on Updater tab, click on 13.6.x binary, hit 'Extract firmware binary'), rename it as 'bootpartition.bin', and continue as normal to write it to your iPod.

[TCK]

This all depends on whether the new firmware you are referring to have installed is the one through iTunes 7 or an older one.
iPodWizard cannot load the firmware file from the iTunes 7 iPod Updater, so you cannot extract a bootpartition.bin from there.

Unfortunately it was the iTunes 7 update  I guess this means I'm screwed until Apple decide to release another firmware.

[Llorean]

You could theoretically extract it from an older iPod Updater, right?

[L]

Yes you can.

[TCK]

How would this work?

[L]

There is a tool called the iPodWizard that can extract firmware images from the Ipod Updater program.

Download it, read their FAQ and figure how to work it.

[Kreator666]

You could theoretically extract it from an older iPod Updater, right?

Theoretically, yes, but as the firmware binary contains a older firmware version, you'll be downgrading from v1.2.

To do it, just follow what I wrote in my post just above.
"[...]you can use iPodWizard to extract the firmware binary (Open Updater, click on Updater tab, click on 13.6.x binary, hit 'Extract firmware binary'), rename it as 'bootpartition.bin', and continue as normal to write it to your iPod."

[TCK]

Okay, I extracted bootpartition.bin from the Updater via iPodWizard rather than extracting from my iPod, and installed Rockbox from square one, but still my iPod will not boot into the Apple firmware.  I'm starting to think that even an iPod restore will not solve the problem.

[Llorean]

Try extracting the bootpartition.bin and *only* doing "ipodpatcher -w N bootpartition.bin". Notice the w. Just write the bootpartition to it, and see if it boots Apple like that.

[TCK]

That did worse.  It would just keep on rebooting without loading anything.  I had to boot into disk mode to get the iPod connected in order to reinstall rockboot.bin.

[Llorean]

It sounds like you may be extracting the wrong bootpartition for your iPod then.