5G Battery Problem

[PouncePony]

It appears that the battery (or something to do with using the battery) on my 60GB 5G IPod has died suddenly.   When pressing  the menu button, I get a quick flash of the Apple screen then nothing.  

When plugged into a firewire wall charger, all is fine.  When plugged into a USB wall charger, the player boots Rockbox, then shows the USB connected icon, then reboots.  Holding the menu button when connecting does not prevent this.  When plugged into my XP computer via a powered USB port, the hard drives spins then immediately spins down and the Apple charge icon is displayed.  I have tried another computer with the same result.

I have a firewire port on my sound card and am able to get the player powered up, but since it is a windows box, I can't access the player through my computer.

I am assuming that I have a hardware problem and need to send it to Apple for repair.  I would like to remove Rockbox prior to sending it in for repair.

I have read related threads on this forum and found nothing that can help.

Any suggestions?  Should I find someone with a Mac and reinitialize the player prior to returning it to apple?

-Pony

[Llorean]

When the "apple charge icon" is displayed, you should be able to access the disk just fine. Have you actually tried, because you make no mention of that.

[PouncePony]

Luckily, I have been able to restore it.  I had it plugged into my computer via the firewire and booted with the Apple fireware.  I unplugged the firewire connector and connected the USB cable.  It connected via USB and the system mounted it as a drive.  ITunes recognized the player and the 2nd attempt to restore it worked.

My battery (or whatever) is still toast, but I have it restored to the Apple firmware.

So the trick was to use the firewire connector to boot into the original Apple firmware, disconnect the fireware connector and plug into the USB connector.   The firewire connector provides more power and got the player booted.  Then going from booted Apple firmware to USB connected mode didn't require as much power as going from a cold boot or Rockbox.

-Pony