ipod 4g on its last leg.... help

[johnnyoc3]

well in addition to my 5g video i have a 4g grayscale ipod that is slowly dieing. the problem is as follows.
one day it just stops wouking giving me the folder icon. i plug it in to a windows comp in disk mode and it wants to restore it so i proceed. after the restore the ipod boots into the regular ipod firmware correctly. however, after pluging it into my computer itunes tells me it needs to restore again. this cycle of "successful" restoring repeats with the ipod itself functioning but not with the computer.

i tried restoring it these ways too:
http://www.ipodlinux.org/Restore_without_iTunes
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodManualRestore

i tried formatting the drive using the hp tool, command prompt, and even linux. none had any effect in its use. the computer only sees a valid fat32 partition when i freshly format the drive and put nothing on it. i tried performing the formating no different computers using different usb port and redownloading all files. the only way for me to transfer anything to the ipod when it is correctly setup with the apple os is through linux but no ipod magers recognized a ipod. i could only drag and drop files directly to the disk.

so with using apple os out of the question i thought rockbox could allow me to drag my music to the fat32 partition and not need it to add the files to the itunesdb.

now rockbox requires a valid firmware partition to read from and apply the bootloader. since i couldnt get this while still having my computer recognize the ipod's partitions i thought that it may be possible to use rockbox via loader2.4http://ipodlinux.org/Loader_2. this doesnt work either because it too requires a valid partition to start with.
i tried to use my firmware but i just got the folder icon all over again.


if someone has a 4g grayscale and wants to upload a image of their firmware partition for me to use i would be grateful so i can see if its the partition thats the problem or just the ipod is toast.

and if you guys have any ideas on how i might go about fixing the problem i have or have questions about what i've done please post!

as of now i have a nice 20gb removable hard drive or a ipod that can get no songs on it. haha

[GodEater]

Sounds to me like the harddrive is on the verge of dying - I'd replace it if I were you.

[johnnyoc3]

yeah i just don't want to fork over the dough for a new HD. if anyone could upload the firmware partition (patched with rockbox or ipL 2.4) of their ipod 4g thats all i need

[iPodPhoto]

This sounds like what happened to my iPod.
As for the firmware partition i have my self a good old 4G greyscale but i believe that uploading it would be illegal because it contains copywrite material.

If it is legal though i will gladly help a fellow user of the ancient iPods

[Llorean]

He's fixed his iPod without needing a uploaded firmware partition.