[SiBurning]

I bought an iRiver 120 DAP a few months ago and some of the tracks have recently become corrupt.

[edit]
This thread documents my attempts to fix the problem.

The most important thing is to install the rockbox bootloader or the disk might be toast. You don't actually need rockbox, just the loader. See post #3.

 

[SiBurning]

chkdsk /r /f /x

Or some /combination thereof... There are bad sectors (also sometimes called clusters or blocks) on the disk. I'll fill the disk and if there's no follow-up, assume I died or this works.

The switches are to mark bad blocks and recover data. I tried both methods, which is to say I deleted all tracks that had bad blocks, but left one track that was corrupt , but now seems to play--it wasn't reported as a bad track by chkdsk, so it probably recovered the data. We'll see.

 

[SiBurning]

Decided to keep going with this and update rockbox to the newet version. found the following information on the install page. If it's true, this is a great reason to install rockbox--or at least the boot loader--even if you never boot into rockbox.

"There are two alternatives for removing Rockbox. First, you can remove the Rockbox files, but retain the Rockbox bootloader. Second, you can remove Rockbox entirely and return to the iriver bootloader. Either alternative will cause your jukebox to boot automatically into the iriver firmware.

"For the iriver H100 series, it is a good idea to keep the Rockbox bootloader, even if you are not using Rockbox. Unlike the iriver firmware, the Rockbox bootloader allows you to boot into USB mode even if the hard drive is corrupted. (The iriver firmware, on the hand, will not enter USB mode until it has successfully read the hard drive.) Thus, the Rockbox bootloader provides the possibility to rescue a broken file system or hard drive in situations that would render your player unbootable without it. We recommend retaining the Rockbox bootloader unless you need to send your jukebox to iriver for a warranty claim."

[edit]
But if the bootloader ends up on a bad sector, your jukebox is probably toast anyway.

 

[TAsunder]

I have the same basic problem with my ipod. I have checked the disk using 3 different tools and found only one bad sector. I noticed that the format of the file makes a difference. I haven't had a lossless file go bad. Instead it just pauses for a second and then works fine from then on.

 

[SiBurning]

these were all flac. about 15 bad sectors total, all in 3 directories. it's possible I banged the drive a few times and it had a mini crash. there's bad, then there's bad. to be sure, you need a low level utility. to be safe, I'd just mark any suspect sector as bad. this way, you can't copy anything onto the disk from your computer, and the dap never has to deal with it. the recovery feature on mine got back all the tracks on those bad sectors. From this I'd guess that the dap doesn't have a mechanism to retry on read failures like the computer does. maybe the ipod does and the iriver doesn't. just a guess. for now, the thing seems to work. I gotta get an adapter for the computer that fits these little drives and just mount it directly to use some serious utilities.

 

[SiBurning]

It looks like chkdsk only marks bad sectors that are in use, not in free space. Hopefully, I'm just ignorant of a command line parameter.

Trying to solve this by filling the disk doesn't work, because chkdsk insists on replacing bad sectors with available sectors, which means it won't do anything if the disk is full. If the disk isn't full, you can miss some of the bad sectors.

I found this out the hard way... Loaded up the 6 disk Ken Burns Jazz set and some of the sectors turned out bad. Then I completely filled the disk with junk, and chkdsk aborted. So I removed a smallish file and tried again, and chkdsk recovered the sectors.

It's a shame it's so hard to check the whole disk. You have to run chkdsk /r (read only mode) to determine how many sectors are bad, then free exactly that many sectors (assuming you know how to determine this), then run chkdsk again to fix them. Then, you need to run chkdsk once more, just in case one of those last free tracks were bad. If any were, you have to do this all over again.

Sigh! There has to be a better way.

 

[TAsunder]

ipods have a drive check tool built in that you get to from diagnostic mode. I have no idea what it does or how useful it is, but maybe iriver has something similar?

 

[SiBurning]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TAsunder ipods have a drive check tool built in that you get to from diagnostic mode. I have no idea what it does or how useful it is, but maybe iriver has something similar?

Anyone have more info on recovering an ipod? Some of the other forums seem to suggest if it happens your ipod is toast, but there are professional shops that can repair them. This sounds like bunk.

 

[Labtek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiBurning Anyone have more info on recovering an ipod? Some of the other forums seem to suggest if it happens your ipod is toast, but there are professional shops that can repair them. This sounds like bunk.

Stick it in the freezer face up on the floor of the compartment for about 1 min and it will clear the HD and it will work. Don't ask me how!.

 

[SiBurning]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labtek Stick it in the freezer face up on the floor of the compartment for about 1 min and it will clear the HD and it will work. Don't ask me how!.

When I stick it in there, should it be playing? Of course, the perfect song is off Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare: Cold Ethyl. 'cause this cure sounds like a skeleton kiss.

 

[Labtek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiBurning When I stick it in there, should it be playing? Of course, the perfect song is off Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare: Cold Ethyl. 'cause this cure sounds like a skeleton kiss.

"It only takes a minute yeh! (to fix the pod to fix the pod)" besides whats the alternative keep messing around with the thing until it breaks for good. I know it sounds brutal but it did work for me. Hey sue me if it packs up, but I sure as hell was pleased when the ice queen gave mine the kiss of life. What do I know anyway 69 posts and 1 month on headfi, I'm a toddler to you mighty headfiers.

 

[DaKi][er]

Sounds like your hard drive is just about gone, the freezer trick wont do much here as it is used for when the heads get stuck and the thermal stresses when putting it in the freezer can free them up, you dont have this problem as it is the disk surface that is damaged
If you can find where to buy a new hard drive (1.8" toshiba) you can easily swap out the bad one for a new one and all will be well

 

[SiBurning]

I had to make fun of the freezer thing, even though it really doesn't seem all that bad an idea.

Today my dap would play the first few seconds of a track then skip to the next track and play it fine. Then the same thing with the next two tracks. It was doing this all morning. Finally I pounded it on the table, and it worked fine. A variation on the old hit it with a hammer trick. Might be the recent heat and/or today's humidity.

If anyone has info on the following, please let it be known...
This weekend I'll see if there's a way to reformat the drive. I'll also be looking for some IDE cards or adapters to mount these things on a computer without the usb nonsense. I'll also be scheming to get some kind of portable dock for multiple drives on the go. But hard drives on the go is just a flaky idea.

 

[SiBurning]

It's been dying a very slow death. Occasionally another bad sector turns up. At this pace it'll be a 10GB drive in 2107.