I've broke a second ipod video. How to restore?

[ericj]

I have to wonder if something is shorted out or a cable getting pinched during reassembly.

 

[ronnieb]

If the hard drive is fine then I believe it's the logic board. I would buy a working Video from craigslist, and swap the pieces. Do not use any of the pieces from your old ipod when you start off, just swap hard drives, and see if that works. If it does, leave it be, and just sell the hard drive that you took out (30 gig)

 

[penartur]

No, you don't understand, i've bought a second video with this purpose, and it worked fine; yesterday i've make it work with original 60gb again, and now i'm trying to make it work with 240gb.
It all seems like a software issue, just for some reason ipod doesn't reckognize a new HDD and it makes itunes buggy (sometimes it will detect ipod, sometimes it wouldn't and sometimes it even will fully "restore" it; itunes did this full "restore" two times today, but ipod still won't boot).
I definitely won't purchase a third one because it is pointless, if i can't make the itunes work with the second, nothing will change with the third. If i will unable to make it work tomorrow, i'll just replace hdd back to the 60, sell it for this $140 and use 240gb hdd to upgrade my kenwood hd60gd9 (i've already checked, kenwood works fine with this hdd).
And if something would shorted, ipod wouldn't have been worked with 60gb yesterday.
So far, i've tried:
1) Itunes v8 restore under vista - error 1418/1429/"contains files that are used by someone else"
2) Ipod updater 2006-06 under xp - it just hangs with ipod plugged in;
3) Itunes v7 restore under xp - error 1418; however, last two times i've runned the restore, it have finished the process (it took about 2 hours every time), although the ipod still won't boot (after a nearly successful restore with 60gb hdd, it showed a progressbar; and after this restores with 240gb it just still shows "use itunes to restore")
4) Manual restore (from rockbox.org) under ubuntu. It won't work with hdd in ipod; however it worked with hdd connected to a pc through zif->usb adapter, but ipod still won't boot.
5) Ipodwizard + a firmware file listed in a manual restore page on rockbox.org. Ipodwizard becames to consume 100% cpu; the longer time i waited for it was about 1:30 hours, but nothing have changed.
6) HP Format Tool - it says that disk is write protected.
However, it seems that either itunes or ipod firmware or both are very uneven, so the behaviour can change from time to time; and the only way i've tried more than 2-3 times is third (itunes v7 under xp).
Is there some another way i should try? If no, tomorrow i'll just give up and use 240gb hdd from the first ipod in my kenwood.

 

[ericj]

Look, I'm gonna guess that the drive is detected by the ipod but the data in the ID string is corrupted - or possibly all 1's or 0's - because something isn't right about the way you've done it.

You can't fix a hardware problem with software.

so I'm gonna ask, are you completely re-assembling this thing or just letting it hang loose before powering it up and trying to restore?

 

[zeroibis]

I am just wondering what he could have done to break the first logic board, those things look pretty reliable as long as you do not short something out...

Speaking of shorting something out I wonder if somehow he shorted out the HDD and that is causing the strange problem. I have heard of larger HDDs having the chip that interfaces for the bus going bad and needing replacing.

I can definitely say that something does not sound right about this it looks like it was way, way to easy for you to manage to break this thing. Are you sure there was no static shocks or anything else such as wire connected backwards? Were you grounded and using an anti static link?

 

[penartur]

Quote:

are you completely re-assembling this thing or just letting it hang loose before powering it up

It is nearly completely assembled; just the backplate isn't closed.
Quote:

I am just wondering what he could have done to break the first logic board

I've broke the soldering of a battery connector. As i've read in another thread, i'm not the only one with such a problem.
Quote:

Are you sure there was no static shocks or anything else such as wire connected backwards?

Yes, i'm sure about that.
Also, as i have said, HDDs are fine, and, after all that problems, yesterday ipod worked fine with 60gb hdd.
When itunes going to this 2 hour restore process on 240gb hdd, i can hear a specific seek noises from the hdd, so it really does something.

 

[zeroibis]

Similar case of a 240mb (yes MB) reporting 1.1TB:
Re: Very old IDE hard drive (240 MB) detected as 1.1 TB

Also are you sure that the correct cluster size or a compatible size is being used?

I can say though that it is possible to corrupt the frimware and not be able to reinstall the apple bootloader. See data in early attempts to install rockbox directly to firmware.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

Also are you sure that the correct cluster size or a compatible size is being used?

I'm sure that the 240gb is compatible with the ipod, because the hdd is taken from working (until i broke it) similar ipod 5th gen. If there would have been something with cluster size or something - both ipods would refusing to work with the hdd.
Also, as i now remember, the current ("second") ipod was detected by linux as 1.3TB when with 240GB drive and 1.1TB when with 60gb drive. So your suggestion could be right; but it says nothing about why i've got ipod with 60gb to work yesterday and what could i do to make it work with 240gb.
Quote:

I can say though that it is possible to corrupt the frimware and not be able to reinstall the apple bootloader

Hmm... after a first unsuccesful trials i've completely erased (zeroed) 240gb hdd by connecting it directly to a pc... however after some other trials i've wrote a correct mbr and firmware on it (as described on a "manual restore" page from rockbox site).
Can you please say where can i find the info about this "early attempts to install rockbox directly to firmware"?
Thanks

 

[zeroibis]

I was suggesting that the apple bootloader could have gotten corrupted but if it works with the 60gb drive fine than this is not the case.

Quote:

All iPods have a 1MB flash ROM containing the Apple bootloader, the emergency disk mode application, and the diagnostics mode application. Replacing this code would allow far faster booting time into Rockbox, and the option to the run RomBox (Rockbox running directly from flash). However, doing so would require Rockbox to fully initialise the hardware on boot (it currently relies on some initialisations performed by Apple's bootloader) and failed flashing attempts would result in a bricked ipod. See IpodFlash.

IpodStatus < Main < TWiki

 

[ericj]

Just to clarify, emergency disk mode doesn't work?

If so, I'm sticking to my guess: hardware problem. Likely assembly related. Maybe a damaged, dirty, or loose cable. Or something shorted out.

But i don't really work on ipods so i have no clue on the specifics.

 

[zeroibis]

Well it is true that a ZIF cable has a very limited lifespan because of the way it is operated. Although if that was the case it would not explain the 60gb working and the 240gb not.

Just to confirm again, you formatted both drives to the same settings correct? You may want to try formatting the 240gb drive to the same partition as the 60gb drive and see if that works just as a test.

Looked up your error codes under vista please try the solution posted here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1372

Noting that this issue appears to be USB related you should also try it with a firewire cable to see if that somehow makes any difference. (I would try it with firewire on all your os configs if the solution above has no results)

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeroibis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well it is true that a ZIF cable has a very limited lifespan because of the way it is operated. Although if that was the case it would not explain the 60gb working and the 240gb not. Just to confirm again, you formatted both drives to the same settings correct? You may want to try formatting the 240gb drive to the same partition as the 60gb drive and see if that works just as a test.

The drive size is reported incorrectly by the linux kernel - that HAS to be either a hardware problem or an issue with the firmware in the ipod (which iirc relies on software for the usb stack instead of using a hardware ata-to-usb bridge).

Worth pointing out that if there's another dead ipod around, maybe he has a spare harddrive cable.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

Just to clarify, emergency disk mode doesn't work?

It enters to a disk mode (when pressing Select+Play on startup); however, it doesn't help.
Quote:

Just to confirm again, you formatted both drives to the same settings correct?

When i've tried to install a 240gb hdd at a first time, it was taken from other ipod.
After a unsuccesful trials i've tried to erase it (connect hdd to a pc with zif->usb adapter and fill first 500MB with zeroes), still no success with restore.
Then i've tried to do the manual restore, as described on rockbox.org, all this things with mbr and dd, still not helped.
Finally, i've tried to do a image of 60gb hdd (using acronis trueimage) and then restore it to a 240gb hdd - restore still doesn't work.
However, i haven't tried to change 60gb contents someway.
Quote:

Looked up your error codes under vista please try the solution posted here: Error 1415, 1417, 1418, 1428, 1429, 1430, 1436 or 1439: Cannot restore or update iPod in iTunes 7 or later

I've already read this, it doesn't help. I've even tried to install clean XP, but it doesn't help also.
Quote:

you should also try it with a firewire cable to see if that somehow makes any difference

Do 5th gen ipods work with firewire? I believe that firewire support was dropped in 5th gen; wikipedia says "Firewire for charging only".
Quote:

or an issue with the firmware in the ipod

Yes, it seems to be so.
Quote:

which iirc relies on software for the usb stack instead of using a hardware ata-to-usb bridge

This is one of the things i hate apple for.

 

[penartur]

Something weird happened. Either after two "succesful" restore trials or after another night, ipod now detects by linux as hdd with 240gb capacity. I'm able to write mbr on it (using mbr from 60gb video, as described on "manual restore" page on rockbox.org); dd says that 1 block is written; however, after that, even if i'll do hdparm -z /dev/sdb, still no partitions detects on /dev/sdb, so i don't have /dev/sdb1 and cannot load firmware onto it.

 

[penartur]

I've tried to boot into a fresh xp once again, run itunes 7 to restore ipod again... and holy ****! the restore process went to an end, it took about 10 minutes (compared to 2 hours each time it was succesful yesterday), and ipod now loaded firmware (progressbar below the apple logo), then booted into a standart apple firmware and i'm now waiting for itunes to detect it.
I still have no ideas of why it works now. Nothing changed since yesterday, but yesterday it doesn't worked, and now it does.