[skihji]

first time poster here. i just purchased a 5.5 gen ipod off amazon for 80$ and am trying to upgrade the storage. all i need is Tarkan's iFlash SD-CF Adapter Bundle and a SD card correct? thank you, great community here.

 

[davidcotton]

Do you need itunes at all if you are using rockbox?  I'm no expert but I would have thought that formatting the card with the aomei card, install rockbox and then copy over would have been the way to go.  Might be worth a try, or I could be talking ****!
 
Edit to say that someone somewhere really needs to create a how to page and link to this mahoosive thread.  There's a lot of good stuff in here but it's scattered all over the place.  Either the front page needs updating or the aforementioned new thread and link.
 
Just a thought.
 
That was for originalsnuffy btw.

 

[DR650SE]

@originalsnuffy,
Hold Menu and the center button down. That will force a reboot. Double and triple check the ribbon cable from the hold switch to the logic board. As soon as the Apple appears flipping the hold button to hold should boot it in iOS. Not switching the hold button should cause it to boot to Rockbox in a few sec.

 

[DR650SE]

Yeah but that wouldn't be even half as fun as modding these iPods

Your 100% correct. More than anything it's a hobby I love because I love to tinker. And I get to combine it with my love of music.

first time poster here. i just purchased a 5.5 gen ipod off amazon for 80$ and am trying to upgrade the storage. all i need is Tarkan's iFlash SD-CF Adapter Bundle and a SD card correct? thank you, great community here.

Correct. May or may not want to replace the battery while your in there, but that isn't difficult to do later. Also SD cards over 128gb don't seem to work due to firmware limitations. So bear that in mind.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Your 100% correct. More than anything it's a hobby I love because I love to tinker. And I get to combine it with my love of music.

Correct. May or may not want to replace the battery while your in there, but that isn't difficult to do later. Also SD cards over 128gb don't seem to work due to firmware limitations. So bear that in mind.

 
I think the PNY 256GB SDXC card will work in a Gen. 5.5, and I have that build ready to commence so I can confirm it later.
 
There is some conflicting information out there about which iPods suffer from LBA28 lockdown in their Apple firmware. You can still get around it with Rockbox according to Tarkan, however I think the Gen. 5.5 will work using the stock Apple firmware.
 
What definitely did not work in my own testing was an "early original" Gen. 6 Classic, even custom CF- SD adapter firmware from Tarkan did not overcome the LBA28 limitation, the Restore goes fine but the SDXC becomes corrupted after passing the 127.7GB limitation of LBA28.
 
What didn't make sense to me was why an older model Gen. 5 does not have the stupid Apple imposed LBA28 lockdown, compared to the slightly newer Gen. 6 and 6.5 which does have the LBA28 lockdown.
 
Logically you'd think the newer the model, the more likely it would have LBA48 firmware, because Apple was selling 160GB Classics that would have needed it.  But the Classic was all over the road for a couple of years with the capacity they offered, it ranged from 80GB, to 120, to 160 depending on the exact vintage.

 

[skihji]

Your 100% correct. More than anything it's a hobby I love because I love to tinker. And I get to combine it with my love of music.

Correct. May or may not want to replace the battery while your in there, but that isn't difficult to do later. Also SD cards over 128gb don't seem to work due to firmware limitations. So bear that in mind.

Thanks for the reply, and yeah i was going to do one thing at a time and just make sure things work. so with the tarkans adapter is it just a plug or do you need to solder anything?
 

   
I think the PNY 256GB SDXC card will work in a Gen. 5.5, and I have that build ready to commence so I can confirm it later.
 
There is some conflicting information out there about which iPods suffer from LBA28 lockdown in their Apple firmware. You can still get around it with Rockbox according to Tarkan, however I think the Gen. 5.5 will work using the stock Apple firmware.
 
What definitely did not work in my own testing was an "early original" Gen. 6 Classic, even custom CF- SD adapter firmware from Tarkan did not overcome the LBA28 limitation, the Restore goes fine but the SDXC becomes corrupted after passing the 127.7GB limitation of LBA28.
 
What didn't make sense to me was why an older model Gen. 5 does not have the stupid Apple imposed LBA28 lockdown, compared to the slightly newer Gen. 6 and 6.5 which does have the LBA28 lockdown.
 
Logically you'd think the newer the model, the more likely it would have LBA48 firmware, because Apple was selling 160GB Classics that would have needed it.  But the Classic was all over the road for a couple of years with the capacity they offered, it ranged from 80GB, to 120, to 160 depending on the exact vintage.

 
maybe i should wait until you're done with this build until i buy my SD card. nobody knows if the 5.5 gen has LBA48 limitations?

 

[DMinor]

With a CF card, is 128GB still the limit? I'm guessing 128GB is the limit for anything other then mSata, and Beyondwind patch?

 

 
I have a 256GB CF mod for ipod video, and it works great using the regular RB firmware. With the 240GB msata and beyondwind's RB patch, the 256GB CF doesn't seem to be a first choice in terms of cost.
 
That said, the CF is the most power efficient of all the mods. No heat issue, with proven reliability. Also the ipod is more responsive with the CF mod. 
 
With mSATA, you have to be prepared for formatting the drive thru motherboard if necessary for certain msata drives (e.g. the Samsung 1TB msata). The over heat could also make your ipod show the sad face and then you will need a fresh format and restore (also losing whatever files copied to the drive). But that 1TB ipod is just too attractive to not have one.
 
EDIT: The over heat issue with mSATA can be problematic only when you try to copy a big chunk of files at one time thru ipod. The heat is a non issue when you play music. 

 

[MikeyFresh]

  Thanks for the reply, and yeah i was going to do one thing at a time and just make sure things work. so with the tarkans adapter is it just a plug or do you need to solder anything?
 
 
maybe i should wait until you're done with this build until i buy my SD card. nobody knows if the 5.5 gen has LBA48 limitations?

 
Tarkan's site does not list the Gen. 5.5 as LBA28 crippled.
 
I'm pretty sure it's going to be fine, but you won't have to wait too long to find out as I just completed the iFlash install and iTunes Restore process, no hiccups or issues at all doing this on a Mac computer.
 

 
 
I'm not sure if doing it on a Windows machine would make it more likely to have to format the SDXC card outside the iPod using AOMEI to wipe the MBR and "align the partition" or not.
 
Now I'll try to write more than 127.7GB of music to this 5.5, which is the real test.

 

[originalsnuffy]

(Updated) With regard to using the PNY 256 SD card with the ipod 5.5, here is my two cents worth.
 
It appears that with Tarkan's latest ZIF to CF to SD software, when using stock Apple Ipod firmware, the system works just fine.  Of course, as far as I can tell, one absolutely must install the ipod firmware using itunes to use the ipod.  I do not think one can go directly to Rockbox, as the Windows machine I use does not recognize the ipod at all until itunes restores to firmware 1.3.
 
With just itunes, the ipod will recognize all 240gb.  One can also write files from Windows to the ipod quite smoothly.
 
Rockbox is another matter.  It appears that Rockbox has some USB bugs.  Per Tarkan: 
 
   "One thing I have found with Rockbox is that the USB Handler is broken, and the only way to transfer music on the iPod is to switch to the Apple Diskmode (Menu + select, then Select + Play) and then connect to the PC - this way transfering actually works ok faster and with no problems."
 
It turns out the secondary ipod that I used for testing had a broken hold switch so I was unable to boot back to itunes.  And at the time I did not know the Apple Diskmode options. 
 
In the process of moving the adapter back to the primary ipod I managed to break the battery connector.  One brave soul is working with me to see if we can get everything working.  So I can't provide a full endorsement of Rockbox with the ipod 5.5g but with some workarounds that may be an acceptable solution.  I can state the the Beyondwind patch does not help out with the USB file transfer issue.

 

[MikeyFresh]

  Thanks for the reply, and yeah i was going to do one thing at a time and just make sure things work. so with the tarkans adapter is it just a plug or do you need to solder anything?
 
 
maybe i should wait until you're done with this build until i buy my SD card. nobody knows if the 5.5 gen has LBA48 limitations?

 
No soldering with the Tarkan bundle, just a careful disconnect and reconnect of both the battery and hard drive ribbon cables.
 
Be patient with them, I like to do the hard drive cable (and it's lock down mechanism) with my fingers, but I use a nylon spudger tool to release and lock the battery cable clasp.
 
You said "LBA48 limitations" above, but the limitations are with LBA28. LBA48 is what you want the iPod firmware to have, and not a limitation. 

 

[skihji]

   
No soldering with the Tarkan bundle, just a careful disconnect and reconnect of both the battery and hard drive ribbon cables.
 
Be patient with them, I like to do the hard drive cable (and it's lock down mechanism) with my fingers, but I use a nylon spudger tool to release and lock the battery cable clasp.

thanks for all the advice man! really appreciated, my stuff comes in monday so ill be back here with more questions then! also do you know anything about the DIYmod? im considering doing it but i just dont know what to do exactly and i hear you need a soldering iron with variable temps which i dont have at the moment.

 

[LFF]

Has anyone found a battery that's compatible with the 5G 30GB that will double the play time?

 

[MikeyFresh]

.

 

[davidcotton]

Sadly that pny 256 sdxc card is not available in the uk, don't know why

 

[MikeyFresh]

.