[bana]

  Hello, This are steps that i went thru. If you can get into disk mode, then iTunes might recognize the iPod but it takes times, often more than 5 real mn. So leave it plugged for let's say 15 mn and see what's happens. You can change computer if you can, sometimes it helps.
If this don't work, the solution is to take off the ssd and format it in the fat mode from a USB access. When you will put back ssd in, iTunes will recognize an iPod in recovery mode and will format it. 

I replaced the original hard drive and everything is ok, so I'm taking your advise and am purchasing a external USB adapter to format with my laptop.

 

[DR650SE]

I just want to reiterate here that  the above comments is not backed by any data, and more and more of you will find out from your own experience that it is not true.

I agree, but in my thinking, I figured if someone has the knowledge to engineer and design their own adaptor, they may know what their talking about. However he did mention that the increase in battery life would only be slight.

I figured that in the end, it's probably a negligible difference in battery life between the two adaptors. However as I don't understand how these adaptors work, I don't know how "jitter" affects anything, or what it is.

In the end the main reason I went with the Tarken adaptor was for R&D purposes. I'm willing to put my money towards people with the knowledge to create a product to keep this hobby alive. Not to mention, from an asthetics standpoint, the Tarken adaptor is a well designed product. Not that you can see it in the iPod but still. I'm willing to pay more for his time and effort, especially since it was designed specifically with the iPod in mind.

Just my

 

[dr408517]

   
Absolutely, the generic adapter, aka "green" adapter. 
 
 
As for the Samsung 1TB msata, dr408517 found out that only reformatting thru MB will get the ipod recognized for restore. Initially, I made many attempts to format via USB port using an external adapter without success. Eventually, I formatted it via MB and it worked like magic. Better yet, for 5g (not 5.5g) I was able to load that drive all thru motherboard with 924 GB's of my music much faster. Again thanks to dr408517's tips. 
 
Now my Teradiymod is powered by a Miliamp 850mAh battery and it's a beauty.
 

I have not seen a successful reformat using the USB port.  Use a direct connection into the MB.
 
Also, you don't always need to reformat after a battery failure or file transfer interruption results in the sad face.  This tip is particularly helpful when you are trying to load a new build using an inferior battery that drains quickly during the load. The battery fails, the chip locks and the ipod reports sad face on reboot. 
 
Here's what you do:  remove the chip from the ipod, connect it to the MB of your computer, turn the computer on and let the OS recognize the chip as an installed drive. If you click it, it will ask to reformat. Don't. Turn your computer off, remove the chip and reinstall it in the ipod. This process will usually 'unlock' the chip. All of your files will be just as they were.  On the occasion this process will not work, your only choice is to reformat. 

 

[wateryakcat]

Hi! Thanks for this awesomr thread!
Im current using 5th gen with Tarkan iflash + 128cf.
But i also have another 5th ipod. Will 256gb pny sd card work with rockboxed 5th gen?

 

[DMinor]

  I have not seen a successful reformat using the USB port.  Use a direct connection into the MB.
 
Also, you don't always need to reformat after a battery failure or file transfer interruption results in the sad face.  This tip is particularly helpful when you are trying to load a new build using an inferior battery that drains quickly during the load. The battery fails, the chip locks and the ipod reports sad face on reboot. 
 
Here's what you do:  remove the chip from the ipod, connect it to the MB of your computer, turn the computer on and let the OS recognize the chip as an installed drive. If you click it, it will ask to reformat. Don't. Turn your computer off, remove the chip and reinstall it in the ipod. This process will usually 'unlock' the chip. All of your files will be just as they were.  On the occasion this process will not work, your only choice is to reformat. 

 
That's good to know Dr. Thanks for the info.  It happened to me once before I put in a Miliamp battery and I simply sent it back to the MB for a reformat. But now with 924GB's loaded to the drive, I don't want to go thru another clean cycle. With the Miliamp 850mAh once drained completely while the Terapod was playing music, I simply plugged it to the firewire wall charger and it rebooted to RB without any issue.
 
BTW, have you been testing the stability of the Terapods with the drives loaded say more than 900 GB's?

 

[beyondwind]

I agree, but in my thinking, I figured if someone has the knowledge to engineer and design their own adaptor, they may know what their talking about. However he did mention that the increase in battery life would only be slight.

I figured that in the end, it's probably a negligible difference in battery life between the two adaptors. However as I don't understand how these adaptors work, I don't know how "jitter" affects anything, or what it is.

In the end the main reason I went with the Tarken adaptor was for R&D purposes. I'm willing to put my money towards people with the knowledge to create a product to keep this hobby alive. Not to mention, from an asthetics standpoint, the Tarken adaptor is a well designed product. Not that you can see it in the iPod but still. I'm willing to pay more for his time and effort, especially since it was designed specifically with the iPod in mind.

Just my

 
I totally agree on you reason for buying Tarkan, just like buying a car, our purchase is rarely based on the technical specs, but a bloated horse power or MPG number will definitely make people mad. 

 

[dr408517]

That's good to know Dr. Thanks for the info.  It happened to me once before I put in a Miliamp battery and I simply sent it back to the MB for a reformat. But now with 924GB's loaded to the drive, I don't want to go thru another clean cycle. With the Miliamp 850mAh once drained completely while the Terapod was playing music, I simply plugged it to the firewire wall charger and it rebooted to RB without any issue.

BTW, have you been testing the stability of the Terapods with the drives loaded say more than 900 GB's?

You are correct, the chip doesn't always lock when the battery drains. A recharge is all you need. I rarely let any of them go below 30%.

I'm up to about 620gb and so far everything is great. Yesterday, TeraPod3 'popped' as I was loading a song - then went to the sad face. I removed the chip, unlocked it, put it back in the ipod and it's back to normal.

 

[Noodles5666]

Is there a Mac Mini friendly way of doing the Terapod? I don't think I can access the motherboard.

 

[DMinor]

You are correct, the chip doesn't always lock when the battery drains. A recharge is all you need. I rarely let any of them go below 30%.

I'm up to about 620gb and so far everything is great. Yesterday, TeraPod3 'popped' as I was loading a song - then went to the sad face. I removed the chip, unlocked it, put it back in the ipod and it's back to normal.

 
I have confidence in that Miliamp 850mAH from my experience testing it for the Crucial 480GB. It's resilient as it drains lower, just what is needed for the demand due to power surges.
 
Hmm ..... the unlock trick is great for loading the 5.5g Terapod. I believe that's the only way you can fully load that 1TB on a 5.5g.

 

[MikeyFresh]

  Is there a Mac Mini friendly way of doing the Terapod? I don't think I can access the motherboard.

 
I had no trouble at all using a late 2013 Mac mini on a Half-Terapod build using the BP4e 512GB mSATA card, and the Tarkan adapter.
 
The iTunes restore and music data writes were both done using a standard Apple 30-pin sync cable on a Gen. 5.5 iPod Video.
 
No troubles and I didn't even experience heat issues or heavy battery depletion, though I kept the writes to about 30GB in size and left a few minutes in between each one just so the battery could recover a bit.

 

[Tuncurry]

 
That's interesting. You were able to format the Samsung 1TB externally via a USB port using an adpater and ipod was able to recognize it for restore without giving a sad face, correct? What adapter do you have and are you running a Mac?  AFAIK, dr408517, cmarti and myself were all unsuccessful getting the ipod to recognize the Samsung 1TB formatted via USB port.
 
You may try to format the drive thru MB, then restore, then back to MB again for copying files externally. Only if you work on a 5g, not a 5.5g.

Hello,
Back to HF, 
 
Unfortunately, i'm working on 5.5 Gen iPods, the one referred as "Fifth Generation iPod (Late 2006)" so that's perhaps why i can't get through the external copying ? 
Anyway, as you guys have succeeded in writing more than 500 Gb, i'm testing right now small writes, around 20 Gb max, with a 10' pause and a check in between. It will take days i suppose to fill it, if it doesn't lock before.
I believe that the Samsung Chips are very very sensitive, probably due to the heat, as i have no more battery depletion with the Y cable, but i can't guarantee that because i saw no signs of failure as i already could copy whole disks without file transfer interruption, but ending with a sad face afterwards... I did not succeed yet the unlocking trick described by dr408517 but i will keep on trying.   

 
I don't remember exactly how i proceed with the 1To but i pretty sure i done it once before putting it in the iPod (and a lot of tries for the 500 gb).
I used a standard Taiwan green adapter with a USB3 cable as you can see the picture below. I'm running both Mac and Pc's and these steps were done on a McBook Air USB3 with Parallels desktops running Windows 7 Pro on OSX 10.10. Formatting in Fat mode then mount back the SSD into iPod and recovers from iTunes. If my Terapod crashes again, i will try to test the whole process, with formatting the card outside and get back to you with the results.
 

 

[JoeDoe]

Used (barely) iPod 5.5 80gb: $79
Used (barely) NOS 128gb CF card: $69
Tarken Adapter: $18
Installing Rockbox: 10 minutes
Having a cooler iPod than all of your friends: priceless

 

[Noodles5666]

When did your package ship? I have been waiting since the 13th.

 

[JoeDoe]

When did your package ship? I have been waiting since the 13th.

Yikes! Mine arrived ten days after placing the order

 

[bana]

Used (barely) iPod 5.5 80gb: $79
Used (barely) NOS 128gb CF card: $69
Tarken Adapter: $18
Installing Rockbox: 10 minutes
Having a cooler iPod than all of your friends: priceless

What procedure are you using to Rockbox? I've never done it and would like to try on my backup Ipod.
 
Thanks,