possible ipod virus what do you think?? rockbox the culprit/trojan??
Jan 13, 2009 at 3:45 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 16

qusp

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Today has been a very harrowing, confusing and aggravating day!! This morning I woke up, having finished installing Rockbox 3.1 on a newly DIYMODDED ipod 5.5G. I had also installed an after-market 120gb HD on it. I also have 2 other DIYMOD's here at the moment, one mine and one from another member. all of them were working perfectly yesterday and have been all week; mine for months. I had 3.0 on mine (a 32gb CF modded) the other two are 120gb (as mentioned) and an 80gb. all were ipod videos. I also have another 60gb but thats not here thankfully, because something wierd is going on. Anyway I was installing 3.1 on the 120gb one last night and I had a couple of issues because it was a 30gb logic board (sold to him as a 80gb (64mb memory)), so any time I installed the 60-80gb version, it would install but when I would try and play a file, it would play for a few seconds and then spit static. Once the 30gb version was installed everything was hunky dory (or so I thought) so today I turned it on and realized that the hold switch was stuffed, so I opened it up and fixed it. the switch wasnt fixed in place properly so it wouldnt engage. easy fixed; however when I put it all back together it gave me the sad face icon; after some swearing I opened it up again, checked connections and put it back together....same problem. So I thought i'd try the 120gb in mine, I got the same issue, so I thought it must be software issue. meanwhile I had put my CF card in the 120gb and started it up..... same problem
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. I swapped the drives back.... same problem, at this point I did something stupid and tried it in the other ipod (not thinking it could be infectious at this stage, just trying to eliminate possibilities ) guess what????>>>> same problem. I switched all the drives back into their original homes and they all have the problem now. if I connect to my mac to restore, it will mount and tell me that the ipod seems to be corrupted and needs to be restored. when I agree it tries to do it and gets to the wait bar, where it would normally unmount the drive to start the process. but it cant do that because it says the ipod is busy and cant be unmounted. there are no processes running on the ipod except this one. So I try it on the PC and after putting it in disk mode and plugging it in; it flashes momentarily on the 'do not disconnect' screen (just long enough to give a guy hope) and then it flashes straight to the tick and 'safe to disconnect screen'. so one it cant unmount and the other it cant mount and instead just sits there charging without coming up in itunes at all. Either waty my efforts to restore, initialize or reformat are flaunted.

the only thing that these three ipods have in common is that they all had the 120gb drive with rockbox 3.1 installed in them today and directly afterwards; all of them malfunctioned. I know it sounds far fetched, but I think I could have an ipod virus/trojan!!! or some other form of corrupt software that has infiltrated the on-board memory. (dont worry they arent plugged in now LOL)

any ides??? this is really screwing with my chi. all were working perfectly this morning; one on rockbox 3.0 (mine) another with rockbox 3.1 and another that only had the apple firmware installed, but briefly had the 120gb (infected??) rockbox drive installed in it

any ides guys?? has anyone else actually had a malicious virus infect their ipod or does anyone know odf a rockbox 'bug' that would be causing this on all three ipods.
 
Jan 14, 2009 at 3:43 AM Post #2 of 16
Unfortunately I don't have an Ipod. But hopefully this experience might give you an idea or help a little. A while ago I bought a new harddrive to replace a defective one in my Creative Zen Micro. When I installed it, everything hung. I removed it and placed it in a card reader and connected it to my computer. My anti-virus indicated that the drive was infected. I re-partitioned and reformatted it and re-installed it in the Micro. I then had to clear the old firmware and re-install new firmware. I then formatted the drive from the Micro's menu and everything was o.k.
 
Jan 14, 2009 at 2:51 PM Post #3 of 16
I think i've found the culprit. at least I hope it is because its a cheap solution. I found a slight bur on the zif input on the 120gb drive; enough that it may have damaged the flex cable; its pretty dark so I cant see the damage on the cable, but I just managed to mount one of them then (the 80gb) then on my mac and got the same issue where it camne up as corrupted and needing restoring, but intead of using itunes I booted up disk tools and tried to erase/reformat it in there. the drive came up as a 2TB ipod media LOL wow. but anyway I tried to do it and it wouldnt complete; I had a look at the log and it said ithad an input/output error. the drive just sits there trying to spin up properly then failing and trying again. certainly sounds normal and ive had this problem before where the cable has been damaged. I actually ordered 5 flex cables about 10 days ago just in case so hopefully they'll be here soon. I have a way of finding out for sure tomorrow. I have a fresh 100% working 20gb drive that came in the one that currently has the 120gb, I have a brand new unopened logic board and of course I have the rest of the parts needed in the other ipods. so if I put one together using these fresh working oparts but using one of these cables and it doesnt work, then i'll know for sure its the cable/s i'm thinking that somewhere along the way all the cables gor damaged by this burr. I hope thats the problem and it does fit, because they all have the same symptoms and thats just too weird otherwise. I mean it could still be a virus I guess, but its unlikely. more tomorrow
 
Jan 14, 2009 at 3:01 PM Post #4 of 16
Good call going at the disk with Disk Utility. A reformat should do the trick whether there is a virus or not (if actually a disk problem).

If it isn't the wire that is damaged, I would highly recommend investing in Disk Warrior for OSX. It's saved my ass several times with many different drives. If there are bad sectors on the disk, Disk Warrior will either fix them or block them off so then the disk should work fine.

There are times when OSX Disk Utility failed to repair a disk I was having problems with. Disk Warrior came through for me every time.

DiskWarrior 4

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
 
Jan 15, 2009 at 3:37 AM Post #7 of 16
thanks guys, still havent done the experiment to nail the problem; i've got other work to do first, but yeah I started to come at the problem as if it were a computer I was trying to fix (which it is), so itunes can stay right out of it. i'm actually looking at buying a usb interface so I can plug these drives directly into my mac in future and perform diagnostics etc on them that way outside of the ipod environment; that way I can do a proper reformat and zero all data before reformatting. Of course you can do this while its in the ipod in disk mode, but I think removing it from all influence of the rest of the parts would be preferable. Thats not an immediate solution though, but the more I think about it, the more a problem with the cable seems to fit.

J: I used to have disk warrior a few years ago and I agree it was great. nortons sux bad and the disk utility is very 'lite' on features and power. it will totally miss a lot of problems that others will pick up; but I think it will still be fine for reformatting the drive once this is fixed, its more in fixing/diagnosing problems without erasing the contents that it struggles.

more later; thanks for the posts guys
 
Jan 16, 2009 at 8:47 AM Post #8 of 16
There was a problem with the loader for RB 3.1. A missing .dll file I think. It's fixed now but if you had the unfixed version that might explain what happened.
 
Jan 16, 2009 at 7:05 PM Post #9 of 16
if only I could get the drive to load at all; the new cables arrived today and while my DIYMOD is now working the 80gb is still behaving the same way with the new cable. its very strange. I have bought a zif to USB converter off ebay to remove the ipod from the equation. going to try the 120 later today but i'm not hopeful with the strange way things are going. this could explain it, but I cant get the 80GB to load properly, I still have to get around to trying with the new untouched logic board will do later today, maybe I can use that to reformat the drives and then try in the mods. the mods shouldnt have anything to do with it, because there is no issue with them with no shorts. as it stands I cant get the driev to actually do anything, because it thinks its already busy, maybe thats whats going on though, maybe the loader is interfering. very very frustrating, and why mine has started working with the new cable is puzzling too when they were all behaving the same way before. weird.
 
Jan 19, 2009 at 7:41 PM Post #10 of 16
well after all this the 80gb is still behaving the same way as before, also doesnt work with my confirmed still working 32GB CF card in it, new cable etc. stil get the sad face and if put into disk mode; which only succeeds once evry 10 or so times, it will say its corrupted blah blah and says its busy when I try to reformat it.

the 120gb harddrive is now totally dead sorry Bojamijams, but it is from what I can tell. wont even make an attempt to spin up. and that ipod also wont work with the CF card. I tried out the fresh logic board and I get the same behavior on all three. the 120GB is totally silent, the 80gb wont mount/dismount properly and gives sad face the rest of the time. and the CF card works. I tried the 120gb drive in it and it didnt work and then when I put the 32GB CF card back in I got a sad face OMG I actually yelled. unplugged it and then put it back together and had to put it into disk mode to get it working again. its still working now thank god. so the 120gb drive is demonic; it kils everything it touches and it seems to be contagious. the fresh logic board was stock and only just opened and inserted into the ipod, so no room for human error, just weird things are afoot. I have contacted rapid repair to get them replaced, but I think i'm going to have a hard time convincing them that the drive is at fault and not my DIYMOD skills. they'll try and blame it on the mod for sure. there is nothing wrong with the mods they were perfectly executed and tested fine with no shorts or anything like that.... until they were cursed with the 120gb demon. it nearly killed mine and the new one even mine seems to be touch and go, my usb cable wont charge it after this afternoon neither the apple one or the USB socket on my VCAp dock; both of which work with the new one. so maybe once the battery runs out that one will be dead too, its functioning fine and playing music fully working except it wont charge when plugged in now. so thats everything it touched. (I was just lucky I think top get it *(the new one working again after a bit of fiddling) I dont even think it was the flex cable now.with all this stuff gone on. My DIYMOD had been working perfectly for nearly 6 months and the 80-gb had been working perfectly for about a week and they were all killed in a matter of 24hrs; heres hoping rapid repair comes to the party .

unbelievable
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Jan 19, 2009 at 8:28 PM Post #12 of 16
Quote:

Originally Posted by Bojamijams /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Well..... damn
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tell me about it
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my ipod is now doomed too
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Jan 24, 2009 at 10:15 AM Post #13 of 16
I thought I should update this thread; turns out from all my troubleshooting and lack of sleep that it was a harware fault in the drive. electrical. the 120gb drive is totally dead and not making any attempt to spin up; so after some convincing they are taking the whole order back and doing something about it. of course they tried initially to tell me that the 120gb doesnt work in the ipod video, when we all know that it does and its actually listed on their website that it does
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then they tried to blame my work; which I also know not to be the case, because it all tested fine and all wrked until I installed that drive and it also killed my personal DIYMOD that had been working flawlessly for nearly 6 months, until directly after having the 120 in it for a matter of minutes. I told them that they werent dealing with the average ipod user and that I knew a thing or 2 about this stuff, so to stop trying to baffle me with ********. after some negotiation they accepted to take the whole order back and they'll do something about it; regardless of the modifications I made obviously voiding the warranty. so at least something is being done; even if it does cost me another $50AUD to ship it back to them.

so after buying all these extra parts I at least have a few flex cables and even better I now have a zif to USB convertor; so this will never happen again. I can do diagnostics on the drive from my mac and probably even install rockbox from it I reckon. one thing that I really wish you could buy online and the pros probably have access to is those little brown plastic battery connector clips. the ones that clamp down on the connector to make contact. after opening and closing,,... and opening and closing.... and opening and.. well you get the idea; they are really quite fragile and i've brokw more than one in my time. you can jerry rig it after that but its still a weak point and if you lose one altogether you either have to wedge it in place or the whole logic board is stuffed because of a .01c (if that) part breaking. didnt happen this round. except on mine, but still i've done it before and its really annoying.

so still no virus or trojan at least. that wouldve been a bit of a problem to this community.

did anyone actually find that ipod viruses exist. I found a couple of links, but no solid information.
 
Jan 24, 2009 at 10:55 AM Post #14 of 16
@qusp: good to hear you've pinpointed the issue.
Btw, rockbox itself probably fits into the definition of 'virus'
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It does propagate rather well thru the ipod population and replaces the original OS with itself.
 
Jan 24, 2009 at 11:08 AM Post #15 of 16
Quote:

Originally Posted by gadgetman /img/forum/go_quote.gif
@qusp: good to hear you've pinpointed the issue.
Btw, rockbox itself probably fits into the definition of 'virus'
smily_headphones1.gif
It does propagate rather well thru the ipod population and replaces the original OS with itself.



I find it amusing that you don't know what you're talking about.
 

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