iPod Classic Reformatted (SOLVED)

Thinkjunk

So, after receiving a disk read error on my iPod classic that made iTunes and Winamp not recognize it, I put it into disk mode and then reformatted it. Yes, Reformatted. Not restored. It was my hubris not to use restore, I realize, as I didn't know the iPod was loaded with preloaded firmware that could be wiped from the disk. I am paying for it in the bricking of my iPod. Is it possible to fix such a wipe, and if so, how would I go about doing it?

elliotw2

Jailbreak it?

Thinkjunk

It's an iPod classic. There is nothing to be Jailbroken.

elliotw2

Can iTunes still restore it?

edit: I meant rockbox or something like that, I thought that it was called jailbreaking at some point

Thinkjunk

Rockbox doesn't work on 5g iPod classics. I know, because I considered loading it with that for FLAC support. iTunes doesn't recognize it at all.

elliotw2

http://www.rockbox.org/

Apple: iPod 1g through 5.5g, iPod Mini and iPod Nano 1g

Thinkjunk

Oh, they updated it since I've looked then. I'll try it now and see if I can get it working.

Thinkjunk

When I booted Rockbox and tried to install, it said "No iPod Detected!" after giving it the correct mountpoint for my iPod. ( N : )

Fats

When you formatted it, did you format it as FAT32?

Thinkjunk

exFAT, as that is all that is offered in file explorer other than NTFS.
edit: Using command prompt now to format iPod in FAT32, gonna run Rockbox and see if it works when it completes.

Fats

You might try iTunes again, too. I don't know if either will be able to restore things but I do know it needs to be FAT32.

Thinkjunk

Fats wrote: »

You might try iTunes again, too. I don't know if either will be able to restore things but I do know it needs to be FAT32.

Will do.

Visti

elliotw2 wrote: »

http://www.rockbox.org/

Apple: iPod 1g through 5.5g, iPod Mini and iPod Nano 1g

How does that include the Classic?

Edit: to be more precise : http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodClassic1G

Thinkjunk

It seems you are correct. It does not. I was thinking that the classic was 5g, and 5.5 was the first revision. No wonder it doesn't work.

I left the command prompt to format the iPod as FAT32 (It took about two hours) and when I checked back on it today it said that the volume was too big for FAT32. Suggestions for another way to format it on 7?
Edit: After much spelunking in cyberspace I found a program to format the disk in FAT32 called GUIFormat. iTunes still doesn't recognize, nor Rockbox obviously.

Thinkjunk

Interestingly, when I plug the iPod into the USB port, iTunes will come up and nothing will be there.

Thinkjunk

I finally devised a solution after about 15 hours of work. I am so tired. It turns out that the newest version of iTunes blocks iPod classics of some lower firmware versions because of the Palm Pre lockout measures they added. So, due to my iPod not being completely up to date firmware-wise, it was completely locked out of iTunes no matter what I did. The solution was to install an older version of iTunes (I used 8) and an older version of Quicktime. The oldest I could find. These, together, DID read the iPod and restored it to its former glory. I updated the firmware to the newest and now it works with the newest version of iTunes as well.

VICTORY.

Thanks for all your help, guys.

elliotw2

Yay for Apple being dicks breaking functionality with their own hardware

eisbock

Yes, I know I'm bumping this from the grave, but I wanted to say thanks and share my story. Hopefully this will help future people with problems seven years from now just as it helped me today.

I have an iPod Classic 80GB version 1.1.2 and still use it to this day. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. The iPod had some software troubles and needed a restore. I downloaded the latest version of iTunes (12.7.1) and the moment I plugged in my iPod, iTunes would freeze. If I plugged in my iPod before loading iTunes, it would sort of half boot and then freeze, forcing a task kill in both cases.

My first thought was to disable autosyncing in an attempt to connect the iPod without it trying to communicate with iTunes. Unfortunately, I found that option was already turned off, but I would still try this before doing anything. Should be a checkbox in Preferences>Device.

After finding this thread, I thought maybe it was the latest version of iTunes that was causing me grief. So I backed up my library (export Library.xml), uninstalled iTunes 12.7.1 and attempted to download an older version from here:

https://support.apple.com/en_GB/downloads/itunes

I first tried iTunes 10.7, but it gave me some error about not being able to install. Figures. So I tried iTunes 12.1.3 and this solved my problem! After importing the Library.xml as a playlist, I was able to restore my library and manipulate the iPod in iTunes. No more freezing. Restoring it brought it back to the same firmware 1.1.2, which is still apparently the latest version.

So as far as I can tell, iTunes did in fact break iPod Classic functionality with the latest update. If you are having trouble, download an older version. Perhaps iTunes will release a firmware update for iPod classic to make it compatible with newer versions of iTunes, but I'm not quite sure how you'll be able to apply such an update if iTunes doesn't work! Maybe a future iTunes update? Either way, I think it's safe to say iPod Classic support is officially dead if it wasn't already.

My next step would have been to format it without iTunes because I suspected some sort of software corruption might be causing the iTunes freezing. iPod Classic needs to be formatted as FAT32, but unfortunately Windows will not format anything more than 32GB to FAT32. Only options were exFAT and NTFS, neither of which are compatible with the iPod. The following website purports to allow formatting on larger devices to FAT32. I downloaded and was ready to use it, but never got the chance. If your iPod is really messed up, this might be an option to look at. Seems fairly easy to use.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

Go for the GUI where it says "try it here" on the top of the page.

This was definitely long-winded and probably unnecessary, but I know how frustrating it can be to try and piece together a tech support solution from a million different threads that all contain a fraction of both the problem and solution. Hopefully this problem identification and troubleshooting process is more comprehensive to help somebody out with a one-stop shop. Good luck!