[garrettnelson]

Hello all ...

I've got a strange iPod death, and, since the Apple support forums have offered me no help, I thought I might come over the MacNN, my old hangout that I haven't been to in years.

Anyways, it's as follows:

My iPod is a first-gen, solid-state 10gb. It binds up at random times. By that I mean it began hanging when I'd select something (a menu, a song, whatever), and I'd reset it. Sometimes I'd make it all the way to a playlist and it would play for a while; other times I couldn't even make it past the first menu level. I kept resetting it (MANY times) and the pattern continued. My first step was to update to the latest software. No luck. So I used the "restore" feature on the updater. The iPod hung during the restore (after the unplug-and-replug step), but I was able to try it again and it restored. The problem has now gotten worse; it typically hangs on the startup Apple logo, although sometimes it will reach the opening menu (the language selector), and then hang there. Sometimes it will come up to the Folder-With-Exclamation-Point. Other times it will start up, quickly turn off, and come back either to hang or to the error folder.

The Genius (whatever) at my local Apple Store mumbled something about "well sometimes they just die" and said it'd be a $250 repair. So I figured I'd open it myself. I've determined that both the battery and hard drive are fine. When I can get it to mount to my computer (by many resets, usually), it runs fine, and everything seems to work well. I ran Disk Utility and it came back O.K. So what else to try? I've opened the Diagnostic mode on the iPod (although sometimes that, too, will hang). Usually when I select a diagnostic, it freezes or reboots.

Is there ANYTHING else I might possibly try?

Thanks for any possible help!

[wataru]

Sorry I can't give any real help, but a few corrections:
1. The 10GB models are second gen, not first.
2. No iPod has ever been solid-state.

[davidflas]

Originally posted by wataru:
Sorry I can't give any real help, but a few corrections:
1. The 10GB models are second gen, not first.
2. No iPod has ever been solid-state.

I believe he's talking about the solid-state scroll wheel

[garrettnelson]

Yes, by solid-state I did indeed mean the scroll wheel ... which I prefer by the way!! (said in grouchy old voice). Anyhow, I thought 2nd-gen began with the electrostatic touch wheel and the slight physical modifications (cover over FireWire, differently shaped Hold button). Doesn't matter to me though. Still� no ideas?

[wataru]

Yeah, sorry, I don't have any great ideas. I guess what I'd do is try to sell the iPod on eBay (I've seen broken iPods sell for a surprising amount of cash) and buy a new iPod. It may not be reparable, and $250 is a ridiculous price for repair when you could get a new, significantly better iPod for $300.

[Randman]

Have you tried running Disk Utility/Diskwarrior on it? The hard drive can get defragmented. You can repair the disk, then defrag and see if that helps. If that doesn't work, you could start from scratch and reset everything. Also, make sure you are using the latest firmware for it.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by wataru:
2. No iPod has ever been solid-state.

Though this has been clarified as referring to the scroll-wheel, I don't quite get it.

Are you saying your iPod is tube-based?


I want one.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Though this has been clarified as referring to the scroll-wheel, I don't quite get it.

Are you saying your iPod is tube-based?


I want one.

I interpreted solid-state to mean no moving parts, so it would have RAM-based storage instead of a hard drive.

[garrettnelson]

OK, OK, you caught me pulling terms out of my arse. I'm sure 'solid-state' isn't the correct word, but it beats 'actually-wheely-scroll-amajig'. Makes me feel like a wizened old-school iPod user too.

Anyhow, solid-state is where it's at:

[scottiB]

Originally posted by wataru:
Sorry I can't give any real help, but a few corrections:
1. The 10GB models are second gen, not first.

While I agree garret's is a 2G, there was a 10GB 1G with the rotating scroll-wheel. It was introduced in April, 2002 and was $499. I own one.

garret, sorry, I have no idea regarding your issues. Randman's ideas seem the best: wipe it clean and start over.

[garrettnelson]

Wait ... how do you know it's a 2nd-gen? What distinguishing features would keep it from being a 1st-gen?

Anyhow, I have tried using Disk Utility to wipe it, to no effect; besides, I'm fairly sure the "restore" feature has the same function. So no luck there.

Should I sell it, would you reccomend selling it in 3 parts (battery, HD, shell/logicboard) or all together? What would I reasonably ask for that?

[GORDYmac]

I had a freezing issue with my 1G iPod recently. I ran Disk Utility and it stated repairs were needed, but when I'd run the repair function, it wouldn't fix the problem.

I bought that crapware DiskWarrior some months ago in hopes of ressurecting a dead hard disk. I used it to optimize th iPod's directory and it worked fine. Disk Utility no longer reports an error.

I guess DiskWarrior is good for something. The iPod now works fine.

[scottiB]

Originally posted by garrettnelson:
Wait ... how do you know it's a 2nd-gen? What distinguishing features would keep it from being a 1st-gen?

http://www.ipodlounge.com/faqs_more....=1362_0_10_0_C

Other than those noted, 1G have the word "iPod' on the back in the font Apple Garamond and newer have it written in Apple's new font--which I can't think of its name off the top of my head.

[garrettnelson]

Count me in among the Apple Garamond-ers. I should get some sort of respect from of the Myriads. Or something.

Anyhow, I hate to keep a dying thread going, and I know there's probably not much help at this point, but I've come up with the following additional information.

I ran an older version of DiskWarrior on it, to no effect. So I tried fsck. I'm not much of a command-line wrangler, so I can't quite interpret the result:

Nietzsche-iBook:~ garrettnelson$ fsck /dev/disk2s3
** /dev/rdisk2s3
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG

LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? [yn] y

SEARCH FOR ALTERNATE SUPER-BLOCK FAILED. YOU MUST USE THE
-b OPTION TO FSCK TO SPECIFY THE LOCATION OF AN ALTERNATE
SUPER-BLOCK TO SUPPLY NEEDED INFORMATION; SEE fsck(8).

Could this point to the possible error? I tried fsck -b with random guesses as to the super-block but couldn't seem to get anyhwere. Anyone?

[macaddict0001]

I'd suggest trying to pm detrius he's on these forums he has a reputation for being a apple certified repair technicion.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
I'd suggest trying to pm detrius he's on these forums he has a reputation for being a apple certified repair technicion.

The geek in me is tickled to death that I am actually recommended, but unfortunately, I don't think I'll be a whole lot more help in this specific situation. I don't have an iPod (wish I did), and iPods are a mail-in-only type repair. As a certified tech outside of Apple, I have no access to a service manual, and I am therefore also not certified to repair them. Also, I have never been inside of one and just have a general idea of how it is likely to have been built. That being said, I have some theories that come to mind:

First of all, the fsck error is just because the command was wrong. As far as I'm aware, fsck can only be run on a file system that is mounted. Therefore, the following would be how this would be done:

mount -ur /Volumes/Your\ iPod
fsck -y /Volumes/Your\ iPod
mount -uw /Volumes/Your\ iPod

The first command Updates the status of the volume to Read-only.
The second command runs fsck on the volume -- should look familiar if you have done single user mode before.
The third command Updates the states of the volume to Writable -- should also look familiar if you have done single user mode.

Anyway, that part is just nitpicking.

Two theories: either the hard drive is bad, or the controller board (likely RAM on the board) is bad. If it's the hard drive, I think you should be able to recover from it without buying a new iPod.

Reasoning:

The iPod is a simple computer that has a simple operating system on the drive. When the iPod is connected to your computer, it reverts to a much simpler mode where it just acts like a hard drive. If something on the board is bad, hard drive mode would be bypassing this circuitry (like how some failing hard drives work fine in slave mode but not master). If there are bad blocks on the drive, this could have corrupted the iPod's operating system. No amount of reinstalling the operating system is going to fix this. You would have to map out the bad blocks first. This is done by formatting the drive with zero all data turned on. This works on normal hard drives too. Generally though, a hard drive with bad blocks is considered unreliable and should be replaced. You can check this out before doing the format by running a surface scan on the iPod. Tech Tool Pro should be able to do this. You may also be able to do this with Apple's Drive Setup Utility in OS 9. If you do find bad blocks, format zeroing all data. Run the surface scan again. If you still have problems, wash, rinse, and repeat until you either have no more problems or you give up. Afterwards, reinstall the iPod OS (run the update, or restore, or whatever).

That's my ideas based on my limited experience with the iPods. I hope it helps. If not, maybe you can get another broken iPod with a different problem (for cheap) and try switching out parts.

[Detrius]

One final idea... the iPod software/hardware may block access to certain areas of the drive. I'm not certain about the details of this, but in one way or another, you should be able to connect the drive to your computer without using the iPod itself. It may be compact flash or something; I don't know. But if you find the drive is bad through this method, you could format, zeroing all data, and maybe that will clear things up. If it makes things worse, at least you have a tiny portable 10GB drive, right?

[garrettnelson]

Well, I tried that [note that it required su capabilities to execute the mount command.] So fsck tells me this:

Sartre:/Users/garrettn root# fsck -y /Volumes/iPod
/Volumes/iPod is not a character device
CONTINUE? yes

** /Volumes/iPod (NO WRITE)

CANNOT READ: BLK 16
CONTINUE? yes

THE FOLLOWING DISK SECTORS COULD NOT BE READ: 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,
ioctl (GCINFO): Inappropriate ioctl for device
fsck: /Volumes/iPod: can't read disk label

Hmmm? Anyhow, I did take the thing apart earlier when I was trying to diagnose it. The hard drive isn't flash, it's an actual hard drive, but the connector seems to be some proprietary mini-connector; I don't know that it would work in anything else.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by garrettnelson:
Well, I tried that [note that it required su capabilities to execute the mount command.] So fsck tells me this:




Hmmm? Anyhow, I did take the thing apart earlier when I was trying to diagnose it. The hard drive isn't flash, it's an actual hard drive, but the connector seems to be some proprietary mini-connector; I don't know that it would work in anything else.

Hmmm... Well, Apple in general doesn't recommend using fsck unless nothing else is available (at least that's what's in the tech training info).

Don't know what else to recommend. Check google--see if anyone else has any info on swapping parts out.