4G won't restore

[Caius]

Hi,

Mother has a 4G 40GB iPod (B&W screen) and it recently stopped working.

It came up with the folder with exclamation mark icon, so I thought I'd just restore it. Hooked it up to her iMac and hit restore. (Using the latest updater.app), that just returns "The iPod Disk Structure is not correct" and quits.

So I tried erasing the iPod with disk utility, and that fails.

I then hooked it up to my powerbook (using a different firewire cable) and tried to erase the iPod using Disk Utility and that failed. So I tried erasing it and writing zero's to all sectors of the disk. That took about three hours then when it had a minute left it returned an error and said it failed erasing.

The iPod still just boots every time I disconnect it from either machine and shows the folder with exclamation mark icon. It comes up with "Do not Disconnect" when plugged into a machine, and I can access the Diagnostics on the iPod still.

Ran a HD scan using the diagnostic menu and it seemed to pass.

Just downloaded a fresh copy of the updater onto my powerbook and ran it. It was returning an error about "unexpected error", but I just ran it again and it returned "The iPod Disk does not have the correct structure".

Entries in console.log are as follows:
Jun 20 18:28:09 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd
Jun 20 18:30:32 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd
Jun 20 18:54:50 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd

And from the system.log:
Jun 20 18:28:09 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd
Jun 20 18:30:32 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd
Jun 20 18:54:50 iNemo12 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater.localized/iPod Updater 2005-03-23.app/Contents/Resources/UpdaterBackEnd

Anyone got any ideas before I phone apple and try to get it sent back for repair (still in warrenty)?

It also had a problem where the scroll wheel didn't used to work in the top right 'corner' sometimes. Does this sound like the hardware is failing in it?

[giskard22]

I'm not sure why you'd want to go to any more trouble with a device that clearly has issues. I mean, if it's under warranty, take advantage of the warranty and get rid of it!

From a technical standpoint, no, there's nothing else you can do. Any Mac Genius that sees the iPod Updater can't restore the unit will generally replace the iPod on the spot.

BTW, you don't even need to call Apple. Just go to http://www.apple.com/ipod

They'll take you through some troubleshooting steps (all of which you've surely already done), and then you arrange for service right on a web form.

[Caius]

Giskard, I was trying to not have to send it off to apple, but you confirm what I was thinking.

And yeah, I know about the online thing, but was still thinking of phoning them, maybe not though.

Used that form to order a few pairs of replacement earphones as I keep on breaking mine due to loud rock music.

[sk8rdi16]

iNemo Did you ever get the problem resolved? I have a 4G with the same exact problem!! It is over 6 months old and no applecare (yet). I need it for a trip this weekend. Is there a fix out there?
You can email me at pat at heidingsfelders.com

thanks!

[eridium]

I have a 3G iPod with the exact same problems as iNemo. I'm out of warranty. I've tried all of the troubleshooting steps listed by iNemo and am left with the same problem. Is there no hope for my iPod? (At least maybe I can give it to someone at the Apple store for a 10% discount?)

[giskard22]

There are companies like ipodresq.com that repair iPods. They're worth a try.

[Caius]

I sent it back to apple in the end. http://depot.info.apple.com/ipod

However my mini went belly up in the same way. My fault, I formatted it as a normal disk, and unluckily the PowerBook had a kernal panic while it was formatting.

Poking around in the hints I found this comment on This hint (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050309134113686&query=ipod+partition)

This wipes the iPod back to a clean disk totally. First run $ mount in terminal. This will display something like


/dev/disk0s5 on / (local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (local)
fdesc on /dev (union)
<volfs> on /.vol
automount -nsl [255] on /Network (automounted)
automount -fstab [259] on /automount/Servers (automounted)
automount -static [259] on /automount/static (automounted)
/dev/disk2s6 on /Volumes/External (local, nodev, nosuid)
/dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/Bobshite (local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)


My iPod is called Bobshite, so I look at the line /dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/Bobshite (local, nodev, nosuid, journaled) and see that it is /dev/disk1s3.

I then run

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdiskX


replacing /dev/rdiskX with my iPod disk. So the command I run is

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk1s3

Obviously you submit your iPod's /dev/disk etc instead of mine.

Let that run (I left mine overnight) and then run the iPod Software Updater and restore the iPod.

[idiosyncratic]

Sorry to bump this thread, but I'm having a similar problem and found this thread through a google search.

I'm not very familiar with Terminal, and would like some clarification on these steps. So, I run mount, and here's what I get:
/dev/disk1s10 on / (local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (local)
fdesc on /dev (union)
<volfs> on /.vol
automount -nsl [297] on /Network (automounted)
automount -fstab [308] on /automount/Servers (automounted)
automount -static [308] on /automount/static (automounted)
/dev/disk0s5 on /Volumes/Mac OS 9 (local)
/dev/disk2s0 on /Volumes/2096 (local, nodev, nosuid, read-only)
Should I run sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2s0? In the info you get from running mount, the last line doesn't follow the format of the example (the name of my iPod is "My iPod," not "2096"), so that sort of threw me off. I didn't want to take the risk of accidentally wiping some other disk.

Thanks in advance.

(For a bit of background to my problem, the problems started when I was updating my iPod. iTunes froze up, and I couldn't get Finder or anything else to respond. After trying to force quit, I just restarted my computer. Then, my iPod rebooted and started displaying the exclamation point error. I'm on a G4 running 10.3.9, and have a 4g 20GB with the most recent software.)