Mounting and formatting Ipod in Knoppix?


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Thread: Mounting and formatting Ipod in Knoppix?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    217

    Mounting and formatting Ipod in Knoppix?

    My Ipod is giving me the exclamation mark + folder icon. I can't reset it, etc.. tried everything with no luck. I hear no sounds (HD clicking, etc) from the Ipod. A long time ago before I had this problem, I came across a thread (it wasn't on this forum) that showed how to fix my problem using Knoppix. Basically mounting and/or just formatting the Ipod HD and than going into Windows and using Ipod updater to build the Ipod file structure again.

    I am currently on a Windows box because my laptop died. I have Knoppix but I can not find that thread.. what exactly can I do about the Ipod? Windows detects it as a mass USB storage device but that's about as far as it goes, nothing is showed under My Computer and Ipod Updater can't mount it.

    Plugging the Ipod into my computer via Firewire seems to charge the battery and says 'OK to disconnect' -- The battery does not get charged while connected via USB or to a wall outlet. Not sure what this means.

    (Oh and I am not going to pay a penny to get this fixed, plus my warranty expired.)

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Calgary, Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    8,116
    is it creating a device node in /dev? (hint "dmesg" will tell you what is isn't happening when you plug it in)

    if it is, then you can use mkfs.vfat to format the iPod.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    217
    Went into Knoppix 3.7 (which was sort of broken, I think the disk is bad. I was unable to get into KDE but got a terminal. Anyway..) I plugged the Ipod into a USB 2.0 port and checked dmesg..

    usb.c: New USB device 00:02-10, assigned address 2
    usb-control/bulk_msg: timeout
    usb.c: Device not accepting new address=2 (error=-10)

    ... and it keeps trying to assign diff addresses, Ipod keeps refusing them.

    If I try to mount it (mount -t auto /dev/sda /mnt/blah), I get invalid/bad device block and dmesg gives me..

    Device set offline, not ready or command failed after bus reset
    sda: READ CAPACITY FAILED
    sda: Sense not available
    sda: Unable to read partition table

    Later on I was getting...

    USB mass storage device found at 7
    sdb: Unit Not Ready error=0x10000

    I tried to recall most of the errors, being that I was only in a terminal + no net access I could not copy and paste. The Firewire port gives similar results. Is there any hope?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Zurich, Switzerland
    Posts
    2,657
    Sounds bad, yes. However, you are blaming your Knoppix CD, so does it work with a regular install or a different LiveCD? BTW, it's a good idea to verify LiveCDs after the burning is done.

    "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    1

    knoppix and the iPod

    Had a friend that had the same trouble... not very tech savy but he was the one with iPod and willing to let me try installing iPodLinux... long story short, his was a 4th gen. and the windows installer (several different versions...) as well as the hardcore format and extract your own firmware wound up putting it into the same cycle described at the top of this thread. I found your thread through google, unfortunately didn't help but in the right direction. My friend booted knoppix, started sshd and I remoted in. After a little more research it appears that the UB driver loaded by knoppix wasn't compatible with the iPod so I (note: as root): "modprobe -r ub" and just to be safe "modprobe -r usb_storage". No errors, so I reloaded the usb_storage driver (reported to work...) "modprobe usb_storage". Once I did this the device was assigned to /dev/sda and fdisk and other utils accessed it fine. Anyway, hope this helps someone. On a strange side-note, the partitions were strange, no sda1 device and linux 32M was sda2 and the iPod was the remaining -8M free space on sda3 and flagged bootable? Didn't look sensible but maybe that's part of the whole problem to start with...

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    217
    I was actually going to sell the Ipod on Ebay as scrap parts. Thanks for the reply, I'll try these things when I get back home, which won't be for a few months.

    If anyone has resolved this problem, or can add further, it would be appreciated, thanks.

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