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#1 2007-04-08 1:40 pm
Need help helping my sister w/ her 3G ipod
my sister has a 30gb 3G (row of buttons on top) ipod.. I don't know when, but every time now she plugs her ipod into the dock- itunes starts no probl.. (if not already open). her ipod shows up on the screen no problem... (on her desktop).. problem is, itunes freezes (though not to the 'not responding' red notifier in the 'force quit' menu, and the computer essentially locks up as well..
I've reset the ipod, but to no avail- can't get it to the point of being able to start the ipod restore software, as my sister's itunes 7 locks up, etc...
any ideas/help?
Thanks
Scott:o
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#2 2007-04-08 2:11 pm
Re: Need help helping my sister w/ her 3G ipod
sounds like the hard drive on the ipod is corrupted, when the finder tried to automount the disk the OS crashes (it shouldn't happen, but it does) if you can reformat the drive (in any filesystem) you should be fine and be able to use the ipod restore software
i recommend first booting off the OS X install CD, then going to the diskutility, first try to reformat it from there, if that locks up then try again, but this time instead of formatting with disk info, just do a get info on the iPod (not the partition), it should have a "Disk Identifier" of disk2 or close to that depending on how many drives are on your system, if it says something like disk2s0 (with an `s` and a number after the first number) then it means you selected a partition, so try again
once you have the Disk Identifier then you should open up the Terminal (under the same menu as the Disk Utility), now type this replacing the `disk2` with your disk identifier, this will erase the first 50MB of the drive and cause the OS to think its unformatted, after you type that press enter and it should sit there for a minute or so, and then print out some numbers meaning its done
Code:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 bs=1024k count=50
as a note, if you use the wrong disk identifier it will erase the contents of the wrong drive (at least effectively), so if your not sure then backup or don't do it
you could also go and download a Ubuntu CD, and use its disk formatter, that should have no problems reformatting the ipod, it might be a bit easier, especially if the Apple disk utility is causing a lockup when you open it with the ipod in
Also, this is a common sign that the hard drive on the ipod is failing, so you might just want to look into buying a new one
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