alexander Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 So ok, my sister got and ipod for Christmas, its a 30 gig 5th gen ipod. Recently her HD died in her PC and i let her use my older one (933, which is still faster then her 866) under one condition of using Ubuntu as her OS, not that she had a choice, the debate would have included legality issues that noone could despute. So cool, now i am the linux transformer at my house, that is i transform perfectly bad windows users into perfectly ok linux ones. So ofcourse the question comes of how to setup my sis's ipod on her system, and this is where i had to figure out things that dont follow 99% of tutorials. Ok, first of all, i HATE AMAROK for its dependence on kmail and constant crashes due to it, which has already twice contributed to filesystem corruption on the Ipod, first time, at about 3 am (about 4 hours into figuring the ipod deal out) i figured out that you can simply remake the fs on the second partition and restart the pod, it creates most files it needs automagically, so then you turn on gtkpod, plug the ipod in, make folders and files (menu options in gtkpod), oh i should mention that that requires you to run it as root for some crazy reason, but anyways sudo gtkpod and its all magical. I figured out how to use amarok (never used it before) to upload music to the device, and taught my sis how to do it... ok, so second crash and ipod bricking second crash of amarok corrupted the itunesdb file on the ipod yet again, and at that point i was blowing up, so i remade the fs, and this time on the first partition, never even realizing it until i hit enter and the fs was made in a split second, 30 gigs, split second, yeah not good, look back at the command line, fears confirm, "mkdosfs /dev/sda1", in one word or less, and excuse my profanity, i just "****ed" up bad (screwed up does not apply well here, it my choice of words is exact).... restart Ipod, notta, error screen, and as i realize that i have to fix it, i become more and more frightened, I just "bricked" my sisters ipod and i gotta fix it fst, quick and in a hurry. ok, what to do? aah, now that's where my research skillz paid off, dont mean to brag, really... so i go to work next morning, and after work have a prosperous 3 hour western civ2 class with a professor who is passionate in that matter, cup of coffee later i cancelled my math and went to work. So, what to do:To unbrick a totally bricked ipod you need:1 totally bricked up ipod1 active apple id1 windows machine with net access1 Resource Hacker (this one for windows)1 Linux machine with dostools1 Windows scp tool (winscp works)1 Patienceand a lot of nerve - go to the apple website - just search for ipod firmware updater, yeah you want the latest version- login with your id - download the updater. remember windows can not see the ipod... for now- install the updater - now download and install resource hacker, good- now you use the hacker to open the updater executable in program files/ipod/updater_blah/updater_blah.exe- go to the firmware- go to the firmware version your ipod uses (video its 13.6.X)- save that hexdump file to the desktop- ok, connect your ipod to the linux box- dont try to mount anything, but make sure that your device is recongized usually you see something in dmesg, if not you can reset it, press menu and select keys for about 6-10 seconds, device resets, then connect it again and try it, it should work by all means...- ok, now you can mkdosfs on the right partition, and delete and remake the first partition, nofs on it- ok, now we use winscp to scp the firmware to the linux system- good, if we cat the file and | it through head you should see an apple copyright thingy there, if you dont, you dont have the right file- finally we can dd (or make a byte for byte copy) the file to the drive "dd if=firmware_file of=/dev/sda1"- ok, now we disconnect the device, and usually find out that it still does not boot, but dont think "shizer ... nein, NEIN! :(" remember now all the partitions are in order, and we have firmware confirmation on that first partition, which means, that by all means windows will be able to recognize the device as an ipod, and that gives us the ability to use the apple updater to reset the device :surprise: - sneakiness prevails, connect the ipod to windows, it should pick it up- start the updater, and set it to reset the device- let it run for like 10-15 minutes, dont diconnect the device for any reason until it is fully finished doing its thing, it may look like a freeze, but it aint, ipod reboots, reinitializes, and eventually the program becomes live again, but who cares, at this point, so does the ipod, unmount it safely and it is ready for abuse.... err, use again :gift: As the result of the actions you get yourself a newly unbricked ipod with the latest firmware update by apple..... yeah wait till you see just how frustrated i was, i'll take some pics tomorrow, if my drawing is still on the board... Oh, by no means do i guarantee this to any extent to work for anyone else, so if you follow this and screw up, its not my fault! Peace... sleepy, sleep sleep.... ZZZzzzzz...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpjg2fat Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 What The ****!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 I say buy a Sony Walkman. :surprise: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted January 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Naw, it works, just takes some patience :surprise: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GAHD Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 I say buy an MP3 player with support for flash Sticks, and a flash stick reader/writer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted January 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 aah, but those arent anywhere as cool as a video ipod..... they only play mp3s, what if i want quality, as in wav, or what if i want to see a movie or something... no GAHD, Ipod has it's advantages... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpjg2fat Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 nothing much to reply with this post BUT ive got a 60gig photo and its pretty radical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted February 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2006 video, even more radical :hihi: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erasmus00 Posted February 1, 2006 Report Share Posted February 1, 2006 aah, but those arent anywhere as cool as a video ipod..... they only play mp3s, what if i want quality, as in wav, or what if i want to see a movie or something... no GAHD, Ipod has it's advantages... Yea, but with no built in radio tuner... Plus I'm annoyed that apple cripples the ability to move songs off the ipod back to my computer. I'm consistantly annoyed with itunes in general. Ipod also has its disadvantages. -Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted February 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2006 whoever said anything about itunes, erasmus.... and your annoyance is nothing compared to what i went through while unbricking... that attatchment is a picture of exactly that (sry, my phone only has a 1.3 megapixel camera, so you'll have to forgive me for quality...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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