HELP!!!! ipod refuses to sync!!!

Tukr wrote:
I NEED HELP ok so my iPod Classic (160 gb) started acting up at around 9,000 songs. the album artwork get flipped, scrambled and deleted. (its fine in iTunes) ok thats sad but now a few month later my library has grown to 11,000. mainly friends contributed to it...

That's not how it's suppose to work but I''ll leave that to you and the RIAA.

and no viruses btw. anyway, iTunes REFUSES to sync my iPod. every single time i get an error code. the last time iTunes did sync some music, and videos but when it came time to unplug the iPod this is what happens: 1. the iPod displays the 'ok to disconnect' screen. once the progress bar gets to the end, it freaks. it shows this picture of a USB cord (i think) and reboots. it might have just been from the 'ok to disconnect' page while the screen is loosing power but idk. i have done the 5r's, reinstalled iTunes 3 times, and have no more ideas. please help, i am out of warrantee (?) and have no money to buy a new ipod. Can someone please help me? Thanks for reading. i dont know how this website works so if i dont reply in the next few days or whatever, my email is <removed>. THANK YOU!

Your iPod probably needs restoring. This will wipe out all the current content and replace it with that in your library.

N.b. Never a good idea to leave your email address on a public website. I'll ask the hosts to remove it.

tt2

OK, if restoring isn't cutting it then let's start by checking the health of the drive...

*Check your iPod with Diagnostics Mode*
It's possible that your iPod's hard drive has started to fail. Take your iPod and place your right thumb on the centre SELECT button and your left on the top MENU button. Press down both thumbs for about 6 seconds until your iPod reboots. Immediately move your left thumb around to the rewind button |<< on the left and hold this down together with SELECT for a further 6 seconds. Your iPod should now switch into Diagnostic Boot mode. Press MENU for *Manual Test*, then select *IO > HardDrive > HDSMARTData* to reveal your stats. For comparison here are mine for my 2 year old 6th Generation Classic:

Retracts: 889
Reallocs: 12
Pending Sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 2202
Start/Stops: 894
Temp: Current 24c
Temp: Min 10c
Temp: Max 50c

Take a note of your results. When finished press *SELECT & MENU* for 6 seconds to reset the iPod again.

With modern disc drives sectors are no longer marked bad by a disc scan, if the SMART firmware detects a sector it has trouble accessing it will attempt to invisibly reallocate it to a spare area of the disc.

Note that I've only 12 remapped sectors and none pending. To help explain what the numbers mean here is an extract from the Wikipedia S.M.A.R.T. article:

*Reallocated Sectors Count*
Count of reallocated sectors. When the hard drive finds a read/write/verification error, it marks this sector as "reallocated" and transfers data to a special reserved area (spare area). This process is also known as remapping, and "reallocated" sectors are called remaps. This is why, on modern hard disks, "bad blocks" cannot be found while testing the surface – all bad blocks are hidden in reallocated sectors. However, as the number of reallocated sectors increases, the read/write speed tends to decrease. The raw value normally represents a count of the number of bad sectors that have been found and remapped. Thus, the higher the attribute value, the more sectors the drive has had to reallocate.

*Pending sector count*
Number of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently written or read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector (since it might be readable later); instead, the drive firmware remembers that the sector needs to be remapped, and remaps it the next time it's written.

Large numbers of Reallocs or Pending Sectors would suggest your drive is failing and that you may need to repair or replace your iPod. Check your stats after another attempt to update your iPod. If the numbers increase that again points to hard drive failure. While it won't be good news at least you'll know it isn't some random software problem and you can decide what to do next.

If the drive checks out OK then perhaps something else is interfering with communications between iTunes and the iPod. A few things to try out...
- Change the the drive letter assigned to the iPod on connection.
- Exclude the iPod's drive & the iTunes source folder from anti-virus scanning.
- Check the health of the drive holding the media.
- Try a different cable.
- Try a different computer.

tt2

retracts: 27997 ?!? Did you tie it to a jack hammer?

Give it a full format via Windows. The iTunes "restore" process may not be allowing the pending sectors to be reallocated.

tt2

Basically I'm recommending the approach given here: http://www.methodshop.com/gadgets/ipodsupport/erase/

Perhaps iTunes or something else is preventing Windows from getting exclusive access to the drive, or if Windows "knows" the drive is "dirty" (i.e. has crashed during a write operation) then it might not want to format the drive until it has been checked. The pending sectors listed are only those that have already been recognized, there may be more.

Any hard drive based device has a limited tolerance for shocks but its hard to know how much is too much. Gentle jogging should be alright but pogoing is probably a bad move.

tt2

Two other tips that might have relevance...

*Break up large transfers*
In iTunes select the menu item *File... New Smart Playlist*. Change the first drop-down box to Playlist, the next to is and the next to Music. Tick against *Limit to*, type in say 10, then change the drop-down to GB, and set the last drop-down to artist. When you click OK you can enter a name for the playlist, e.g. Transfer. Now sync this playlist to your iPod rather than your entire library. When the sync is complete modify the rule ( *File... Edit playlist* ) to increase the size by your chosen amount, then sync and repeat. You can experiment with different size increments, if it doesn't work just choose something a bit smaller until it works each time. Before long you should have all your music on your iPod. Once that's done you can move on to other media such as podcasts, videos, photos, playlists etc.

*Disable write-behind caching* (Might not apply to newer versions of Windows)
It might help to disable write-behind caching if currently enabled. It could be that when you eject the iPod, iTunes decides it's finished and asks for the device to be disconnected when Windows still has data to write to the disk.

Right-click on your iPod in *My Computer* and select Properties and then the tab that says Hardware. Highlight the selection that says *Apple iPod USB Device* and select Properties. Under the tab that says Policies make sure that *Optimize for quick removal* is checked.

Alternatively this registry hack appears to let you disable write-behind caching across the entire file system.

tt2

😟

tt2