Diagnostics Test: Please plug FW?

I did the DFU restore and tried to break up the transfers...

What happened was... after the first transfer, when I tried to sync again (with a larger amount of GB) the ipod couldn`t sync again.

It just said 'if u are experiencing problems with iPod you can restore its original settings by clicking restore IPod.

I've read through the entire thread and here are my stats. I guess these reallocs and pending sectors are way too high to even think about bringing my iPod back to life, right? 😕

Retracts: 24
Reallocs: 8024
Pending Sectors: 8352
PowerOn Hours: 245
Start/Stops: 23207
Temp: Current 29c
Temp: Min 10c
Temp: Max 55c

I've tried restoring it 7 times now and each time things get better. The first two times it wouldn't even detect. The next three it started to sync but would crash during the process, and the last two times it claimed to do a full sync (which took 24+ hours by the way!), but once I unplugged it, no songs were playable on the ipod, even though the iPod menu says 90GBs were in use!

Any idea what to do?😕

It's very confusing. Just now I used disk utility to repair the disk and even erase the HD and everything was good. I got back into iTunes to do a full restore, I put a couple of songs manually onto the ipod, and ejected. But the iPod self-restarted/reset, so it's back to square one.

I just don't understand how the computer and disc utility can read it yet syncing and putting music on the thing is the issue. If the HD is completely fried, why does my computer still read it?

The 8,000+ reallocations and 8,000+ pendings says that the drive has become unstable. Some clusters can be written to and read back successfully, presumably enough that the initial folder structures on a reformatted drive can be read without error. However the device will fall over as soon as it tries to read back data from an unreliable cluster. If all pending sectors could be mapped out, and there were no further failures, then the device could be usable again. As I understand it drives that support reallocation have a preset amount of space set aside for the task. I'd be surprised if that number is going to exceed 16,000 clusters.

tt2

Thanks for the helpfl info turingtest2! I'm planning on buying a used one and am meeting with that person this afternoon.

I'm going to run the diagnostic on it before buying. Could you tell me an approximate numer of reallocs/pendings I should look out for? What test should I run for battery life and what numbers should I look for? Since any Classic you buy second hand from now on is basically on it's last hurrah and YMMV, I'm trying to find parameters so the thing will last me a year or two. Thanks a million!

None pending and reallocs in the low hundreds would probably be acceptable. No idea how you would test battery life, but I've done several battery and headphone jack & hold switch replacements so that wouldn't necessarily be a concern.

tt2

I think I'm having a very similar problem to KaeSun. I've got a 120GB Silver iPod Classic, And I cant get it to show up on my computer.

I've run the diagnostics, save for the obvious exception ("Insert non-existent FW please"), my hard drive seems ok (results copied below), but the USB detect says 0 and flashes 1, like a blinking lightbulb. I tried nearly every port on my computer (2 that do the blinking, 1 stays 0), and every cord I have. I'll also mention that my ports and cords are perfectly compatible with my other devices, I actually unplugged a 3rd (I think?) gen Ipod nano to plug in the problem iPod.

I've had this problem before, one or both of my old nano's weren't showing up in Windows. I figured the problem was that they were too old and vista just wasn't feeling it anymore, so I switched to Ubuntu, and have been running them problem free for months.

HD test results:

Retracts: 2

Reallocs: 0

Pending Sectors: 0

PowerOn Hours: 725

Start/Stops: 5435

Temp Current: 34C

Temp Min: 51C

Temp Max: 254C

Oh yeah...and those temp readings. Are they important at all? Because I'm pretty sure those are a wee bit on the screwy side.

I don't think I've ever tried to run this one on ubuntu before. So you think the problem is with the ipods software or settings or something? If I got my hands on some windows, what could I do to get it to work with my computer?

As given the stats look fine. Pretty much all my advice on getting iTunes working properly is in that user tip I linked to. If you have a 64-bit system the one thing that is worth a try is installing the "for older video cards" version. It seems to be more reliable with non-iOS devices.

tt2

Hello !

First of all, Thanks for all this amazing work till now ! 😀

I need some advice: I have exactly 16376 Reallocs on my Ipod which never really felt (with) gravity (lol).
What should I do ?
My option are to change myself the drive, find a new ipod classic 160Gb and that it's ?

Thanks in advance !

NB: I made a windows format and still 16376 :/

Just want to say thanks to everyone in the thread. Finding the diags and running the IO test on it's own helped me out quite a bit. Unfortunately, out of warranty they pretty much want the cost of the ipod to replace it, so I'll have to look for a HD repair shop near me. sigh.

Johnmc Boston wrote:

Interesting I have 16376 as well Which is pretty close to 2^14. I wonder if there's a 16b max on reallocs, then it doesn't try any more???

Yes, that is the case. It has used up all the space reserved for reallocations. The drive is toast.

tt2

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with flash replacement drives in iPods, but it isn't that surprising that SMART isn't supported since it is a feature of physical drives. Flash memory shouldn't suffer the same kind of faults.

tt2

Have you opened up the iPod again, since this problem started? Because the adapter is physically smaller and thinner than original hard drive, it can come partially loose from internal connector. The SD card can also come loose from the adapter's socket, which may be more likely. It's still connected, so it works sometimes, but not reliably.

This happened to me with my older gen "classic" iPod (uses different adapter). After working fine for a while, it started to skip songs continuously. After a reset (restart), it worked initially, but then the problem recurred. Eventually, it gave me the error screen when reset. I opened it up; the adapter was obviously not fully connected to internal connector. I reconnected it firmly, added additional padding to discourage a recurrence, and it's been fine since then.

I have opened it in fact, because someone from iFlash suggested that I test the SD card with a program called F3X, which basically tests if the SD card is in fact legit and for any errors, and naturally I had to remove it and insert it into my MBP. Mine tested fine, which I suspected would be the result. In any case, it did not seem like there was a problem with the adapter connection and the SD card seems to be pretty secure in its socket. And as I stated already, I am able to restore it with my wife's Windows laptop and then connect it to my MBP and start to sync it... I just can't restore with my own Apple computer, which is mind-boggling. The other problem is, it won't finish the sync, unless I am doing like, one song at a time(that is an exaggeration of course, but you get my meaning) and I have a pretty sizable library, so I won't be doing it like that. Or, it will tell me as it just did, that it can't finish the sync, because it can't find the iPod. I don't know.... I guess I will try to open it again and look more closely at the connections and ensure they are secure....