Diagnostics Test: Please plug FW?

My ipod is working, but if I sync more than like... 4 gb it start`s having problems, like... not syncing and stuff... can you help me? thanks

retracts:11

reallocs:5232

pending sectors:168

poweron hours:1519

start/stops:20522

temp: current 38c

temp: min 14c

temp: max 53c

You try the the DFU restore process shown in Corrupt iPod classic to free up the pendings, then try the break up large transfers method.

tt2

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.

There may be a severly damaged area of the disk that needs to be detected and mapped out (which might take multple restore attempts) or it may have had it. 😕

tt2

I don't get what u said.. are u implying that if I keep restoring (the DFU way) I might solve this?

or should I just give up?

See the reformat drive section ofCorrupt iPod classic. Perhaps a full format, followed by a surface scan, followed by DFU restore would work, but only if there is a limited portion of the drive that is now unreliable which can be identified and ignored in future. If matters are getting worse then it is probably time to admit this unit has reached the end of its useful life.

Part of the difficulty is that problem areas of the disk are normally only detected once something has been written to and then there is an attempt to read back. When this happens with media items the device can take a number of tries to read the data, then give up and start playing the next song. If the data the device is trying to read contains a folder or part of the devices database then it is more likely to creash, either when you are playing it, or when iTunes is trying to load content.

tt2

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?😕

Sadly I think your iPod has had it. 😟

tt2

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.

As you say, apart from the temps the stats look fine. Your issue may be with the iTunes installation and the registration of the iPod Service rather than the device, particularly if you can communicate with it using Ubuntu. If it no longer works with Ubuntu either then perhaps the port is clogged/damaged resulting in the USB failure.

See Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates for advice on rebuilding iTunes.

tt2

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?