iPod Classic

What anti-virus package do you have, if any? Norton in particular of late has been causing issues for some people. Temporarily disabling AV may help.

tt2

Hey turingtest2,

iPod 160GB

It has randomly come up that it has only 350mb left when it should have around 75GB.

I "Manually Manage" my iPod's music and was adding an album and it kept coming up with an error-50. Now it won't play the first song of any album. My stats are

Retracts: 13

Reallocs: 32

Pending Sect:80

PowerOn Hour: 353

Start/Stops: 27409

Termp: Current 29C

Temp Min: 3C

Temp Max: 55C

Any clues on what's wrong and how to fix?

Thanks in advance!

Hey turingtest2,

I've got an iPod 160GB. Only a few years old. It has randomly come up that it has only 350mb left when it should have around 75GB.

I "Manually Manage" my iPod's music and was adding an album and it kept coming up with an error-50. Now it won't play the first song of any album. My stats are

Retracts: 13

Reallocs: 32

Pending Sect:80

PowerOn Hour: 353

Start/Stops: 27409

Termp: Current 29C

Temp Min: 3C

Temp Max: 55C

Any clues on what's wrong and how to fix?

Thanks in advance!

There is a slightly more detailed version of my old post in this thread here: Re: Corrupt iPod classic.

I would imagine your iPod shows a large amount of Other data usage. Reformatting the iPod should clean the pending sectors and reclaim the lost storage space.

tt2

You're right with the Other data usage. Reformatting = losing all my music?

Milfitch wrote:

You're right with the Other data usage. Reformatting = losing all my music?

Yes. See the recovery advice given in the first section in the linked post.

tt2

I was having issue with my ipod classic today, not sure which generation- purchased late 2008. 128GB. It's been acting up lately, pausing or skipping randomly, it will then pick up the song again for a few seconds before going to next on playlist. This has been random and intermittent. Today, it would not play at all. I could see the covers, titles, and navigate around in device, but no sound- and it would on it's own FF from song to song- no play time, just going from song to song in a matter of few seconds. I tried everything so I Google'd my problem and it led me to this blog. I followed your instructions and was able to find my stats. It appears that now after me doing this step- I am now able to play my music again. However, I thought I would post for any comments. My device is about 8 yrs old now, so it sounds like I've had awesome life from my device which has almost 11K songs on it. and over 77k start/stops.

Retracts 16

Realloc 0

Pending sector 0

Power on hours 2305

Start/Stops 77333

Temp current 33C

Temp min 1C

Temp max 54C

since it's been acting up I was thinking my HD is failing- which is probably is, however, I've definitely gotten the use from this beloved device. I've been shopping around, and see they no longer make a classic anymore- but have found on a few sites some "new" discontinued with 160GB storage. Any thoughts on ipod touch vs a discontinued classic (though new). I don't like change- and am attached to this device, but sounds like I will have to make a decision before too long as this device has lasted me twice as long and has had more than double the use of most of these devices stats I've seen on the blog.

Thanks.

The stats would appear to show the hard drive is OK. Perhaps the fast forward switch got stuck on somehow, either physically or as a software glitch.

tt2

Hello TuringTest2,

I am facing similar issue with my Ipod classic 160GB 6th gen. All of a sudden my ipod started showing "no music" and "0KB free" message. Even the Ipod is not showing up in itunes. I read your article and found followed the steps you mentioned. I am facing below problems -

1. In diagnostics mode - in the path you mentioned - Manual Test > IO > Hard drive > HDSMART , I am getting message "Error" ,select Menu to continue.

2. If I try to format ipod in windows 7, I am getting message "Windows was unable to complete the format".

3. In properties of ipod drive in windows explorer -> tools -> Error checking - I am getting message "The disk check could not be performed because Windows can't access the disk."

Could you please help me restoring my ipod further? Or is it that my ipod is not at all resuable now?

Regards,

Yayati Ekbote

Those symptoms strongly suggest a failed drive. See iPod Displays a Red "X" Icon, and iPod Service Answer Center for details of out of warranty repair/replacement cost.

See also this recent post by Kenichi Watanabe - Re: My iPod Classic 160Gb won't register in iTunes - which gives a link to a potential DIY drive replacement.

tt2

Anyone here... Wpuld appreciate input. I also have an iPod Classic 160GB.

... I just did the smart check, and the stats on diagnostic are frightening...

Retracts: 13

Reallocs: 0

Pending: 0

Poweron hrs: 281

Start/stops: 24702

Temp current: 25c

Temp minimum: 62c [uhhh.... ***... 25 IS LOWER?!?!]

And... The scariest of all...

Temp max: 249c

Uh.... Is this thing needing retirement, before it blows up and turns my home into an flaming inferno??? Or... Would a DFU Restore fix this?

I appreciate the knowledgeable feedback, in advance!

Screwy temperatures like that are probably the result a crash on the device spewing out random data to the CMOS memory before it finally stopped working. As luck would have it running really hot is one possible cause so your device might have got too hot at some point (i.e. >50c) just not that hot. A DFU restore won't reset the values. Clearly it can never have got as hot as that without breaking down. The key numbers are the 0 pendings and reallocations. Unless you've used some specialist software to reset those values that would seem to suggest that the device is in good health. Are you having problems with it right now or were you just curious and then alarmed?

tt2

Thanks for the reply & info - you made a lot of sense to me.

It is problems... The problem is that I'm trying to sync more/new music, and the new stuff won't appear. Did some searching on Google... And it sounded like that is the beginning of the end for the iPod hard drive

And, that led me here...

I'm hoping it's not the end. The only mp3 player I had that I liked better, was my old Zune... It blacked out after 5yrs or so. Got an iPod, and it was replaced by warranted after a month or two... This one has lasted about 2-3yrs... So far

If you have a subscription to Apple Music anything that comes via that is DRM protected and cannot be copied to a classic. Otherwise see the Corrupt iPod Classic user tip for some ideas. You may need to restore the device and then reload the media in batches.

tt2

You're welcome. 🙂

Best of luck with the search.

tt2