iPod Classic 160gb (3 months old), Windows "Delayed Write failed" + iTunes freeze

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iPod Classic 160gb (3 months old), Windows "Delayed Write failed" + iTunes freeze

Hello dear Apple community,

I'm here because I need your help. I'm a fervent iPod customer, had the iPod Mini, iPod Nano 1gen, iPod Touch 2gen, and then I decided to buy the iPod Classic 160gb, black version. I use Windows XP (I'm not that much into Vista or 7). I originally bought my iPod Classic in december 2010, it died due to a software error in december 2011, a few days before my warranty expired luckily. I went to an Apple store and I obtained a replacement brand new iPod Classic. I was so happy about this because I literally can't live without music (:p).

I bought a good protection for it to make sure nothing will happen anymore. But one month ago, thus only 3 months after I started using it, I had an error while syncing my music. It stated "Delayed Write Error: Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or [...]". If I remember well, I had set my iPod as "Enable disk use" in iTunes. All the data that it contained was completely erased and all the musics too. 😟

Afterwards, anytime I plugged my iPod, iTunes froze. I've been waiting over 24h but it was still stuck.

The iPod is showing "Connected" and it appears in "My Computer" as "IPOD (G:)".

I decided to reboot it by holding MENU+OK for 6 seconds -> It does restart, meanwhile iTunes unfreezes, Once restarted, iTunes freezes again.
I decided to do it the hard way, restore through DFU mode (holding MENU+OK for 30 sec) -> iTunes unfreeze, detect the iPod as "needing to be restored", restores it (the loading bar on the iPod never reaches the end btw), the iPod reboots.

- First, iTunes freezes for 20 minutes

- Then it shows the "Delayed Write error once again !

The error as it was 20 minutes ago when I tried once more through DFU mode.

- And iTunes unfreezes but doesn't recognize the iPod anymore !

The iTunes diagnostic stating "No iPod, iPhone or iPad detected", while the iPod is still plugged in and showing "Connected".

I removed iTunes, rebooted my computer, downloaded the latest iTunes version, plugged it in, same problem.
I plugged it on a friend's computer that has Windows Vista, iTunes froze there too, I restored through DFU mode. Same problem exactly.
I plugged it on a Mac computer, iTunes froze there too. Didn't try the DFU there though.
I tried with another wire (I have two, an official one and a "Belkin" one).
I tried the Apple troubleshooting assistant (that consists mainly of all the previous steps) and read the FAQ.
I called the Apple customer service of my country but the guy was completely useless "iTunes freezing? REALLY? I never heard about something similar!".... (Me: "Really? -_- You must be new here...")

That last one was funny btw because all over the internet I've seen many many many people having similar problems with iTunes freezing or the Delayed write error, but few found a solution, and these few people that found the solution appears to have done completely different things, often by doing pretty dangerous stuff that could have killed the device if failed. I couldn't find any official solution though.

How is it possible, if it occurs as often as it seems like, that Apple hasn't published a patch or some official step-by-step to fix it?

Anyway, if anyone has a suggestion, something that I haven't tried yet or a solution (who knows?), I would be soooooo happy to hear it, you can't imagine how much. 😟

Regards,

Orango.

I hope someone will answer this.

iPod classic, Windows XP, Only 3 months old

Posted on Mar 20, 2012 12:48 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

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272,749 points

Mar 20, 2012 1:06 PM in response to Orango

When in December? You may well have a 90 day warranty on the replacement device.

Can you get any information from the diagnostics mode?

tt2

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Answer 2

Orango Author

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Mar 20, 2012 1:48 PM in response to turingtest2

Hello turingtest2, thank you for the quick answer ! For the replacement warranty:

Really? I wasn't aware of that D: I got my replacement device on december 6th, 104 days ago......

For the Diagnostics mode, it looks BAD, really really really BAD :'( What does it mean? Is it pretty much dead?

Retracts: 24

Reallocs: 5352

Pending Sectors: 2064

PowerOn Hours: 139

Start/Stops: 8136

Temp: Current 33C

Temp: Min 3C

Temp: Max 56C

Anyway, I've seen one of your posts on another thread where you suggest different things.

1) "Putting the device in Disk mode and doing Properties>Tools>Error checking"

I tried (by checking only "Scan [...]"), there were two phases, at the end the iPod rebooted. Nothing else happened

2) "Remove any non-essential devices"

I'm on a laptop, there is no other USB device plugged in.

3) "Break up large file transfers"

Considering I can't even start the syncing, I can't try this 🙂

4) "Disable wite-behind caching"

On my computer, I cannot check the "Enable write caching" thing.

Note: on another site, someone said the following:

The iPod would lockup and I'd have to reset it to get it to work again. After some research I found the cause: Write Caching was disabled on my hard disks. Because iTunes tries to push as much data as possible as quickly as possible, Windows was unable to keep up, resulting in the error. Thus enable the write caching.

Note that this option was unavailable to me (grayed out), and after some research I realized it was because I had the Intel Application Accelerator installed, which turns OFF write caching and prevents you from enabling it. So after a quick uninstall of Intel Application Accelerator and a quick reboot, I was able to enable Write Caching on my hard disks, and now the error is gone and my iPod is updating as expected.

Should I try this? I don't think I have "Intel Application Accelerator" but I do have "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver".

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

272,749 points

Mar 20, 2012 3:10 PM in response to Orango

Yep dead as Monty Python's Norwegian Blue... 😟

Too many reallocs to be healty. Way too many pendings to function. And it's been over 50 deg. C at some point - operating limits are 0 to 50.

As I understand it write behind caching isn't a bad optimization, but ideally you don't want to use it with removable discs as there is the risk of "logical" corruption of the file system, i.e. files that haven't been completely written to disc. Updating an iPod involves not only writing data out to it, but reading files from it, e.g. the database and directory structures. If the drive has become flakey then it will fall over when it is unable to read data, at which point any pending write operations will also become disrupted. In other words I don't see write behind caching as a cause of the damage, but the error messages are an additonal symptom of the underlying problem.

At this point it is too late to tell what condition your refurbished iPod was in when it was given to you, but if you know, hand on heart, that you have not mistreated the device in the 3 months since it was given to you then it may well be that it wasn't that healthy to start with.

I would go back to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store again and explain that this failure so early in the life of what should have been either a new or refurbished device is not expected and see what they can do. I may be wrong about the 90 days with regard to the iPod but I know that typically warranty replacements are covered for 90 days or the remainder of the original warranty, whichever is longer. I just swapped out my iPad 2 today which happened to add 40 days onto mine.

Best of luck.

tt2

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Answer 4

Orango Author

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Mar 20, 2012 3:47 PM in response to turingtest2

Thank you for everything, tt2. Sad, but at least now I know what is going on... 😟

I'm baffled, I don't understand why there is so much Start/Stops and why the max temperature was that high. Especially when you know the device is only 3 months old. I'm going to try to get it repaired/replaced, but considering the warranty run out, I have little hope left.

If they refuse to repair it, do you think it would be worth the risk to make an attempt to remove the harddisk from the device and replace it with another toshiba harddisk? I mean, you can't do anything with it anyway, can you? Can reallocs and pending sectors spontaneously fix themselves over time? 😝

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Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

272,749 points

Mar 20, 2012 4:13 PM in response to Orango

Orango wrote:

Thank you for everything, tt2. Sad, but at least now I know what is going on... 😟

I'm baffled, I don't understand why there is so much Start/Stops and why the max temperature was that high. Especially when you know the device is only 3 months old. I'm going to try to get it repaired/replaced, but considering the warranty run out, I have little hope left.

If it was swapped out for you then I suspect the device wasn't new, but refurbished. Perhaps it slipped through the quality control that is meant to make sure that refurbs are as good as new. I would certainly argue the case, politely, that the unit was probably defective when you were given it, but that has only become apparent as you tried to put more data on it.

If they refuse to repair it, do you think it would be worth the risk to make an attempt to remove the harddisk from the device and replace it with another toshiba harddisk? I mean, you can't do anything with it anyway, can you? Can reallocs and pending sectors spontaneously fix themselves over time? 😝

You've nothing to lose by attempting to repair it. Reallocs won't repair themselves, the best you can hope for the pendings is that they turn into reallocated sectors, but you won't do that without a low-level format, and even then matters will only get worse.

tt2

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