Restore won't complete

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Restore won't complete

I have an Ipod color 30gb w/ the grey click wheel. I want to sell it and clear all of the music and restore to factory settings.

The Ipod had been working fine, i.e. charging from the computer and the wall charger, connecting to iTunes, playing the music through the headphone jack, showed in my computer as another drive. This is all the things it should do.

I wanted to restore it to factory settings to remove my name and files as well as the music so I would not be passing on copyrighted material.

The Ipod was plugged in to iTunes and I clicked restore. The process completed on the computer and said to plug in to the wall charger. I plugged into the wall charger that had worked with this ipod before. When I plugged into the wall charger I get the icon that shows to plug in to the wall charger and it won't change. I had the ipod pluuged into the charger for about an hour and a half.

Once after multiple connects and disconnects I got a check mark saying OK to disconnect. So I plugged into the computer again and the plug in icon came back. Hard drive is a replacement of 4 months and battery is new, just put in when hard drive was replaced.

I have iTunes 10.4.1 running. I have not updated since I had problems with the 10.5 version update. iTunes would not work after that update and it took me over 2 hours to get back to normal, so I'm leary of any new update. did the restore process crash my hard drive?

Any ideas on what happened and what I can do?

Acer 690, Windows 7

Posted on Apr 3, 2012 9:03 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 6, 2012 6:11 AM in response to Jackaxe926

Is the wall charger the original charger that came with the iPod? With the 4th gen iPods, a USB connection does not provide enough current (or voltage) to complete the Restore process, although it will charge the iPod in normal use. Don't ask me why; I don't know why. A FireWire connection does, and the square white wall charger that came with the iPod does. But a third-party charger (if that's what you are using) may not.

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Answer 2

Apr 6, 2012 11:09 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Restoration not working at all. This same thing happened to me and my iPod is now dead after trying to use the restoration function in the latest and not-so-greatest iTunes version. I also used the factory cable, and my iPod is, well it was, an iPod Video 80GB, now it is a piece of trash being thrown away because iTunes killed it with patchwork software that doesn't work.

Run "Restore" at your own risk ladies and gentleman. I was having Album artwork problems, as everyone else has, and Apple states to do a factory reset on the iPod and reload music to fix. Mine is now trashed.

It contiually tries to boot up, then turns off, boots up, then turns off, .....

It went on until battery died, and when I charged it up it just started booting up and tunring off again. Now way of stopping the perpetual cycle.

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Answer 3

Apr 6, 2012 11:30 AM in response to topperdog

Or it could be a hard drive that failed... The most common failure for an iPod with a hard drive is a bad hard drive, not iTunes somehow "killing" it.

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Answer 4

Apr 6, 2012 11:47 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

I am just giving users with older iPods a warning. Retoration killed my iPod which has never had a glitch until hitting restore this morning. It wasn't the hard drive bro. I will guarentee you that. The latest iTunes release was supposed to fix bigtime problems in the sycing of iPods and iTunes. My guess is the older the model you have, the worse off you are if you have to sync it with iTunes and restore it in the near future.

I think the restoration function is marginal at best, and for people who actually take care of the products they purchase and have older models, they need to realize Apple support for their products is getting worse and worse. It is obvious in the software they release that ends up screwing people with older models of anything with Apple on it. Apple don't support their products like they used to, and they build things to last, but what is the point if you only support it in regards to software for a very short timetable.

Of course it is a bad hard drive, but who is to say that using the restoration function loaded a the factory defaults in a way that renders the hardware junk? Yeah it' s the hard drive that is bad, but the faulty restoration button in iTunes could have turned his iPod into a brick. I have had the restoration function kill a few iPods I had, and Genius's at the store could not figure out what went wrong and just said "sorry", want to buy a newer one?

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Answer 5

Jackaxe926 Author

Level 1

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Apr 6, 2012 5:29 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

The wall charger I am trying to use is a third party, but when I bought it I made sure it matched the Apple charger current which is: 5-5.5V and1000ma. I don't think thats the problem. This is the third ipod that this happened to. refer to my original post above.

I had a 4th Gen 30GB ipod made by HP. It's identical to the Apple version. I used it for over a year and then I got the sad face icon. I found that the HD failed. I bought a replacement drive and a new battery. Reassembled with the new parts and it charged to full and was back working right. Replaced all my music from iTunes and used it for a couple of months and then got an iTouch. The 30gb HP ipod was just sitting,but working.

I bought two (a 20gb and a 30gb) that were not working and with the symtoms they showed new batteries were needed. I replaced the batteries and charged them. Both ipods charge to full and powered on. I was able to see they contained music files and other stuff. I plugged in headphones and played the music just fine. I plugged into iTunes with the 20gb and a message said ipod was setup to a Mac computer and I needed to restore it to use with windows. I hit restore and BAM, number one ipod would not finish restore. Now the hard drive just clicks and will not boot or show on the computer. This was the 20gb.

I thought the HD failed, I didn't blame iTunes yet. I put the 30gb on iTunes, it was formated for Mac too, need to restore to use in windows, BAM number two ipod would not complete restore. The icon showing to plug into the wall charger comes up. I even replaced the battery again. Still would not restore.

I decided to sell the HP 30gb on Ebay. They don't like you selling ipods with music files so I went and tried to restore it to clean all of my files and music. BAM number three ipod now shows the plug into wall charger ipod.

I am really PO'd that 3 ipods are destroyed by iTunes restore. Now I'm mad at iTunes!

I have two other 20gb ipods that I got working by replacing the batteries. I will not run restore on them. I plugged into iTunes and manually removed the music. There is no music on them but the name of the ipod is not changed.

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Answer 6

Apr 6, 2012 7:47 PM in response to Jackaxe926

I just ran a Restore on my 4th gen iPod (30GB color screen), just to try it. iTunes version is 10.6.1 (the latest version). Mac OS X is Lion.

iPod was connected using USB. Restore did its thing, and ask me to disconnect iPod and connect it to an external power adapter, which I did (an Apple square white adapter). iPod started up to main screen. I connected it back to my Mac and it's syncing my library right now.

Nothing unexpected, in my case.

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Answer 7

Apr 16, 2012 2:12 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Itunes never asked to reconnect to power. Basically, the restore never completed, and my now trashed Ipod was stuck in perpetual boot up > turn off > boot up > turn off...

Even letting the ipod fully go dead, when I charge the now thrown away iPod, it went back to boot, shut down, boot, shut down. Nothing to do but wonder how a restore factory defaults can render a product as a POS.

This was my first restore factory defaults with the supposedly fixed latest release of iTunes whatever number it is now. Basically Apple said my unit was old and I should consider buying a newer one. I am sick of that comment from apple, and it reinforces my attitude that their support for older products *****, is non-existant, and iTunes is not the program it once was when it just dealt with music.

Just a warning for all you with older iPods that have been taken care of and still work flawlessly.

Only reason I even had to restore my dead iPod was due to the awful album artwork issues that have cropped up over the past year or two, and seem to never get fixed. I will put htis in the same box as the worst software ever released known by all as the Music app for the iPad, which is one of the buggiest releases that has yet to be fixed at all by Apple.

Apple hardware doesn't last like it did, and even if you take care of your very expensive toys, Apple will roll something out to force you to update it before you need to. Seems to be the norm with them now. We will see what happens when Intel is ditched for something else, and everyone enjoys the lack of support for their products they paid dearly for. I love Apple, but lately the software/support side of the company is just non-existent and the softwar side of the complany is pathetic. Final Cut is just one example of bad programming at it's finest.

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