My ipod Classic 160 GB stops syncing after 30 something GBs

turingtest-you post a LOT. i salute you for all the help that you provide for others. i just gotta say that.

regarding my problem well, it's still there. i tried to do the restore. i got an error that said "can't be restored. unknown error 1430". i tried it a couple of times. i don't know if it ended up working or not but, i my music is no longer on my ipod. it's cleared out. and now, when i connect my ipod it says "cannot be synced because it cannot be read from or written to". so, i don't know what else i can do.

i have set up an appt for this afternoon for the genius bar. maybe they'll be able to figure this out. or maybe i just need to replace my ipod.

oh, and another thing. when i eject my ipod from my desktop, it will disappear. yet, no matter how long i wait after ejecting, when i pull the plug from the ipod, it gives me the warning about not properly disconnecting the ipod before removal.

See what the Genius bar has to say... It could be something terminal, though sometimes restoring on a Mac instead of Windows, or vice versa, can fix "can't restore/won't restore" problems.

tt2

hi there.

I have the same problem as some others here, the only different thing is: my statistics aren't that bad i guess:

retracts 5

reallocs 6400

Pending sectors: 32

PowerOn hours: 162

Starts/stops: 7664

Current temp: 29c

min temp= 12C

max 43C

do they look ok, or am I mistaking?

i constantly get the unknown error 50

I got this problem before about a haf year ago, but my ipod was still under warranty back then, they gave me a new one without really looking for the problem. they gave me a new one, so this one is about a half year old.

I'm a last.fm user, and i love to scrobble my songs, but when my ipod didn't want to scrobble i started looking around online and i got advised to restore. from there on, i couldn't sync my iPod anymore.

thanks in advance

A 6-month old iPod shouldn't be showing 6,400 reallocs. Every one of those represents a cluster of data that could not be read back when the time came. If an unreadable cluster forms part of a song the iPod will likely skip to the next one. If it stores part of the library the device will hang up. The 32 pending sectors are more that have been found since the last restore that reset them. 😟

tt2

Again, simiar situation.

Several months ago I noticed that my 6th gen 120 wasn't playing some of th e tracks. I really hate syncing because of all the issues I've had with different devices over the years; usually a sync is when they all kick the bucket. Anyway, I synced it, it failed, et cetera. I went through al the motions to get it back in working order to no avail. Now it won't show in Itunes or anything. So I found the diagnostic mode and saw 16000+ reallocations. It has no bad secotrs on it but the max temp read 254c. I don't think that ever happened, I mean even 254 farenheit would even be over the temp its been in. So I figured that this means that hard drive has failed because it won't complete a disk scan or anytihng (I have yet to try and reformat that hard drive; is it a 'why bother?' with 16k reallocations)

So that s Ipod one. The second one I bought tonight used off a craiglist ad, my mistake obviously. It's a 120, not sure what generation but the seller thinks 4th or 5th. When I got it I ran the diag and saw that there were NO retracts or reallocations, but 8 pending sectors.The max temp aslo read 254c and because this is only the second device I looked at the diag on, i thought maybe it was a common error. It has over 500 hours on it and 30K start stops.Attempting to sync the first time the device gave an error code 50 after about 200 songs. After several failed sync attempts it now has double digit retracts 832 reallocated sectors with 72 pending. I've tried quick formatting it. It will connect to itunes but itunes now freezes during the sync. I tried to do the format with the quick format box unticked and it just sits there (75 minutes with approximately one percent movement on the status bar in the beginning of the process then nothing.)

Ok, so there are several questions.

One: and this is most important to me because I have a HUGE library of music and would hate to destroy it knowing full well I can't find ost of it again: IS THERE ANYTHING ON MY SYSTEM THAT COULD BE CAUSING A DEVICE TO FAIL? IE my mp3's? I ran a weak algorithm I found to find bad mp3's and found some with zero data but deleted them before i used the second device I'm confident that the other 25K mp3's are fine.

Two: Could a faulty cord wreck a drive like that?

Three:Are there any specific applications htat could wreak havoc on an Ipod if they are running in the background?

Four: Is it all just a waste of time? Should I have seen the 8 pending sectors on the device I bought today and known it was a lost cause?

Five Is there anything, anything at all I can do to make either of these devices work without having to get a new hard rive and most lokely destroying the cases trying to work on them? I 'll go through all the motions agian with directions specific to me because I m not sure if I have done evertything right in getting to this point.

Also, I just located a post saying that the ipod needs to be formatted in FAT32. The only two options I have under format are NTFS and exFAT. Is this an issue?

above I typed error code 50, i meant 53. Also, Win 7.

And I forgot to mentin that when I do a scandisk on it, I tick both boxes and click Start. The box just disappears..

update: After 4 hours it did do the full slow reformat. Itunes said it was corrupted and needed to restore. I did as such. I then checked the numbers: a dozen or so retracts, 1500ish reallocs and 24 pending sectors. I'm attempting a sync now but it keeps slowing down to about a track every 3 minutes, somtimes doesn't respond. I'm nearly positive I'm going to get a error code 50 or 53, as I have received both.

It is an ex-iPod, it is no more, it has shuffled off this mortal coil, etc. etc.

Anything more than a few hundred reallocations with slow unresponsive syncs and more pending sectors on each reboot is toast. Sorry it isn't better news. 😟

And no, even a dodgy cable can't cause this corruption. This is a hardware failure on the device. The high temps are probably a result of everything in the iPod getting too hot at some point. The temperature may not be entirely accurate, but if the hardware gets too hot the behaviour of various components can become unstable leading to corruption.

tt2

Thank you tt. It isn't all the news I wanted, but some of it is. At least I know I don't have to lose all the mp3's on my computer and attempt the long to road to mp threecovery <--- I may have just coined a new phrase.

Let me shoot you this question: Do all the models that came out in late 2008 (both of these ipods have a heading in the diag mode that say august 2008) all run the same drive? the mk1231gal hdd1813. I have one of the devices open and that's the drive in it. I'm thinking I can find a Chinese ebay store where I can make an offer on two of the same drive and get a lower price. I think I can get them both for right around $100 together, but only if they are the same model. I wrecked the clip rails on one side of my case when doing so so I don't want to chance opening the other up until I have the proper tools like the ones I saw in the tutorial video on how to do so. THis is also time sensitive for me. I have OCD; not the light switch kind. THe light switch OCD is more on the compulsive end of the stick. Myself, I obsess and obsess over things until I have sever anxiety about it. This has actually cost me about 4 hours of sleep a night for the last week. I know it sounds stupid, but it's literally breaking me.

Wouldn't it be nice if Apple would get over themselves and charge a reasonable price for a new classic device, like maybe $1 a gb instead of **** near $2. A new 120 costs as much as i make in a 40 hour work week, letalone how much overtime i'd have to work to get a 160gb, letalone the fact that I only get scheduled for 30 hours anyway.

FML ....smh

I'm afraid I don't know what is inside them all, but presumably if the drive is supposed to fit your model then it should... I've fought open a couple of classics and even if you damage some of the clips when opening you should still be able squish it all back together when you're done.

An alternative approach would be to look for an iPod at a local second hand electonics or pawn shop. If you can go in and check that the stats are OK before buying then it should be a reasonable risk.

tt2

Thanks for all your help. I'm going to wait for the spudger before I open the second one up. I hadn't even considered a pawn shop. I was more concerned with trying to find a drive locally and was at a loss when I couldn't find one. I'm going to check out shops tomorrow; a spudger shortly after. In two weeks when my wife gets paid (she carries mail and makes 3 times as much as me a week DOH!) I'm going to get drives for both. They are pretty beat up but I can at least salvage the $100 I got ripped off last night and the $100 for the drives. I contacted a couple eBay stores in Hong Kong that will give me a package price on two 120gb hdd's even if they are different models. Or maybe I'll just get rid of the nicer one and have a backup device. Thank you sir.

Hi Guys, you're probably my last chance to save my IPod Classic 80gb. When I try to sync my IPod in ITunes, it syncs a couple of songs, then freezes (the device and the program) and eventually gives me the error code -53. I've tried all the steps recommended in this tread but nothing seems to work out for me. The stats of my IPod are:

Retracts: 927

Reallocs: 684

Pending Sectors: 1

Power Hours: 270

Start/Stops: 301

Temp: Current 25C

Temp: Min 15C

Temp: Max 48C

These stats don't look too bad to me, therefore I still got some slight hope.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Cheers

Try the DFU Restore method shown in Corrupt iPod classic.

Check that the pending count has cleared before trying to load up media.

tt2

Tried this, unfortunatelly the Pending Sector is still 1...