My ipod Classic 160 GB stops syncing after 30 something GBs

Check your iPod with Diagnostics Mode

It's possible that your iPod's hard drive has started to fail. Take your iPod and place your right thumb on the centre SELECT button and your left on the top MENU button. Press down both thumbs for about 6 seconds until your iPod reboots. Immediately move your left thumb around to the rewind button |<< on the left and hold this down together with SELECT for a further 6 seconds. Your iPod should now switch into Diagnostic Boot mode. Press MENU for Manual Test, then select IO > HardDrive > HDSMARTData to reveal your stats. For comparison here are mine taken when my 6th Generation Classic was about 2 years old:

Retracts: 889
Reallocs: 12
Pending Sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 2202
Start/Stops: 894
Temp: Current 24c
Temp: Min 10c
Temp: Max 50c

Take a note of your results. When finished press SELECT & MENU for 6 seconds to reset the iPod again.

With modern disc drives sectors are no longer marked bad by a disc scan, if the SMART firmware detects a sector it has trouble accessing it will attempt to invisibly reallocate it to a spare area of the disc.

Note that I've only 12 remapped sectors and none pending. To help explain what the numbers mean here is an extract from the Wikipedia S.M.A.R.T. article:

Reallocated Sectors Count
Count of reallocated sectors. When the hard drive finds a read/write/verification error, it marks this sector as "reallocated" and transfers data to a special reserved area (spare area). This process is also known as remapping, and "reallocated" sectors are called remaps. This is why, on modern hard disks, "bad blocks" cannot be found while testing the surface – all bad blocks are hidden in reallocated sectors. However, as the number of reallocated sectors increases, the read/write speed tends to decrease. The raw value normally represents a count of the number of bad sectors that have been found and remapped. Thus, the higher the attribute value, the more sectors the drive has had to reallocate.

Pending sector count
Number of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently written or read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector (since it might be readable later); instead, the drive firmware remembers that the sector needs to be remapped, and remaps it the next time it's written.

Large numbers of Reallocs or Pending Sectors would suggest your drive is failing and that you may need to repair or replace your iPod. Check your stats after another attempt to update your iPod. If the numbers increase that again points to hard drive failure. While it won't be good news at least you'll know it isn't some random software problem and you can decide what to do next.

tt2

Try reformatting the iPod's drive from Windows, then restore again. 388 isn't that bad, but if the pending sector is in area storing the library files then the device will become unresponsive. It might get through if you try again, otherwise yes it may be time to think about replacing the device.

tt2

I am still having problems. While I didn't get the same error, music(first adding at normal speed) Is taking a long time to sync. And the music is not being added on. When I did that the Diagnostic test these are the result:

Retracts: 7

Reallocs: 1992

Pending Sectors: 120

PowerOn Hourss: 532

Start/Stops: 16763

Temp Current: 33C

Temp Min: 9C

Temp Max: 61C

I don't understand how my hard drive could be messed up when I've only had this ipod for about 2 months. Plus, (as far as i know) I wasn't given a used ipod.

Temp Max of 61 indicates the drive has got too hot at some point. It is not supposed to get above 50.Whether that is a symptom of the failure, or the cause, is not for me to say, but I think it's clear the drive is not healthy.

tt2

So, is my harddrive just done? Any hope of saving it?

Retracts: 52

Reallocs: 960

Pending Sectors: 104

PowerOn Hourss: 696

Start/Stops: 20674

Temp Current: 22C

Temp Min: 9C

Temp Max: 47C

That is my results after doing the test thing. And i did try to re- format through windows but it said it was unable to. Plz help. 😟

The large number of start/stops would suggest things aren't very hopeful. You should be able to do a low level format if you stick the device in disk mode before you connect it to a freshly rebooted computer.

tt2

tt2,

Someone replied to my question (my ipod freezes itunes and will not show up in itunes, but will in finder on my mac) linking your post about checking the diagnostics mode. So I did the diagnostics mode and got -

Retracts: 13291

Reallocs: 0

Pending Sectors: 14

Poweron hours: 2007

Start/stop: 524

Temp: current 28c

min 45c

max 253c

from reading your above post about temperature... I assume 253 max is definitely not good!! Could that be my problem?

Toasty! 👿

Does it click a lot? Those retracts look mighty high. There is an outside chance that a low level format might get those pending sectors sorted but I doubt there is much hope.

See this thread for more.

tt2

I know, super toasty!!

I'm such an idiot, I leave it in my car!! So I fried it and most likely will have to get a new one because it's only a matter of time before this one dies on me?

It does make a clicking noise a lot when it's "thinking"...

Yeah, I think that is it trying and failing to read stuff, so "retracting" the head in order to have another go. I suspect 253 is an over estimate, it probably got hot enough at some point for the processor to start issuing random instructions, nevertheless the hard drive has probably warped out of shape.

Don't leave your iPod in the car (hot or cold) and don't leave it in the sun.

tt2

Haha, you'd think that would be common sense to me! Okay thank you very much for your help! I will be on my way to Apple soon... I don't last long without music in my life.

Thanks!🙂

Good luck with the new model. 🙂

tt2