iPod iPod Hard Drive Problem

[philbagg]

I have an iPod (5th generation Late 2006), 30gb.

I got a mac last year, and when I connected the iPod to the mac, it messed up the hard drive. The music was still on it, but I couldn't access anything from the iPod itself (it seemed like there was nothing on it), but there was 20+ gb marked as "other" in iTunes. Anyway, I connected it back to my windows computer and reset it. Ever since, it has let me put about 6gb of music on it, and if I try to put any more on, it gives me an error about not being able to write to the disk.

I'm pretty pissed that an apple computer screwed (well, screws) up my apple iPod. Yet it works fine on windows. That's over 20gb going to waste.

Anybody have an idea about what's going on?

 

[JediMeister]

When you say reset, do you mean restore? A restore SHOULD have wiped all the data, including the "Other" and freed up most of the 30 GB minus the firmware, formatting aside. Have you tried putting the iPod into disk mode and then restoring? Or putting it in Disk Mode, then formatting the drive using Windows Explorer/Disk Utility and then restoring? Unless there's something physically wrong with the drive that prevents access to anything except the 6 GB one of these should take care of the problem.

 

[philbagg]

When you say reset, do you mean restore? A restore SHOULD have wiped all the data, including the "Other" and freed up most of the 30 GB minus the firmware, formatting aside. Have you tried putting the iPod into disk mode and then restoring? Or putting it in Disk Mode, then formatting the drive using Windows Explorer/Disk Utility and then restoring? Unless there's something physically wrong with the drive that prevents access to anything except the 6 GB one of these should take care of the problem.

I'll give those a shot now, thanks for the response And yes, I meant restore (as in, from the iTunes menu - wiping the data etc.), sorry.

Before I read your reply, I did some reading and put it into diagnostic mode, then tried to run the HDRW test. Are you familiar? This site lists it as one of the options for the hard drive test:

http://www.methodshop.com/gadgets/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/index.shtml

However the only ones I found were HDSpecs and HDSMARTData.

Any idea why plugging it into a mac could've messed it up? The hard drive made all kinds of jittery noises after a while of being connected to it, but it played the tracks from the iPod for a while before it messed up.

Thanks again.

 

[philbagg]

Ok, trying to format the drive from windows explorer, and it keeps getting stuck at around 24% (which is roughly 6gb?).. Screwed hard drive?

 

[lostless]

Could be the hard drive had died. Fortunetly it's real simple to replace the hard drive. I've done to several iPod. You can try to find a hd on eBay cheap, but you can also replace it with flash memory. Amazon has a kingston 32 gig compact flash for around 75 bucks and you can buy a flash memory adaptor for around 20. Just google iPod compact flash and you should be able to find the website that sells it. I've done it to two iPods, and the gmflash memory works great.

 

[philbagg]

I'm looking at ebay at the moment, hard drives for about €22. Think I'll look into that. Thanks guys.

If anybody else thinks of anything I could try, give us a shout

 

[Habitus]

I have an iPod (5th generation Late 2006), 30gb.

I got a mac last year, and when I connected the iPod to the mac, it messed up the hard drive. The music was still on it, but I couldn't access anything from the iPod itself (it seemed like there was nothing on it), but there was 20+ gb marked as "other" in iTunes. Anyway, I connected it back to my windows computer and reset it. Ever since, it has let me put about 6gb of music on it, and if I try to put any more on, it gives me an error about not being able to write to the disk.

I'm pretty pissed that an apple computer screwed (well, screws) up my apple iPod. Yet it works fine on windows. That's over 20gb going to waste.

Anybody have an idea about what's going on?

Sounds like a failed drive. You could look to replace the hard drive, but you may find buying a used iPod a better idea.

Good luck,

Habitus