iPod iPod Mini and Seagate ST1 (ST650211CF) incompatibility

[Iron Mew]

I have an iPod mini, first generation, whose microdrive died a while ago. I happen to need a small-capacity player and I have a 5GB Seagate ST1 that I got out of a Rio Carbon a long time ago, so I stuck that in the iPod and loaded Rockbox, and it doesn't work right.

Sometimes it hangs randomly while playing, sometimes it fails to boot saying it can't find the firmware file (but connecting it to USB shows the file to be there), sometimes it panics and crashes when I start it playing, sometimes it spontaneously erases the database, or the config.cfg file, or the playlists, and a couple of times even the Rockbox main file itself (requiring a full reload). It seems the filesystem is just broken.

So I stuck an A-Data 16GB CompactFlash card in it, loaded Rockbox again, and it works flawlessly - but I need that card elsewhere, so it can't stay in the iPod.

I naturally assumed this Microdrive was on its way out, but a full four-pass read-write test with badblocks revealed zero bad sectors. And sure enough, if I create a FAT32 partition on it and use it with a card reader, everything works fine.

The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that there's some sort of incompatibility between the iPod and this particular Microdrive. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[ncc74656m]

Seems like that'd be a little too specific a question to be certain without getting another drive and testing it. It might be painful to do, but you could verify if that drive has a firmware update available for it. Also, try reformatting it with Apple's FAT for the Mini - don't recall what it's supposed to be.

Otherwise, pick up a 4-8GB CF card - they're cheap enough to still be well worth it.