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iPod "problem"

shadowfax

shadowfax

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 6, 2002
5,849
0
Houston, TX
so my iPod has been playing music today, plugged into my dock and stereo. i unplugged it a few minutes ago, and then i plugged it into my computer to sync it. when i plugged it in, suddenly the screen went blank and had the apple logo in the middle, then proceeded to start what looks like a disk check. there is an animation of a CD spinning in the middle with a magnifying glass over it, and a progress bar under that. i have not seen this before, and the progress is extremely slow. does anyone know what the hell this is?

[edit]as a side note, this seems as much a hardware as software issue, so whatever... [/edit]
 
Maybe your system is checking all hard drives and thinks the ipod is one of those drives? Total guess on that so take it with salt.

Try doing it all again and see if you have the problem show up again.
 
Originally posted by Billicus
Doesn't it do something like that when it's updating the Software on the iPod?
Click to expand...
i dunno, but this looked like some kind of disk check. it took it about 40 minutes, and at the end there was a check mark by the disk, then it restarted, and for the second time in a row i have lost my %#@$ing play counts that should have been updated with this sync. this is so stupid.

edit: that was weird; it updated once and didn't change my play counts, so i did it again, and it did this time.... so that's nice, i guess. but this whole disk check-whatever thing seems odd. as a side note to the disk check, it was totally the ipod doing it by itself. i unplugged it to see if it would stop (there was no "do not disconnect" message) and it kept running the check.
 
what about resetting the ipod. (not restore, just reset) and see what happens. Can you unmount the ipod while this is going on or do you have to wait for the process to go all the way through?
 
Originally posted by bertagert
what about resetting the ipod. (not restore, just reset) and see what happens. Can you unmount the ipod while this is going on or do you have to wait for the process to go all the way through?
Click to expand...
the ipod never mounted till the thing was done. i didn't try resetting, because i didn't want to lose my play count data that hadn't been updated. and i can't try anything now, because it's done. took 40 minutes. it's running normal now, but i am still clueless as to just what happened.
 
My ipod did this, seems like a disk check like you have to do to most disks, a fsck -y if you will. ;)

Mine did it about 4 months ago, and it's fine.
 
I have had that problem at least three times before. You can force the iPod out of those

d i a g n o s t i c
s c a n s

by trying various button combinations (center + menu, center + play, all 5 buttons etc.) and reinstalling the iPod software if the scan never ends. (I have yet to see it end with my iPod rather than having to reset it). It takes quite a bit of luck and the right combinations and method, but it can be done.
 
That's funny, this happened to me just yesterday. To get the iPod back to the point where it could play music I just reset it, but everytime I plugged it back into my computer, it would try to check the disc again.

(My solution, btw, was to plug it into my other computer where it worked just fine. Then I docked it to my work computer where it would charge, but not show up as a drive or on iTunes. I restarted the machine with the Pod still in the dock and now it's working fine.)

Problem is, Apple tells you nothing about this. I went through both my manuals and the iPod support page and got nada. When it first came up, I assumed it was a brief disc check and so just let it sit there. After 10 minutes and no real progress, however, I started to get very worried.

Even a "If you see this symbol it's just checking the disc. Don't panic." would have been nice.
 
It's good to know that I'm not the only one that ran into this problem.

I spoke to Apple today and was informed that because I didn't submit my Apple Support ticket until 1 year and 1 week after I got the iPod, it'd cost me something like $249 to have them look at it!

I can't see any of the songs that I had on the iPod either. I may have lost everything. I'm probably being punished by the RIAA for putting that one Neil Young song that I don't have intellectual property rights to on the iPod!

I'll try to run through steps suggested tonight.
 
I had the same problem after prematurely unplugging the iPod from a powerbook (my bad)... anyhow, after that I had a lot of problems with the scan, etc.

I ended up going into FW disk mode (on start, hold both outside buttons 'till you see "firewire disk mode") using disk utility to reformat and check the drive, and then putting the iPod software back on.

I'll spare you the ills I encountered when trying to update 2800 songs (hangs at around the 2500 mark) on my B/W G3 450, but learned a trick to get the bugger to update the whole library.

After that, it worked fine (still does). Sometimes the iPod acts dodgy when I use it with the connector. I don't use it anymore on the computer; only on my stereo.

I also learned to use the iPod on ONE computer with iTunes, and not on the Mac at work, school, and at my friend's house. Less problems = less frustration.

Damn apple for not including a more robust users guide... but its hard to be mad at 'em when they package their stuff so beautifully. ;-p
 
So, I ran a FirstAid with DiskUtility (came with my OSX-2.

The only irregular line that is marked red says "Overlapped extent allocation (file 16917d)".

Either way, it looks like all of the music that was on my iPod was lost. This stinks because I had a few copies of songs that I was working on stored on the IPod.

iTunes freezes now when I plug in the iPod. I guess I'll try to revert the iPod system using the installers on the iPod if it lets me.
Originally posted by caveteen
It's good to know that I'm not the only one that ran into this problem.

etc.
Click to expand...
 
HERE IS A TRICK

I have and iPod and iMac and I was having constant problems with slow transfers, weird restarting, no playback, ect. So one day I just unpluged all other firewire devices besides the iPod and everything started working perfectly. It seems the iSight I had was sucking all the bandwidth and preventing the iPod from working.
Your situations may be different and this may not apply but it worked for me..
 
Yea I had the same problem with my 15GB iPod a while back. I talked to Apple techs for a half hour or so and their only solution was to have me format and reinstall the software and all my music. To do this, you reset the Pod and then press << and >> (rewind and ff) at the same time while the Apple Logo is displayed. I did that and have not had a problem since. I was using software version 2.0.1 when this occured. That may be the only way to solve the disk check mode, but im not sure.
 
Originally posted by caveteen
It's good to know that I'm not the only one that ran into this problem.

I spoke to Apple today and was informed that because I didn't submit my Apple Support ticket until 1 year and 1 week after I got the iPod, it'd cost me something like $249 to have them look at it!

I can't see any of the songs that I had on the iPod either. I may have lost everything. I'm probably being punished by the RIAA for putting that one Neil Young song that I don't have intellectual property rights to on the iPod!

I'll try to run through steps suggested tonight.
Click to expand...
Thats alot of BS from Apple, they keep track of each serial number of each product they sell, and who it belongs to.
All they have to do is pull up your serial number and see that you have X amount of days left on your warrenty. Try asking a local Apple repair store to do this.
 
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