seen the firewire connection and therefore most of this document would be irrelevant for that connection type!
NOTE! – The MAC iPod Mini is slightly different (disk structure is 3 partitions instead of 2), and since I haven’t even seen a Mac iPod none of the below applies to a Mac iPod!
NOTE! – This process has been tested with a 4GB iPod Mini. Larger size Mini’s should also work since we are not specifying a size for the 2nd partition, but that is untested OK!.
Have Fun!
Problem
iPod appears nuked, only shows folder icon and ! on its LCD and is unmountable under windows? (running iPod Updater just does nothing – does not even detect the device as an ipod!)
This is likely due to complete loss of Harddisk boot sector, structure and areas.
Basics
iPod structure: (WINDOWS iPod Mini version)
Hard Disk (4GB) -> Partition 1 = 32MB for Operating System -> Partition 2 = ~4GB (4161536MB?) for User Data (FAT32 file system)
Boot sequence: (?)
Arm ARM7TDMI CPU init -> Execute ROM init and code -> Boots HD Boot Sector -> Boots HD Partition 1 (Operating System, Arm code) -> System Up!
Requirements
– iPod Mini (tested : 4GB UK model) – iPod Updater software (tested : 2005-03-23) – Resource Hacker program (v3.4.0) – Knoppix Live CD Linux v3.4 or later (other Linux versions would abviously work, I guess you need kernel 2.4.x, dd, mkfs.x, fdisk etc) – .. adventurer’s spirit hey!
The Process
Wrecker Service
Wrecker Service
Roadside Assistance
Mobile Mount Balance
Mobile Tire Repair
Wrecker Service
Tire Change
ump Start
Locked Out Assistance
Firstly, you need to extract the firmware binary file out of the iPod Updater program. Use Resource Hacker under Windows, open the iPod Updater exe file, open the FIRM folder. Now you need to open the IDR_FIRMWARE-3.2.5 folder, and then select the 1033 file. Now extract this resource as a binary file to somewhere on your local HD (eg: c:mini325.bin).
Shutdown windows.
Turn off PC.
Plug in your iPod Mini. (tested : USB connection)
Boot your PC from your Knoppix Linux Live CD.
Once Linux is up and booted, it should have mounted your local HD, probably as hda1. I would mount it manually anyway!
Open a Terminal session, get into root user with “su -“, you should have: ~Knoppix[root]$: (or something like that).
Mount your local HD
Make a local mount point directory (where you will access your local HD) mkdir /mnt/localhd
Mount your local HD: (NTFS drives, windows xp, 2000 etc) mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/localhd
Mount your local HD: (FAT32 drives, windows 98, me) mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/localhd