Posted a new video – demonstrating the complete restore and sync of a 1Tb 7.5g iPod Classic.
I have done this many many times now with zero problems, so I thought this time I would make a video.
Syncing is done using iTunes 11, importantly I used the Apple Dual Firewire/USB Docking Lead, and the Apple 12V Firewire charger.
The firewire can supply enough power to the iPod while syncing that you do not have to worry about Power Loss Corruption issues which can occur while syncing mSata drive based iPods. The iPod USB Charge circuit cannot supply enough power to the mSata during syncing to stop the battery drain issues.
Equipment
- iPod Classic (7.5g 160Gb Model PC297LL)
- iFlash-Sata
- Samsung 840EVO 1Tb mSata
- Apple 12V Firewire Charger
- Apple Dual Firewire/USB Docking Lead
Stats
Tracks Sync’d: 49995 Tracks
Data Sync’d: 907Gb Transfered
Time Taken: Restore to Sync to Eject approx. 11 hours
Click on video settings to select the 1080p HD version.
Would this 1TB ipod work with iTunes 10.7? Or does it HAVE to be 11 or higher? I really don’t like the iTunes interfaces on 11 because you can’t see album artwork in high images
@David – it should not matter what version of iTunes you use. I personally use the older v11, but of course most people have updated to the latest iTunes with no issues either.
what aomei program do I use to reformat my 500 gb evo drive with red x?
Just search for AOMEI partition software – The most important thing with the EVO mSata drives is that the power down sequence completes correctly and you can only do that using an mSata-Sata enclosure, some people also have succeeded using USB3.0 enclosures.
You must shutdown the computer before removing the mSata drive, or it will stay in that red X mode.
@rolski,
Whenever you have a Sad Face or Red X with the 1TB EVO you need to remove it from the iPod and use AOMEI program to erase it and format a new FAT32 partition to it. You of course need an (mSATA to 2.5″ SATA) adapter and an available SATA port and power plug on your PC.
OK, thanks, one like this :- http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007PPZ2I8 ?
@rubeN
Or would one of these work (I have an external eSATA port) :- http://www.ebay.de/itm/like/111303069545?lpid=106&chn=ps ?
I haven’t had any red-X screens yet, it’s always been the black-and-white disk-mode screen / do not disconnect screen.
I think I might have somehow forced a re-format now & might be in business, but I think I’m going to give it a rest for tonight & start again tomorrow – let’s see what message on my iPod screen awaits me tomorrow morning !
Thanks for the help….
@rolski – the mSata – Sata you link to will be ok, not sure about the eSata port lead as that looks like it is a micro sata port. Most eSata ports I have seen will accept a normal Sata to Sata lead, and normally have either a sata power connector or ATX power connector.
The Red Cross is only on the iPod Classics, Sad face on the iPod Videos.
When you get your enclosure, I suggest running a surface scan using AOMEI, then shutdown computer before removing to re-install in to the iPod. This may save you having to resync!
I am interested in understanding how the iPod failed? So you left it playing overnight and it was sad faced in the morning? Was this left on battery power or on a usb charger?
@Tarkan
Hi, thanks for the response, I’ve ordered a mSATA to SATA board to plug into my motherboard – probably a lot more robust & saves me buying the wrong thing (cable) !
In terms of the fault, the 1TB iPod was actually working & I went out to enjoy the weather & play with my “new toy” one afternoon, but when I took it out of my bag and wanted to start to play, it started up with the sad face. I guess this means the problem could be “mechanical” – a poor connection or suchlike – but it could also be power related / triggered as it’s gone into & out of standby. So, for clarity, the problem happened when it was “under its own power”.
Then the continual reboot > sad face > disk mode > connect to usb > iPod recognised > iPod disconnects / usb device failed / usb device not recognised etc etc (while connected to the firewire & usb cable).
Different question – has anyone tried installing a SSD into the Gen3 or Gen4 iPods ?
I’ve successfully built a 500GB (Samsung 840EVO) ipod using a 30GB classic, it’s almost full & I’m using it every day – so many thanks & kudos to creating & producing the iFlash-sata !
However, I’ve also converted an 80GB classic MA450FD to 1TB (Samsung 840EVO) & am having continual problems.
First attempt resulted in an iTunes restore, and all was well. I have the firewire / split charging & usb cable, and I loaded >8000 lossless tracks, totalling >700GB.
I left the iPod running on random play overnight, connected to the power, and it was fine – and resynced the next day. Took it out to use it again & had the dreaded “sad-face” screen. Whenever I get it into disk mode and connect it to my PC I try to re-format using guiformat, but the iPod drops off the USB bus. The only way to recover it is to disconnect everything, disconnect the battery, and then start from scratch. And then the same thing happens. Once, it actually started up – the 1TB disk was recognised, iTunes sprang into life & it started syncing. After stopping / ejecting / waiting, the sad face of death again.
Now I’m stuck in this loop. Can’t get it to stay connected to my PC long enough for a format, and it won’t restart normally. Have also tried a new 850mAh battery.
Would a bigger battery help ? Any links to suitable ones ?
Do I need to remove the disk & re-format it separately ? What kind of adaptor (to USB) would I need ?
Would really appreciate some help as this was all going so well & I was going to build some more 1TB iPods for friends / colleagues !
i Have a huge problem and i hope you guys can help me out.
i am building a 1tb mod for the iPod classic 7.5 gen
i got it all installed (tarkan and Samsung 840 evo)
i turned it on and it booted up with the apple logo and then prompted me to the menu but only the hold switch was working.. the click wheel wouldn’t work the middle button wouldn’t either,
then i got the red cross….
what do i do to fix this?
every time it boots it gives me the red X?
any help would be very much appreciated!!
Tom
I have seen a number of comments about the M9126G/A *not* working with “click-wheel” iPods. This could be bad info, however. Do ANY of the split USB-Firewire dock cables work in this mSATA configuration, provided all 3 ends are connected, or are there versions that will not provide enough current?
@Macguyver – I think comments you mention are aimed at the data connection – I think only the 3g iPods could sync over Firewire as they have the Firewire data connections – the 5g/6g/7g iPods cannot sync over Firewire, but they can be powered & charged via the Firewire 12V supply.
I finally found myself an iPod dual cable. I had to get the brick and the cable separately but at least I finally have them. Things came up so I will be holding off on an msata version for a bit and hopefully the price comes down again in the mean time. My 256gb sdxc pny and Tarkan’s adapter is running like a champ. It is faster and more reliable than the original drive from the factory. Not one single error, reboot required, freeze, or anything since I put it in. It is so nice that I may just make another of them before I go for the msata extravaganza. I have a couple of iPods running hard drives I can use. I think if Tarkan makes an adapter where you can have the big battery with an sdxc I might not ever mess with the msata version.
No reports yet on the 850EVO, once Amazon UK has them I will probably get a 500Gb for my personal collection!!
Tarkan, as far as you can tell, what is the difference between the 840 and 850? Do they both use the new 3D Vertical NAND Flash?
Actually, 850EVO 500Gb has been reported as ok on the 7g and in use for the last couple of weeks with no problems.
He is using the 2000mAh battery and has achieved a MP3 runtime of 71 hours, do not have comparable data for the 840EVO so hard to tell if the power consumption is better or not.
I have a PNY 256gb sdxc version using Tarkan’s new adapter on a 5th gen 60gb iPod and it works great. I misjudged how large my collection was going to be in lossless verses my previous 320k mp3 format and am running out of room already. I am thinking of doing a 500gb msata using a Samsung drive and a 5.5 gen 80gb iPod but it seems the info I found here was with the 840 EVO. Has anyone tried the 850 EVO as they cost less than the 840 EVO? Also, where the heck do you get an Apple dual firewire/USB cable and AC box for a decent price? Amazon doesn’t have one in stock and the only one on eBay is $99! The other option is an old ipod for $55 that comes with it or purchasing the cable and power adapter separately for about the same price but without the old ipod. If I manually manage my library like I do now do I even need the dual cable? The 256gb sdxc went so smooth and easy I figured I had to have missed a problem happening somewhere but there wasn’t any. It just worked the first time with no fuss. Upgrades seldom go so smoothly.
@Chuck – When I got my firewire lead it only cost $10, there are several 3rd party available which will probably do the job as well.
No reports yet on the 850EVO, once Amazon UK has them I will probably get a 500Gb for my personal collection!!
One thing I personally noticed on the 30GB iPod Video loaded with 18,000 songs, is that it would not display (it would show a blank box) the album art after every sync up. You would need to reboot the iPod to get it to show again.
Also noticed after a sync up when I had a 160GB HD and had that many songs, I would play a song and the HD would not spin down at all.
So a lot of different problems, observations with that model with many songs.
Is that track number file size-dependent? For example, assuming a big enough hard drive could I theoretically fit 50,000 ALAC files on an upgraded 5th gen 60GB?
No, it is not file size dependent.
The real limit is the iTunes database, when that gets too big for the iPod to handle with its given RAM that is when things go strange.
This is why there is not a fixed track limit, it all depends on the meta data in your library (e.g. Artist name, album artist, track name, album name, comments, etc, etc), hence why some people exceed the limits with lower number of tracks while some people can have much higher limits.
Yeah the 30GB iPod Videos aren’t exactly the best model to do a large capacity mod since it has only 32MB RAM.
Followed same path as fightoverflight using Samsung EVO 840 500gb. If I fill the msata with music, a 5th gen 30gb iPod does not show any songs though the computer (Mac) indicates the space is utilized. Why can’t the iPod see the songs? No problem using 128gb msata (MyDigital SSD BP4). Help appreciated.
If the iPod shows 0 music with the music using the space, usually means you have exceeded the track/library size limit of the iPod – the 30Gb iPods I quote the limit as around 20000 tracks – for some people it can actually be as low as 12000 tracks or as high as 35000 tracks.
The 60Gb/80Gb iPods have higher limit of around 50000 tracks.
you’re my hero, no… my god ! 🙂
After many weeks of fine tuning, frustration, and trial and error, I finally have my iPod up and running. Here’s what I had to do to get my 1TB iPod classic to function properly.
1. Using a machine with a msata port right on the system board, (For me, this was an HP Elite 800 All-in-One machine). I downloaded AOMEI Partition Manager. Once in the program, I formatted the Samsung EVO 840 1TB msata as Fat 32, with advanced settings of SSD Alignment, 4096 bytes per sector.
2.I opened up my iPod Classic 7th Gen, unhooked the battery and installed Tarkan’s msata iFlash adapter. With the iPod screen and click wheel face down, the iFlash adapter faces out to expose the msata SSD.
I then installed the msata SSD to the iFlash adapter, reconnected the battery and placed BUT NOT SHUT the back casing onto the unit. This allows access to the 30-pin connection without shutting the case.
3.Using iTunes, I attempted to re-format. While trying to get the iPod into DFU mode, I would get a red X, indicating hardware failure. HERE WAS THE TRICK FOR ME. I then would open the iPod back up, remove the battery, and remove the SSD, the iFlash adapter, and the apple ribbon cable connecting the iFlash adapter to the logic board. After reseating these parts and reconnecting the battery, I was able to reformat the iPod like normal in iTunes.
4. When I first completed this, my iPod had a larger back housing to accommodate a larger battery. After two days, the iPod would no longer boot up and gave me just the red X again. I reopened my iPod, reseated all of the connections mentioned above, and secured the iFlash board at the top and bottom with electrical tape to the front half of the iPod.
5. Since then, (two months later) I have had no problems. I have switched the front faceplate and the back cover out a few times, changing between colors, and each time I have opened it up I have needed to reseat all of the connections as mentioned above. I may just have a delicate unit on my hands, but if you’re stuck on the red X screen, give this a try.
Thanks for your answer.
So it seems that Rockbox + mSata mods are currently not recommended for stability and data integrity.
As I really want to keep Rockbox, I believe I should rather investigate the SDXC solution. This would avoid me installing a 2000 mAh battery, but stability is much more important to me.
Do you have some recent feedback about iflash SDXC + Rockbox mods ? According to this post and your answer, the EmCore team made improvements for such a setup.
Hi!
Did you tried installing Rockbox on your iPodClassic + 1To mSata + iFlash-Sata setup ?
I am planning to buy the parts for such a setup, but I’m afraid of getting SATA errors on bootup. I know this guy created a Rockbox patch for crappy eBay mSata-to-Zif adapters, bu I’m wondering if it will work with your iFlash-sata adapter.
Thanks
@Stan – His build is an improvement, but several people have tried using that build with the 1Tb and 512Gb drives with very mixed results, the stability is no where near the original Apple OS plus the added issues of the Rockbox USB Handler being very slow and possibly causing filesystem corruption makes things worse.
I have spoke to one of the EmCore Developers a few times and worked with him on resolving some issues around the CF/SD cards, maybe he will be up for investigating issues around mSata drives.
Never mind, my computer has a different style FireWire connector.
Most computers do not supply Power on the firewire ports – especially the ones which have the mini firewire connector.
Do you need to have a FireWire power brick or can you plug it in an iMac that has a FireWire port on it? Would it supply the same power?
Just a suggestion: instead of using the dual Firewire/USB cable, maybe you can use the usual USB cable connected to the Pc through a *powered* USB hub with a suitable power supply (2A should be easy to find).
Has this been tried already?
No that will not work – the USB charge circuit within the iPod is only capable of supplying 400mA, regardless of the USB port capabilities.