- Joined
- Aug 24, 2009
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- 55
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- SE London, UK
- Your Mac's Specs
- MacBook Pro Retina 13", iMac G4, eMac G4, PowerMac G5, iBook G3, Mac Mini G4, iPod Classic, iPadAir2
Hi guys,
So I bought a second hand iPod Classic 160GB. Model is A1238 which I believe is 7th gen 2009 model?
I connected it up to my MacBook and it caused iTunes to crash. Had a Google and found a few suggestions and I've since determined that I'm pretty sure the supplied cable is not performing correctly. I've got a spare cable from my old iPhone 4S which seems to perform much better so I've been using that, but I think I have inadvertently broken the partition table.
I followed a guide on how to re-format and restore your iPod Classic using Disk Utility, but the version in the screenshots had no mention of partition table types as it was from an older Mac OS X. I'm running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.5. It gave me an option of GUID, MBR or APM. I just accepted the default and been having problems ever since.
Now my question is, what type of partition table should I be using with the iPod if I wanted to primarily use it with a Windows machine? As much as I'd like to use my MacBook for syncing my iPod, it only has a 256GB SSD and, as you can imagine from my interest in a 160GB iPod, I have a **** of a lot of music. My library is stored primarily on my Windows 10-based desktop PC, so I'd like to use this to sync up ideally.
Through my many struggles, one thing I did manage to do was using my PC, boot up into a gParted LiveCD and create a new partition table. I select an MBR, and formatted a FAT32 partition. Before hand, I was finding that most of the time the iPod would not read the hard drive. It was just showing 0KB used, 0KB free. After doing this MBR and formatting it FAT32, the iPod was now recognising 148GB which is about the correct formatted capacity... however, when plugging the iPod into the Mac, it just mounted a FAT32 partition as a drive and iTunes (v. 12.4.0.119) wouldn't even flinch. If I plugged it into my PC, it would also mount it as an external drive and it would cause iTunes to crash when I opened it. It essentially has turned it into a crappy portable hard drive.
A while later I found a post somewhere, can't remember where now, where someone had posted the output of some Terminal command showing that their iPod Nano was partitioned with an APM table... so back into gParted I go. A quick look online I found gParted refers to APM as simply "mac"... so I create a new partition table in "mac" format, format the drive HFS+ and it quite happily does it. Boot it back up, 148GB free. Plug it into my MacBook, "Welcome to your new iPod!"
Success! I sync some music and off it goes. All working fine... however, if I dare go back into gParted and reformat the HFS+ partition to FAT32... the iPod goes back to having 0KB used, 0KB free again! It just can't seem to read FAT32 on an APM table... but iTunes doesn't recognise it as an iPod if I use MBR with FAT32...
Is there a specific partition map I need to setup in order to get it working FAT32? Or as I can get it working HFS+, is there a way I can get Windows to read it HFS+ formatted? My only need for it in FAT32 is so that I can sync it with Windows. If I can get Windows to read HFS+, then I'm happy with that.
Restore on iTunes for some reason doesn't work. Sometimes I get a 1439 error (on Windows) and sometimes I get an error saying the iPod is busy (on Mac).
Thanks,
Mike.
So I bought a second hand iPod Classic 160GB. Model is A1238 which I believe is 7th gen 2009 model?
I connected it up to my MacBook and it caused iTunes to crash. Had a Google and found a few suggestions and I've since determined that I'm pretty sure the supplied cable is not performing correctly. I've got a spare cable from my old iPhone 4S which seems to perform much better so I've been using that, but I think I have inadvertently broken the partition table.
I followed a guide on how to re-format and restore your iPod Classic using Disk Utility, but the version in the screenshots had no mention of partition table types as it was from an older Mac OS X. I'm running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.5. It gave me an option of GUID, MBR or APM. I just accepted the default and been having problems ever since.
Now my question is, what type of partition table should I be using with the iPod if I wanted to primarily use it with a Windows machine? As much as I'd like to use my MacBook for syncing my iPod, it only has a 256GB SSD and, as you can imagine from my interest in a 160GB iPod, I have a **** of a lot of music. My library is stored primarily on my Windows 10-based desktop PC, so I'd like to use this to sync up ideally.
Through my many struggles, one thing I did manage to do was using my PC, boot up into a gParted LiveCD and create a new partition table. I select an MBR, and formatted a FAT32 partition. Before hand, I was finding that most of the time the iPod would not read the hard drive. It was just showing 0KB used, 0KB free. After doing this MBR and formatting it FAT32, the iPod was now recognising 148GB which is about the correct formatted capacity... however, when plugging the iPod into the Mac, it just mounted a FAT32 partition as a drive and iTunes (v. 12.4.0.119) wouldn't even flinch. If I plugged it into my PC, it would also mount it as an external drive and it would cause iTunes to crash when I opened it. It essentially has turned it into a crappy portable hard drive.
A while later I found a post somewhere, can't remember where now, where someone had posted the output of some Terminal command showing that their iPod Nano was partitioned with an APM table... so back into gParted I go. A quick look online I found gParted refers to APM as simply "mac"... so I create a new partition table in "mac" format, format the drive HFS+ and it quite happily does it. Boot it back up, 148GB free. Plug it into my MacBook, "Welcome to your new iPod!"
Success! I sync some music and off it goes. All working fine... however, if I dare go back into gParted and reformat the HFS+ partition to FAT32... the iPod goes back to having 0KB used, 0KB free again! It just can't seem to read FAT32 on an APM table... but iTunes doesn't recognise it as an iPod if I use MBR with FAT32...
Is there a specific partition map I need to setup in order to get it working FAT32? Or as I can get it working HFS+, is there a way I can get Windows to read it HFS+ formatted? My only need for it in FAT32 is so that I can sync it with Windows. If I can get Windows to read HFS+, then I'm happy with that.
Restore on iTunes for some reason doesn't work. Sometimes I get a 1439 error (on Windows) and sometimes I get an error saying the iPod is busy (on Mac).
Thanks,
Mike.