Okay, my iPod is very old... but I do not want to change it! I am convinced I can give it a fourth life!

Today, it started acting very weirdly: I was playing songs, and between songs, he always decided to go for a 5 minutes break... and some times, he took this break right in the middle of the song.
I then decided to change of artist. It loaded the play-list fine, but somehow, the album art wasn't the good one. And of course, the music wouldn't start... ever!
So I plugged it into my PC, saw it wasn't detected, unplugged it... and then it kind of auto-formated itself: no more music. However, when I'd go under "Settings", I'd see "0 Kb free", and -all- the space was used by the category "Other" (there's also Game, Music, Films, etc.). I suspect it somehow decided to move all my music into a new folder or something, thus not considering it as music anymore, but simply as raw data.
Note: Even before it'd bug today, it'd show it had no space free. However, I can't remember if it was labelling the music as taking all the space. What I am sure, though, is that I only have 37 Gb worth of songs... so there's no way I could fill my 80 Gb.

The first time it had broken a bit similarly (without the space-usage weirdness), all I had to do was to connect my iPod, back-up all the files of the disc on my desktop, delete them from iPod's disc, and copy back my back-up. Somehow, it completely repaired the thing. This was years ago.
Second time, it'd not should the space-usage weirdness either, but it'd have some 1-minute-long breaks from times to times. All I had to do was plug my iPod, and format it disc. This happened some months ago. After this format, I left the iPod plugged in, put all my music back in it, and unplugged it. From there on, my iPod would never be recognized by my computer.

Now... well... I'm wondering how I could play within the disc if it isn't even detected by my computer! D:
I plug it in, and the only breach of hope I see is the fact that in the explorer, the disc "K:\" appears. However, (double-left or single-right) clicking it freezes the explorer. And usually, it should have a black iPod icon; as it is right now, it just shows the same icon as the other empty discs that my computer always detected for no reason (because none are plugged in... I believe): E, F, G, H, I.
I believe before my last format, the disc-letter associated to my iPod was "J".

plug it in while you're in dos and format it. Then do yourself a favor and put rockbox on it.

It won't work on his iPod Classic. (Or maybe it does?)


Perhaps iPodLinux could be an alternative (If you're looking for an alternative in the first place...) Nvm, it looks like their website doesn't even work. (It's not even listed on google.)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 20 2011, 5:31 pm by Apos. Reason: Scratched

I had already tried to go in 'cmd' and type "format k:"... it only asked me to plug something in and then to press Enter.

see if it is detected in bios/boot menu as a bootable item. If it is you can format it from dos or boot into a linux shell and format it there.

If you can't detect it, then you need a new hard drive. Try http://www.iresq.com/



Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 20 2011, 9:00 pm by rockz.

How?

ultimte boot cd lets you boot into DOS.

I don't know how to know if it is detected as a bootable item, not how to boot in DOS.

Open up bios and/or the boot menu. It's usually del, esc, f1, f2, f8, f10, f11, or f12. The post screen should tell you which one is the boot menu. If you see your ipod, you can probably boot into dos with a windows xp cd (use the recovery console) or boot into linux and that might detect it.

Connected my iPod to the very old laptop of my father which had an old version of iTunes. After a while, somehow, it detected my iPod. I was then able to perform the format!
/currently adding my 5k songs to this "new iPod".

Let's hope he can live through the next year or so: not being able to listen to my music while I'm away would affect me quite a lot.