Hella corrupt iPod classic

[designgeek]

So I'm having a problem fixing my friend's 120GB iPod Classic. He says the problem started when one day he hit play and it said there are no artists, no music, etc... It now says that there's 54+ gigs of "other" on the disk.

I tried mounting it in OS X on my MBP and it actually caused iTunes to completely lock up and couldn't be reopened until the iPod was unmounted, so I couldn't do a software restore. I tried in Windows and essentially the same thing happened. iTunes locked up, for a while it said I should set up the new iPod but that took almost 20 minutes and choosing to restore didn't work at all (weird).

I want to wipe it with disk utility in OS X and restore it there and then reformat it in Windows, is that going to screw more stuff up? Should I wipe the entire disk or just the iPod image? Or should I just reformat it in Windows? This is driving me crazy because what should have been a simple restore has taken the better part of the last four hours. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[justaregularjoe]

DFU -> hard restore.

[lozanoj83]

I dont think you mean DFU mode, but rather disk mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1363

[designgeek]

Thanks for all the help, I finally got Windows to do a disk check, Disk Utility wouldn't even touch it.

The report basically stated that the file system was trashed. One more check and I was able to restore it in OS X with a windows file system. This little thing put up a hell of a fight. Seems like it wanted to be bricked...

Aside from the ability this thing had to completely lock up an entire operating system, I really like it, I think I'll get one.

[lozanoj83]

did u try disk mode?
as long as you can mount it, even as a harddrive you should be able to wipe it, unless the HD is actually physically corrupted, then its on to repair or get a new one

[designgeek]

I didn't see your post about disk mode until after I fixed it. I wish I would have though. I bet that would have made it a lot easier.

I was having trouble finding info on wiping it, IIRC there were a lot of "Don't wipe your iPod" articles when I googled it. When I tried a Verify and Repair in Disk Utility it said the volume could not be verified and thus ceased to be of any help. So it was off to the land of Windows where after two attempts to repair the disk's file system I was able to mount it in OS X and do a software restore. It's working now, finally.