Appeal for ALL US iPod owners - please read

[hob]

At this time of year, it is especially noticeable that I can't hear my music on my iPod. The reason for this being that the European iPods all have a volume limit on. There's a lovely FAQ set up here.

Basically, anyone with an iPod in the US (or bought in the US at least) could you please do the following:

Connect your iPod to your Mac OS X machine. Before you do this RESET it. As you see the APPLE hold down PREV and NEXT. This will force it into Disk Mode!!!!

You must become root to change the partition map of your iPod, open the Terminal and type:

% sudo -s

Your prompt will look like: root#

Lists attached disks:

root# df

Terminal output which lists your iPod:

/dev/diskxs3 9714320 9666416 47904 99% /Volumes/<name_of_your_ipod>

(We will use x instead of the number of the disk, disk0 is normally your internal harddisk.)

First, it is time to backup your iPod:

dd if=/dev/diskx of=~/<name of outputfile>
dd if=/dev/diskxs2 of=~/<name of outputfile>

(Use the first command to backup the entire iPod and the second command to backup the firmware partition only. )

US-iPod-Owners: Please, use these commands to share the firmware without capped volume:

dd if=/dev/diskxs2 of=~/<name of outputfile>
gzip <name of outputfile>

I just need that little output file pleeeeeease!! I need volume!!

Thanks,
Hob

 

[hob]

why is no-one helping out? this really isn't too tricky... and i don't think it's illegal...!

Hob

 

[12ibookg4]

i'm not going to do all that stuff to my ipod because i'm afraid i'll do something wrong and i'll break it for nothing. why don't you try one of those programs that will boost the volume for you iPodVolumeBooster

 

[hob]

i'm not going to do all that stuff to my ipod because i'm afraid i'll do something wrong and i'll break it for nothing. why don't you try one of those programs that will boost the volume for you iPodVolumeBooster

Oh! Guess I didn't do my research properly, thanks for that - and don't worry about your ipod, I did it to mine and even canceled towards the end because i didn't have the right file but doing the basic bit you'd have had to do was easy peasy and didn't damage my iPod in any way shape or form!

Cheers

Hob

 

[garybUK]

I didn't think that the UK ipods were restricted and it was just the French ones??? or was it a general EU Rule that was passed?

 

[caveman_uk]

I think all EU ipods are limited - but yeah, blame the French!

 

[WinterMute]

I think it was just the French iPods, certainly they have laws about volume and comsumer goods, their TV's are always quiet.

I'm not sure it applies to UK machines, although I have a 2G iPod, it gets plenty loud enough....

Incidentally, using 3rd party headphones can help, my Sennheissers are much louder than the iPod earbuds.

 

[garybUK]

Incidentally, using 3rd party headphones can help, my Sennheissers are much louder than the iPod earbuds.

I agree i like quite a lot of bass in my music and the earbuds aren't too bass freindly. I have a set of Sennheisser headphones i got from richersounds, very good headphones indeed. My iPod seems to go quite load for a portable music player tbh.

 

[m.r.m.]

I think it was just the French iPods, certainly they have laws about volume and comsumer goods, their TV's are always quiet.

I'm not sure it applies to UK machines, although I have a 2G iPod, it gets plenty loud enough....

Incidentally, using 3rd party headphones can help, my Sennheissers are much louder than the iPod earbuds.

all european ipods are/were (don´t know about the 4th gen.) restricted because of the french law.

 

[Elan0204]

all european ipods are/were (don´t know about the 4th gen.) restricted because of the french law.

Instead of having to worry about sending volume limited iPods only to France, and regular iPods to the rest of Europe, Apple decided it would be easier to send the same volume limited iPods to all of Europe.

 

[hob]

Instead of having to worry about sending volume limited iPods only to France, and regular iPods to the rest of Europe, Apple decided it would be easier to send the same volume limited iPods to all of Europe.

I remember having this conversation before and it turned out that the French never even passed the law (if my memory serves me right). I don't use the white iPod buds (as much as i'd like to fit in with the iPod crowd) because i've never liked ear-buds! But even on my nice midrange Sony's it's too quiet. I'd like to actually be able to use the Sound Check feature once instead of just having everything maxed out!!

I'm gonna have to wait till my PB comes back from the shop to try out the program, how have you all found it? Any good?

Hob

 

[janey]

those directions seem safe as long as you double check what you type.

Really, i dont know whats up with people scared of using the terminal

 

[Westside guy]

those directions seem safe as long as you double check what you type.

Really, i dont know whats up with people scared of using the terminal

I think there's a very good reason for inexperienced people to be afraid of doing something like this. "dd" is not a good command with which to be learning how to use the shell. "dd" dumps data directly from the specified input to the specified output. Very useful IF you know what you're doing, but it's also quite possible to mis-type something and overwrite your hard disk's boot sector or something else equally problematic.

So if you're not conversant in the bash command line already, DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS!

 

[michaelrjohnson]

I think there's a very good reason for inexperienced people to be afraid of doing something like this. "dd" is not a good command with which to be learning how to use the shell. "dd" dumps data directly from the specified input to the specified output. Very useful IF you know what you're doing, but it's also quite possible to mis-type something and overwrite your hard disk's boot sector or something else equally problematic.

So if you're not conversant in the bash command line already, DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS!

Wise words. The terminal is safe, as long as you know what's going on.