iPod as Hard Disk use only

[newformula]

My 18 month old 2nd gen touchwheel iPod just croaked on me- the headphone jack has broken internally, and apple UK have asked for £160 (currently about $300) for a repair, which is ridiculous.

Anyway, I have consigned it to be used as a simple external firewire hard disk for backing up etc, (and then I have an excuse to buy a new one) and I am trying to make it appear just so- but whenever I plug it in now iTunes fires up and asks me what I want to call it, whether I want to register it etc. It also applies that ****ty iPod icon to it...

The long and the short is that I basically need a way of reducing the HD to just that- a hard disk, nothing else.

I have tried so far using disk utility to format it, which didn't work, and then formatting it again with the whole drive set to zero's- this didn't work. Any other ideas or terminal hacks I can apply?

Thanks.

 

[Nik_Doof]

iirc, isnt a iPod HDD partitioned into 2? One for firmware/software and the other is for storage? If so then iTunes/OSX is picking up that first partition, just kill it

 

[newformula]

iirc, isnt a iPod HDD partitioned into 2? One for firmware/software and the other is for storage? If so then iTunes/OSX is picking up that first partition, just kill it

kill it... iTunes you mean? yeah, could just click cancel on that registration screen that comes up when you attach a new iPod every time, but would rather not bother if possible.
kill the iPod? thats what I am trying to work out how to do. Is there a way of seeing the second partition so I can clear it? As i said before, I tried formatting with Disk utility, but no joy.

 

[Nik_Doof]

kill it... iTunes you mean? yeah, could just click cancel on that registration screen that comes up when you attach a new iPod every time, but would rather not bother if possible.
kill the iPod? thats what I am trying to work out how to do. Is there a way of seeing the second partition so I can clear it? As i said before, I tried formatting with Disk utility, but no joy.

Well i was right about the two partitions (pulled this from a ipod linux howto)

$ fdisk /dev/sda

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2431 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         1         5     40131    0  Empty
/dev/sda2   *         6      2431  19486845    b  Win95 FAT32

So i'd assume the 1st partition is Firmware... dunno how you would get rid on OSX, maybe one of the mac gods in here can help ya there

 

[Veldek]

Just tell iTunes to not start up when you plug in your iPod. You can do this somewhere in the iPod preferences in iTunes. I did the same thing and just open iTunes manually when I want it to sync.

 

[cyberjor]

Hey,
I just read the most recent MacAddict, and what you could try doing is take the hard drive out of the ipod and use it in some sort of compact flash reader. i just read an article saying that they couldn't get it to work, but in MacAddict they said it worked. I'm not sure exactly what reader they used, but i'll let you know, i just dont have the magazine with me right now.

Jordan

 

[LeeTom]

You could just let iTunes configure it, then go into the prefs and make it so iTunes doesn't open when you plug it in. It'll be just like a hard drive, without all the fuss.

Lee Tom

 

[janey]

Hey,
I just read the most recent MacAddict, and what you could try doing is take the hard drive out of the ipod and use it in some sort of compact flash reader. i just read an article saying that they couldn't get it to work, but in MacAddict they said it worked. I'm not sure exactly what reader they used, but i'll let you know, i just dont have the magazine with me right now.

Jordan

if you disassemble it right and find a c ompatible flash reader/whatever...sure~!

 

[BillClinton]

disassemble it I guess

 

[Mord]

thats an ipod mini.

has anyone got an ipod HD to work in a powerbooks pc card slot? it should work. i dont have a laptop that has a slot so i cant test with my 1st gens 5GB HD

 

[janey]

well now that i think about it, i use my old 2G iPod as an external drive, nothing more (same problem as yours, except i thought instead of repair, i might as well just get a new one)...
I just have iTunes ignore it. Not a big deal. I installed Panther on it so I can boot up from it whenever i need to Its nice.

 

[PHARAOHk]

I currently use my iPod that way. When you plug in the iPod there will be a new button on the bottom right of iTunes it's an iPod icon. Click that and you can turn off auto sync and turn on hard drive mode. Do a google search for "OS X ICONS" and you can change the iPods icon to whatever you want.

To reformat an iPod you have to use the iPod updater and choose restore or erase instead of install. Not sure but I don't think there is any other way. Let me know if that helped.