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Well, my three month old iPod classic died last night...

A couple of weeks ago, it started doing this thing where it'd play part of a song and then skip to the next one. I figured it was just bad files, because it was always the same songs, so I removed them and re-added them, and that worked.

But last night, I tried to add some new music and on the third song, it froze, and after about ten minutes iTunes popped up a box saying it couldn't access the device. Closed iTunes, unplugged the iPod and plugged it back in, and Windows pops up the "there is something wrong with this drive..." message. Re-opened iTunes, it says it's verifying the iPod, it appears to nuke everything and re-synch from scratch, but that fails after about 100 songs. I try the same thing again a few times, same results.

Also noticed that in iTunes, when I look at the device, it's got 80+ gigs labeled as music, and then another 40 gigs of "other"

Have an appointment with an Apple Genius later this morning.

cphite wrote:

Well, my three month old iPod classic died last night...

A couple of weeks ago, it started doing this thing where it'd play part of a song and then skip to the next one. I figured it was just bad files, because it was always the same songs, so I removed them and re-added them, and that worked.

But last night, I tried to add some new music and on the third song, it froze, and after about ten minutes iTunes popped up a box saying it couldn't access the device. Closed iTunes, unplugged the iPod and plugged it back in, and Windows pops up the "there is something wrong with this drive..." message. Re-opened iTunes, it says it's verifying the iPod, it appears to nuke everything and re-synch from scratch, but that fails after about 100 songs. I try the same thing again a few times, same results.

Also noticed that in iTunes, when I look at the device, it's got 80+ gigs labeled as music, and then another 40 gigs of "other"

Have an appointment with an Apple Genius later this morning.

Have to hand it to Apple... I'm not completely sold on their products, but the service is excellent.

They confirmed the drive was dead by hooking it up to one of their laptops and attempting a format, and that failed utterly; so five minutes later I had a new iPod. Whole thing took less than 30 minutes.

if you have an Apple store nearby the service is amazing... a bit of a wait sometimes, but making a booking online helps.

Arvald wrote:

if you have an Apple store nearby the service is amazing... a bit of a wait sometimes, but making a booking online helps.

Yeah, the service was pretty awesome. I'd made an appointment the night before, so there was almost no wait at all for that.

If you don't have an Apple store nearby their service is equally awesome. My wife had an iPod Touch that was less than a month away from the warranty expiring when it quit charging. They prepaid a shipping label 2 days to California, and overnighted a replacement and extended the warranty by 90 days.

I guess I just have bad luck with iPods...

The replacement iPod I got in December is now behaving strangely... it started about a week ago. Whenever I would connect it to my PC, I would get a pop-up from Windows 8 saying that there was a problem with the drive and ask if I wanted to fix it. Based on the advice of one of the nice folks at the local Apple store, I've been ignoring that - and indeed, the iPod seemed to function perfectly well.

Just yesterday, however, it started doing something else... whenever I connect it and have iTunes open, it does this "Verifying iPod..." thing, and when I try to sync something, it does the sync but then iTunes pops up a message saying that the sync failed. Syncing also seems to take a lot longer now. It still seems to function overall - can add songs, and they play just fine - but I suspect that at some point it's going to stop working.

Was wondering if anyone else has seen this sort of thing... it's an iPod classic, 160GB.

That's a drag. Is this replacement still covered by the original warranty?

I'm curious why Apple continues to stick with those HDD based units, when most of their laptops and desktops have gone the way of SSD. They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition". And while they're at it, I hope they're increasing the capacity of the iPhone 6. My 64-bit iPad and iPhone are filled to capacity with music, podcasts, and videos. I fear even 128 GB may not be enough capacity.

BIF wrote:

That's a drag. Is this replacement still covered by the original warranty?

I'm curious why Apple continues to stick with those HDD based units, when most of their laptops and desktops have gone the way of SSD. They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition". And while they're at it, I hope they're increasing the capacity of the iPhone 6. My 64-bit iPad and iPhone are filled to capacity with music, podcasts, and videos. I fear even 128 GB may not be enough capacity.

I think so... the original was bought in July.

BIF wrote:

They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition".

I'd be happy if ANYONE made a personal digital player with more than 64GB Flash capacity.

BIF wrote:

That's a drag. Is this replacement still covered by the original warranty?

I'm curious why Apple continues to stick with those HDD based units, when most of their laptops and desktops have gone the way of SSD. They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition". And while they're at it, I hope they're increasing the capacity of the iPhone 6. My 64-bit iPad and iPhone are filled to capacity with music, podcasts, and videos. I fear even 128 GB may not be enough capacity.

I bought my iPod Classic 160GB in late 2009, and Apple hasn't done a single thing in the 5 years since. It would be awesome to see a larger SSD-based version, but Apple seems to have lost all interest in the Classic. I'm almost surprised that they're still selling them. That's a shame, because the Classic is one of the few options for people with very large music collections (aside from streaming with your phone, which uses lots of data and is likely lower quality).

If it turns out that your hard drive is dead and Apple doesn't cover it, I picked up a 240GB drive which I can verify will work in your unit. You just have to get a "thick" metal backplate (from one of the dual-platter hard drive models) and do a moderately difficult swap.

Captain Ned wrote:

BIF wrote:

They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition".

I'd be happy if ANYONE made a personal digital player with more than 64GB Flash capacity.

Sandisk players have a microSDHC slot, and 128GB microSDHC cards exist. I've never needed that much capacity, but I don't think there are any issues with using one that large.

UberGerbil wrote:

I've never needed that much capacity, but I don't think there are any issues with using one that large.

My goal is to go lossless, hence the need for high capacity.

UberGerbil wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

BIF wrote:

They should consider making a 256GB "Classic iPOD: SSD Edition".

I'd be happy if ANYONE made a personal digital player with more than 64GB Flash capacity.

Sandisk players have a microSDHC slot, and 128GB microSDHC cards exist. I've never needed that much capacity, but I don't think there are any issues with using one that large.

Older models in the Clip series are known to have issues when the number of tracks gets large. Not sure if (or how) this varies by model, but I've read that 32GB is considered the practical upper limit for the Clip+ (which is what I have). I currently have a 16GB microSDHC card in it, which gives me 20GB of total capacity (it has a 4GB internal flash).

It is possible that loading 3rd party firmware could alleviate the track count limitation, but I'm reluctant to attempt this since I managed to brick my original Clip Classic trying to load Rockbox on it...

Captain Ned wrote:

UberGerbil wrote:

I've never needed that much capacity, but I don't think there are any issues with using one that large.

My goal is to go lossless, hence the need for high capacity.

One rip to rule them all, eh? I almost added that Sandisk supports Ogg (among several other formats), but I guess that's irrelevant.

just brew it! wrote:

Older models in the Clip series are known to have issues when the number of tracks gets large. Not sure if (or how) this varies by model, but I've read that 32GB is considered the practical upper limit for the Clip+ (which is what I have). I currently have a 16GB microSDHC card in it, which gives me 20GB of total capacity (it has a 4GB internal flash).

It is possible that loading 3rd party firmware could alleviate the track count limitation, but I'm reluctant to attempt this since I managed to brick my original Clip Classic trying to load Rockbox on it...

Yeah, that's why I caveated it. Realistically the limited UI (and lack of real playlist support) in the Clip means that navigation gets completely unwieldy long before capacity becomes an issue (though I guess with high-bitrate lossless you might get there). I had a Clip which I lost and then replaced with a Clip+ (nice when the same product gets better for the same price); I think the next time around I'll probably get a Fuze or Sport just to get more of a real UI (and I have more clothes with dedicated player pockets so the Clip aspect is less useful now). I was afraid Sansa was going to give up on the line now that everybody seems to be using their phones; they're plastic-y but the battery life is great and I would never get a player without an SD slot or radio.

UberGerbil wrote:

One rip to rule them all, eh?

My current Zune 64GB has about 42GB on it, all ripped to MP3 using dbPowerAmp/LAME set at max quality VBR. My old HD-based Zune 120, which bricked itself years ago, had about 75% of my current collection and was pushing 100GB using lossless WMA.

And yes, I'm one of those with aversions to iAnything. I also believe in firm separation between phone and music.

@JBI: Any idea what song count triggers the SanDisk issues? I'm at 4728 on the Zune.

The issues may just be with the Clip (and older ones at that); for a song library the size you have I'd strongly steer you towards one of the other models with more of a screen and UI, which I don't think ever had those issues. (As I said, I'm a past and current Clip owner who is headed in that direction myself).

I believe the limit is somewhere in the 6000-8000 range.

Captain Ned wrote:

My current Zune 64GB

I have a Zune HD 32GB that I absolutely love, especially when paired with Sennheiser IE 8i's. It's stuffed to the hilt with WMA lossless rips of my favorites CDs. It's starting to show it's age to the point where the battery barely survives my 2 hour-long walks. I'm looking to upgrade/replace it, and so far, the best candidates are the FiiO X3 (or maybe X5). Any other suggestions???

MSFT really blew it with support/future for the Zune HD, to the point where I don't trust them with such things as Nokia Lumia Win8.x phones.

MarkG509 wrote:

It's starting to show it's age to the point where the battery barely survives my 2 hour-long walks. I'm looking to upgrade/replace it

If you have no fear of small fiddly bits and can use a soldering iron, you can replace the battery in your Zune HD. Hell, I replaced the OLED screen in my daughter's after she found it in the garage with tread marks on it. Yes, run over and the outer glass & digitizer neither broke nor scratched, just the screen underneath. Both shells appear to be cast aluminum and the interior frame looks to be cast magnesium.

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Microsoft_Zune_HD

Once you're inside, please pay homage to the Princess. I'll let you find out about that on your own.

Captain Ned wrote:

If you have no fear

Perhaps less fear than I should. Over time, I find that the definition of "small fiddley bits" is getting ever smaller, while my definition of what's "small" is getting larger and larger.

I shall give the "Princess" her due respect - I sure hope I recognize her before I do any damage.

I've used iFixIt to upgrade a base Mac Mini (ca. 2009) to dual SSDs (including their tools and parts). Compared to that, these steps seem simple enough, but when there's women's (i.e., the Princess') feelings involved, flowers and chocolates rarely bail me out.

The quest begins...

So all this talk about music players convinced me to attempt the Rockbox firmware replacement on my Clip+, and to upgrade the microSD card. Rockbox has been around long enough now, and is allegedly stable enough, that I had reasonable confidence that it wouldn't brick the player like when I tried this this with my original Clip a few years ago.

The firmware flash went without incident. The player seems to be functional, but the UI is completely different so it will take some getting used to. I'm now copying the contents of the 16GB microSD card to a 32GB one, which I will then swap into the player.

Heh, probably should've just gone for a 64GB one since Rockbox doesn't have the limitation on number of tracks!

Been poking around exploring Rockbox, and it's quite an amazing piece of work. Feature-wise it has everything, including the kitchen sink; the user manual is over 200 pages! It's almost like my Clip+ is a whole new player now.

Fix all the annoying little bugs and limitations in the stock firmware? Check. (No more limit on total number of tracks; tag database update happens in the background instead of rendering the player inoperative for 10 minutes; bumping microSD card doesn't trigger a useless tag database update; more than 99 tracks in an "album" doesn't confuse it; etc.)

Ability to create playlists? Skinnable UI? Check to both.

Browse the music collection by folder structure *or* tags? Check. (Stock firmware could only navigate via tags...)

Full-blown parametric EQ with user-programmable presets? Check. (Massive overkill IMO, but the flexibility is there if you care to figure out how to use it and have the patience to set it up using the itty bitty screen and buttons.)

User-configurable "Car Adapter Mode"? Check. (This automatically pauses playback if USB power is interrupted, then shuts the player off if power does not return within a few minutes. Cool!)

Visualization plugins? Games? Check. (I'm not planning to install any of these given the Clip+'s tiny screen, but hey they're there if you want them. OK, maybe I'll try installing the Clip+ DOOM port just for grins. Heh.)

IMO the UI is somewhat less intuitive than the original, but that is mostly because there is SO MUCH functionality there now.

Lots of other nice touches too, like a fully functional cross-platform installation tool (Windows, Mac, and Linux); and it actually dual-boots the player, allowing you to boot into the stock firmware if you want by holding down the Home button when you power it up. Battery life is supposedly improved over the stock firmware as well, though obviously I have not had a chance to test this yet.

Crazy stuff.

Linkage: http://www.rockbox.org/

cphite wrote:

Have to hand it to Apple... I'm not completely sold on their products, but the service is excellent.

They confirmed the drive was dead by hooking it up to one of their laptops and attempting a format, and that failed utterly; so five minutes later I had a new iPod. Whole thing took less than 30 minutes.

Glad to hear their service is still top notch. 6 years ago I revamped their executive and tier 2 service to go above and beyond other manufacturers (no I'm not kidding about this). I remember one kid who found an exploit through Photo Booth that allowed admin access (the steps to do so were absolutely ingenious) . I called him up and had to get approval from his parents to send him out an appeasement. That appeasement was a Mac Pro loaded to the hilts, that retail would have retailed for 15k.


Edit: I should also add that this kid is also a part of Apple engineering now as an intern.

Deanjo wrote:

Edit: I should also add that this kid is also a part of Apple engineering now as an intern.

Talk about an offer you can't refuse ...

Captain Ned wrote:

Deanjo wrote:

Edit: I should also add that this kid is also a part of Apple engineering now as an intern.

Talk about an offer you can't refuse ...

Yeah, congrats. That's a sweet internship. Even if you end up not sticking around after graduation it'll look great on your resume.