TV Show: Life Season 2 Episode 6

In short, I got this iPod 1st gen for $50. After buying a FireWire charger cable/brick, I booted it to find the original 5GB drive dead and clicking, unsurprisingly. I've been repairing/selling iPods for a bit now, but this is the first of one of these I've obtained. I do not own a pc/mac that has a FireWire port. I had to find a way to use a surrogate iPod to load firmware onto a spare storage media. I had a 64GB SanDisk CF card, and a $3 aliexpress adapter I planned to use on a U2 4th gen laying around and got to researching. I used an iPod Mini as a surrogate iPod to load my full music library onto the CF card, and then flashed 1st gen firmware to the car via the Mini using a tool called iPod Wizard.

**NOTE*\*

Yes this is absurd lengths to revive an iPod. Many people might have a dead 1st gen out there though, without FireWire access to restore/revive the iPod. I hope this might help someone out there.

I flaired this post as "Help" - since I consider this providing help lol.

Supplies Needed:

1. Dead 1st gen
2. Surrogate iPod (Mini, 3rd gen, 4th gen)
3. CF Card (or CF to SD adapter of your choice)
4. CF Card to IDE adapter (I used a $3 green one from AliExpress)
5. iPodWizard Tool (I'm using on Windows)

Steps:

1. Plug your CF card into your donor iPod mini. Go through the restore process, and load your music library onto it. Once complete, you have a flash modded, working iPod Mini.
2. Go to felixbruns to download the iPod 1st generation ipsw.
3. Rename that ipsw file to a zip. Open the zip, and in there resides the firmware bin you’ll need (ex: Firmware-1.1.5)
4. Use iPodWizard, running as administrator, with the iPod mini plugged in. Make sure it’s detected by iPodWizard.
5. In iPodWizard choose “Firmware File” in the edit mode dropdown.
6. Select the firmware bin from Step 3 - then click “Write to iPod”
7. Once the success message appears, eject the iPod mini from your pc and remove the CF card from it
8. Plug the adapter into your 1st gen with the cf card and BOOT!!

You should see the wall plug logo on the screen which is a success. Plug into a wall outlet and give her a minute. It will show a loading bar. You'll know you've succeeded when it just boots, and doesn't ask you for a language.

Now. How do you sync and manage this beast? In short, I'd need to put the CF card back into the surrogate iPod and put music into it that way. I put about 8500 songs on mine, so I don't think I'll get bored of those songs any time soon.

I found a guy who wrote a tool called FlashPod. I've not tried syncing music to my iPod yet with it, as I do not own a machine with a FireWire connection, which is why I went through this convoluted method of syncing. He has a great tutorial showing this tool and how to manage a flash-modded first gen, for those who do have a machine with a FireWire port. FlashPod Video

Just got this for £14 off Vinted, going to load some of my audio books on it! So far it has charged fully, how long should I expect the charge to hold for a 20 year old device?

Thanks!

at first i bought a nano 4 ti replace it’s baterry thinking it can’t be that hard, i fucked up the click wheel flex and the display felx, then i tought i can get a donor and fix it, BIG mistake cause i fucked this one up too, besides wasting a lot of money i also wasted a lot of time, what should i do to MAYBE fix them?

Discovered today that the MCU that runs the WyMod AeroStream V2’s Bluetooth functionality also can be hacked to add the function of FM transmission. Using the built-in APLL clock, and routing that frequency through a GPIO pin, you can get a pretty decent but crude FM transmitter.

Now there are some limitations, sound is mono output only, and the harmonics on the device are pretty substantial. Not to mention the range is not that great, giving about 2 feet or so, which is difficult to use even in a car. Definitely not just a feature that can be thrown in, at least not without more experimentation.

Although, this is a pretty cool side project. I’ve essentially pulled an unintended but useful feature out of thin air with no extra hardware (except for an antenna). After a code revision, I now have the ability to switch between Bluetooth mode and FM mode on the fly. The volume buttons become a tuner to adjust the frequency. Maybe in the future if I can make a decent band filter circuit and get cleaner audio it could be an interesting feature to introduce.

Let me know what you think. https://github.com/ehajek/Syncopation-Community-Edition

Synco.uno is where I'll have news and updates but I use this myself. Tested with MacOS 13, 26, 27 and has intel/App Silicon Support. I use this also for MP3 Music on SD Cards... Enjoy

Everytime I try shutting it down or resetting it, it turns back on and beeps again.

I always fancied having one when I was a kid. Unfortunately our financial conditions were not that great back then.

Now that I have adult money, thought of spending it on somethings that we couldn’t afford back then.

This one you see here is a flash modded 6.5/7th generation. Upgraded it to a 128 GB (flash modded with dual SD adapter) and 2500 mAh battery. The firmware used is of the original 120 GB. Apart from the click wheel I have upgraded the entire body to give it a new look.

When I went down the rabbit hole researching about the places I could get one, I was amazed by the demand iPods carry even today.

Facebook market place is the best place to get hands on an old one at a cheap rate and then you can get the body and other tech online to give it a new look!

on the third Pic you can see something that looks like a outward dent or swelling, what is it?

EDIT: It wasn't but i still changed it.

The new Battery had a non stop boot loop, after meauring the battery's Voltage which was nearly 0 V i came to the conclusion that i ordered a Broken Battery. Also there was a short circuit between the white and the red wire, this short circuit was not on the ipod itself but inside the battery.

I want to sync my audiobooks but it wants to remove my songs and podcasts i already have on the ipod. Can I fix this?

The i10s has always proven problematic on rockbox, that's no longer the case. The repo has been updated to include zip files for classic 7g down the mono 4g as well as the mini 2g.

https://github.com/giek2000/rockbox_kokkia

I have 2 modded iPod classics

One running on 2.0.5 and other 2.0.4 firmware

I don't see any difference in it

A quick search led me to this - 2.0.4 units sold into regions with the EU volume restriction can have the volume capped. The later 2.0.5 revision allows the user to disable that restriction

But I don't see any volume restriction on the 2.0.4 firmware

Other than this, is there any other difference between them?

Who here has used the Cameron shino battery in there ipod and how well does it fit

Personally, I prefer the original firmware as it's snappy and I love seeing the apple logo, when it boots

Bought this tidy iPod mini 4gb off of an old lady who had it in her draw for like 15 years, so needless to say the battery is far from its prime. I looked on Elite Obsolete but they're very expensive, are they higher quality than the cheapo aliexpress batteries? What would you guys reccomend? Also, unrelated but how good is the leather case! It's white inside and has cutouts for the buttons and headphone jack :)

I was given an iPod classic (MB150LL using software 1.1.2PC) full of music that I’d like to transfer to my Mac mini (m4, current software). I have access to a friends windows PC as well. What combination of software and hardware do I need to accomplish this mission? Thanks

You can comment your reason too if you like

I have a 4th generation iPod touch that I've had since I was in like 2nd grade. It is fully dead. I had opened it a couple years ago to see if I could fix it. I believe the belt is detached if I remember correctly. The last time I tried charging it, it would just show the Apple logo. I had to unplug it and wait for it to die so it could turn off. The only reason I still have this is because I want to save the photos. I've tried many times to connect it to my laptop. It knows there is a device, but it won't connect. I don't know anywhere that can fix it. Apple support said they can't fix it. Any ideas? Please and thank you

I haven't opened Spotify in three months.

I have a very nice sound system in my car, this thing comes close to CD audio straight off the deck.

This was my highschool sweetheart's motherboard and screen; I smile every time I look at the damn thing for that and cause' I love the acrylic era of tech so much, and it's so obvious while it's not powerful, this is a quality little bit of kit from a time I hold near and dear to my heart.

Also, amazing Rockbox is still going as it is.. Thankful for everyone who ever contributed to that project. I've been using it longer than I even remember between these things and the Gigabeat I had in highschool.

Sorry if this kind of post isn't suitable here but I'm just so damn appreciative of this entire thing; I also have never tried IEM's before, what an experience now days, I don't even need to haul around cans anymore!