[clug] iPod shuffle issues

[Michael Carden]

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:00 pm, David Collett wrote:
<snip>
> To test the hw itself, you could try some reads and writes without using
> the filesystem driver at all eg.
</snip>

Hmmm. Tried various things with dd. Tried dosfsck. Tried fdisk -l. No joy. It 
keeps being spat out. Here's an excerpt from /var/log/messages triggered by 
an attempt to write to the device:

Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, 
driver = 08 
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: 
sense key Not Ready
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, 
disk size 1GB.  
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: sda: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel:  /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: I/O 
error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel:  unable to read partition table
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: Device not ready.  Make sure there is a disc 
in the drive.
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Jun 30 19:21:40 localhost kernel: Device not ready.  Make sure there is a disc 
in the drive.

For what it's worth, here's what /proc/bus/usb/devices has to say about it:

T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#=  5 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  2
P:  Vendor=05ac ProdID=1300 Rev=10.01
S:  Manufacturer=Apple
S:  Product=iPod            
S:  SerialNumber=000A2700103352D5
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms
C:  #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 2 Atr=80 MxPwr=100mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms

The puzzle to me is that I have tried a couple of shuffles. Both work fine 
under Windows. Both behave equally badly on several Linux machines via 
several kernels. The shuffle seems to be a little different from the other 
iPods in that it appears to use just one partition for control and files (at 
least when formatted as vfat via a Windows machine).

On a 2.6 kernel Ubuntu box today, I opened a terminal with tail 
-f /var/log/messages and plugged in a shuffle. Errors scrolled continuously 
and I wasn't even trying to use the thing.

Still, on occasion, when the wind is in the right direction, I have plugged 
into my Debian unstable 2.4.27 machine, mounted the shuffle and copied 100 
meg of data to it. I have always had to stop copying when the kernel log 
announces 'Filesystem panic - mounting read only' and the copy fails with 'no 
room left on device.'

Thanks for the advice so far though.

MC