[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

After due deliberation on this possibility , ultimately discarding the idea. ...

Best to keep to K.I.S.S. principles - replace the HDD. Plenty of replacement 1.8" HDDs available, like http://www.ebay.com/bhp/ipod-classic-160gb-hard-drive

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

... Well , with a twist. Due to limitations of the Apple firmware , it won't recognize capacity beyond 128 GB. ...

Not sure of the source of your information, but that is not logical. Apple itself has 160GB model, no? The limitation is in terms of cylinder count and number of sectors per cylinder, but even the numbers 10 years back were large enough.

[gsurya]

Apple should just release an iPod Mini with the 128 GB from the iPhone, FM Radio, Internet Radio via iTunes, Cloud based streaming music/podcasts via iTunes, WiFi & Apple AirPlay technology; will be a killer music player that will bring back music fans like me who loved the iPod Classic.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Best to keep to K.I.S.S. principles - replace the HDD. Plenty of replacement 1.8" HDDs available, like http://www.ebay.com/bhp/ipod-classic-160gb-hard-drive

Thanks. Yes, guess need to use Apple Support till available , and then switch to DIY using HDDs unless some other solution presents itself.

Not sure of the source of your information, but that is not logical. Apple itself has 160GB model, no?

Quoting from here := It appears that the LBA28 addressing scheme is the issue. The way around as described by the seller

The iFlash iPod Adaptors
On this page you can purchase my iFlash products.
The adaptors will work in the following iPod Videos and iPod Classics –

• 5g and 5.5g (30gb, 60gb, and 80gb)
• 6g Classic (80gb Thin) ** Maximum 128Gb for iTunes
• 6.5g Classic (160gb Thick) ** Maximum 128Gb for iTunes
• 7g (120gb Thin) ** Maximum 128Gb for iTunes
• 7.5g (160gb Thin)

** iPod 6g/6.5g 80Gb/160Gb/120Gb will only show and use up to 128Gb of the mSata, SDXC or CF card. This is due to Apple Firmware using LBA28 addressing for these iPods.**
** The Apple firmware can be replaced with emCore / Rockbox which does not have this 128Gb limit for these iPods

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

... Quoting from here := It appears that the LBA28 addressing scheme is the issue. The way around as described by the seller

Makes even less sense. How on earth can Apple address 160GB through iTunes if that was a limitation? I have a 160GB one, operate through iTunes, and have about 14xGB of music on it. iTunes doesn't bother about firmware limitations and storage limit - it just tells you how much is used and how much is free (bar at the bottom). No brainer: iTunes doesn't access the device HDD directly - it is a request-response file transfer to device. If the device can't store it, it says so - and iTunes will in turn tell you so.

Looks like it is a limitation of the Tarken product, not that of Apple or iTunes.

[sk456]

CDs Dying. ( you will actually have a hard time locating a shop selling music in Delhi..could not find a single store in Singapore)
Apparently the Ipod is dying.. how do we hear music now ( now as in near future)...

Is the future bandwidth hungry lossless streaming ? QoBus, Tidal.....or a lossless Spotify ??

[venuvedam]

Originally Posted by sk456

Is the future bandwidth hungry lossless streaming ? QoBus, Tidal.....or a lossless Spotify ??

I highly doubt if that is the future we are looking at. Bandwidth caps are becoming the norm even in the western world. Also, there are now Fast lanes and slow lanes on the internet thanks to the new proposal by FCC. So streaming media content will depend a lot on whether your music provider has a business deal with your bandwidth provider.

I used to be a believer of "All Things Streaming" paradigm but given the way the world is moving towards tiered internet, I am not sure anymore.

[hserus]

Most of the fast lane slow lane bs is two things. One politics and two overly aggressive routing optimization by content providers. For eyeball networks, they're in the position of a guy operating an all you can eat, fixed price restaurant when someone like this dude walks in. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...T-minutes.html

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Best to keep to K.I.S.S. principles - replace the HDD. Plenty of replacement 1.8" HDDs available....

As I've said before, it seems like the obvious step but it's not easy to do. And this is true even more so for the last generation of iPods (80GB, 120GB and 160GB).

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by StarScream

... obvious step but it's not easy to do. ...

What difficulty do you foresee?

If my daughter can replace - unaided - the battery of her iPod, I am sure anyone can replace the kaput HDD of their iPod! There are plenty of illustrated instructions available on the 'net'.

[joybhowmik]

The limitation is in terms of cylinder count and number of sectors per cylinder, but even the numbers 10 years back were large enough.

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Makes even less sense. How on earth can Apple address 160GB through iTunes if that was a limitation? I have a 160GB one, operate through iTunes, and have about 14xGB of music on it. iTunes doesn't bother about firmware limitations and storage limit - it just tells you how much is used and how much is free (bar at the bottom). No brainer: iTunes doesn't access the device HDD directly - it is a request-response file transfer to device. If the device can't store it, it says so - and iTunes will in turn tell you so.

Looks like it is a limitation of the Tarken product, not that of Apple or iTunes.

So I did try being the postman about your question... and the reply seems to point fingers at the Apple board on the ipod. Does not help me I know, but thought to pass it along - just the same.

From me:

Hi Tarkan
A question. You mention the thick 160 GB ipod will be limited to addressing only upto 128 GB once I replace the inbuilt HDD with a 256 GB SDXC + iflash + SD-cd Adapter (assumes no Apple firmware replacement).
Is this a limitation of the iflash – the reason I ask is because how is it that the Apple firmware is able to address 148 GB (of the 160 GB disk)?

And the reply:

Because the original HDD is a CE-ATA drive and the Apple use that to determine if the iPod should use LBA48 or LBA28, if you replace the original CE-ATA HDD with a normal PATA drive the iPod will switch to LBA28.
It is not an limitation of the iFlash kit, a decision by Apple to stop people upgrading the iPod.

For clarity on both CHS (the earlier scheme) and LBA (newer scheme) here is some info from wikipedia.
48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) extends the capacity of IDE ATA/ATAPI devices beyond the limit of 137.4 GB. This limit applies to IDE ATA/ATAPI devices only and not to SCSI interface devices. The original design specification for the ATA interface only provided 28-bits with which to address the devices. This meant that a hard disk could only have a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors of 512 bytes of data thus limiting the ATA interface to a maximum of 137.4 gigabytes. With 48-bit addressing the limit is 144 petabytes (144,000,000 gigabytes).

In logical block addressing, only one number is used to address data, and each linear base address describes a single block.
The LBA scheme replaces earlier schemes which exposed the physical details of the storage device to the software of the operating system. Chief among these was the cylinder-head-sector (CHS) scheme, where blocks were addressed by means of a tuple which defined the cylinder, head, and sector at which they appeared on the hard disk. CHS did not map well to devices other than hard disks (such as tapes and networked storage), and was generally not used for them. CHS was used in early MFM and RLL drives, and both it and its successor Extended Cylinder-Head-Sector (ECHS) were used in the first ATA drives. However, current disk drives use zone bit recording, where the number of sectors per track depends on the track number. Even though the disk drive will report some CHS values as sectors per track (SPT) and heads per cylinder (HPC), they have little to do with the disk drive's true geometry.
LBA was first introduced in SCSI as an abstraction. While the drive controller still addresses data blocks by their CHS address, this information is generally not used by the SCSI device driver, the OS, filesystem code, or any applications (such as databases) that access the "raw" disk. System calls requiring block-level I/O pass LBA definitions to the storage device driver; for simple cases (where one volume maps to one physical drive), this LBA is then passed directly to the drive controller.
In redundant array of independent disks (RAID) devices and storage area networks (SANs) and where logical drives (logical unit numbers, LUNs) are composed via LUN virtualization and aggregation, LBA addressing of individual disk should be translated by a software layer to provide uniform LBA addressing for the entire storage device.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by RYP

Have you tried with FAT32 formating on your WD HDD?. Even android doesn't support NTFS file type for SD cards and USB OTG, no surprise your pioneer HU is in-compatible.

Originally Posted by nitrous

Wouldn't a USB pen drive be much more convenient ...

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

The search for a good solution continues -- i.e. with minimal disruption to my music and movie ecosystem.

Part of the way there - or so I think.
Today I tried an experiment - simulating the failure of my ipod HDD in a way w/o the investment in replacement bit.

I took the highest capacity pen-drive I own (16 GB - usable 14.7 GB, formatted FAT32), and copied 14 GB (2347 songs) into it from my media center (same one I use to sync the ipod).

I then connected it to the Pioneer HU 8490 BT. Due to my prior experience with other HUs , I was expecting this unit to offer playback of the files too.
And so when I navigated to the USB source on the touchscreen, I could see the folders as they have been copied.
After the first song started playing, the unit asked me
"Do you want to create a database of the content on this media?"
I opted for "Yes".
After a while it asks me "Do you want to save the database to the media?"
Again "Yes". At which point it warns me not to detach the faceplate or turn off the engine. I comply.
After confirmation that the database has been written to media, I am pleasantly surprised to see the HU is now offering a different way to browse the music - using "Tags". Recall that all my songs are tagged. Delighted to see that the HU's database now allows browsing the content at least by Genre, Artist, Album and Song.

Back to my laptop - I can see the HU has created a data directory at the root level under which there's a binary file named MscBrwsMU.mcb.

Need to validate if this database indeed contains and entry for each and every song. Since it's a binary file, and in Pioneer's proprietary format - I can only think of brute force validation as a way. Or I can simply trust it to get it right.

But with this tag based navigation it's at least 80% of the navigational functionality I normally use on the ipod. The remaining 20% is comprised of playlists and other cool stuff such as favorites/recently added/80s songs/songs most often played - which are essentially dynamic playlists.

The point is, if the ipod dies tomorrow, at least I have a way to navigate the music collection on the HU using a storage device which has no firmware.

Now comes the capacity constraint - If I do manage to procure a 256 GB pen drive (or even a CF or SDXC card, I think I will be able to limp along - until a new ecosystem finds favor with the masses.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

So I did try being the postman about your question ...

Ah! Well, sorry for causing a waste of your time and effort. I (like most others) wouldn't think of 'upgrading' the HDD just because it gets me more space. I would just replace the kaput HDD with one of the same size and characteristics. In such a case I don't see how and why the addressing scheme matters to me. Let me keep my thinking simple and get the piece working, in peace. I have no intention of earning a PhD in Apple internals! K.I.S.S. principle

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

What difficulty do you foresee?

If my daughter can replace - unaided - the battery of her iPod, I am sure anyone can replace the kaput HDD of their iPod! There are plenty of illustrated instructions available on the 'net'.

I didn't say it can't be done. I said its hard i.e. the case of the newer generations is very hard to open without damaging the back aluminum shell. The previous generations were easier to open. I myself have changed the battery for my wife's 30GB video iPod. That is regarded as the last of the easily openable ones.

For my 80GB I had just about loosened one side after a few days of trying before I gave up and went for the phone solution. And mind you I have all kinds of tools for the job.

Also all the videos on the net are a little misleading. They make it seem really easy and quick - it's not. And damaging the iPod is very easy. I didn't realize (and the Youtube video didn't mention it) but behind the battery of the 30GB iPod, and I guess all others, is a thin ribbon cable that controls the hold switch. I ripped it out while taking out the battery, rendering the switch useless.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by StarScream

I didn't say it can't be done. I said its hard

Agree it's very hard. Having seen friends try to open with S.S. guitar fingernails and tweezers, and getting nowhere - it's definitely not an everyday job.
I came to know from various forums, that Apple designed the ipod so it could not be opened. It's got as many as 30 metal clips, and the design has fragile components inside with very close tolerances.

Originally Posted by DerAlte

I would just replace the kaput HDD with one of the same size and characteristics.
...
Let me keep my thinking simple and get the piece working,

Agree on keeping it simple. But the point I wanted to get to, was to replace with a high capacity solid state storage device, and not have to bother about it again. But looks like the firmware forestalls this possibility as well.

[bsdbsd]

I haven't been through all the posts here, but my solution for OP is to move to cloud. I have moved all my digital needs to the cloud, be it be docs, audio or video. I dont want to have any headaches of buying and maintaining hardware anymore. My iPad 1 can stream anything I want and anywhere I want. Sorry, if my solution is not contextual. But, if you need more details, let me know.