Ubuntu
rhythmbox package

How do I format my ipod under ubuntu

Asked by fleetothecleve

I have a 5th generation, 80gb ipod that is not currently formatted under any operating system and it is at it's factory settings. I would like to format it under the ubuntu OS, but I can't find any program that will let me do it. The ipod is showing on my desktop, and rhythmbox even told me it can initialize it, but when I go to do it, it just says an error occured and doesn't tell me how to correct it. I REALLY need some help with this. My ipod is a daily part of my life, so if I can't find a way to use it, then I may not be able to continue using Ubuntu, and that would upset me as well. ANY advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Tim

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Ubuntu rhythmbox Edit question
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Shahar Or (mightyiam) said : 		#1

Dear Tim,

What is the error message that you rhythmbox gives you, please?

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fleetothecleve (fleetothecleve31) said : 		#2

Hey Shahar,

The error mess is thi

UNABLE TO INITIALIZE IPOD

Problem creating iPod directory or file: '/media/disk/iPod_Control/Music'

Any ideas? Thank you for your time.

Tim

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+bug/363226

may help

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fleetothecleve (fleetothecleve31) said : 		#4

thanks actionparsnip,

I took a look at the link, and I'm not really sure if I understand where I should go from here. Is there a solution to this problem? I saw something about adding another partition to the Ipod, but I don't have a clue how to do that or how that will help my problem.

Thanks again for your time,

Tim

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Shahar Or (mightyiam) said : 		#5

Dear fleetothecleve,

Do iPods come unformatted?

Perhaps you can try formatting it with gparted if you know what you're doing.

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fleetothecleve (fleetothecleve31) said : 		#6

They do come unformatted so when people buy them they can get them to work under windows or MacOS. I reformatted mine cause I thought I could get it to format under ubuntu, but that wasn't the case.

I got gparted open, but I don't really know what I'm doing with it. Can you explain, or is this out of my league at this point?

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Shahar Or (mightyiam) said : 		#7

How about trying this software for you iPod? I think that it will format it during installation:
http://www.rockbox.org/

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kdemarest (kdemarest) said : 		#8

I have an 80GB ipod dap (digital audio player), and I tried installing rockbox (won't work, because it can't format the ipod). I also I tried using gparted to format the ipod. I probably should have known something was wrong when gparted detected /dev/sdb with 18GB of free space. When I created an ext4 partition on this device, which appears to have been the ipod (no other devices were listed except /dev/sda, my local hd), my ipod became unusable, and needed to be restored with itunes. So, I think it's safe to say that for some reason, the ipod firmware doesn't like ubuntu, and as such, ipod's such as the ipod 80GB need to be formatted on a windows or os x machine with itunes. Perhaps flash memory ipods, such as the nano, don't have this problem. But I wouldn't know, I've never had one to try.

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Cristobal Ortiz Ortiz (prangfamily) said : 		#9

i am having the exam issues and i am running ubuntu 12.10 had anyone got it to work since 2010?

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