iPod Corrupted catalog? How to reset? (It knows not its contents)

Factual Questions
1

How do I prompt a rebuild of the catalog on the iPod, so it knows what it’s got on it? Or, failing that, how do I get it to reformat so I can start over?

I’m a “manual add” person, not a “synch with iTunes on Computer” person. I’m on a MacOS X box and the iPod is a 60 gig Photo iPod, in case any of that matters.

Was adding another 690 MB or so of fresh tracks to the iPod tonight. Progress bar came to a dead halt in mid-track about 3/4 of the way through. Had to force-quit iTunes, and then on relaunch it showed maybe 6 tracks only of what I’d been copying; I went to delete them from the root level (clicking “iPod” in iTunes, finding the tracks, select, hit delete key, confirm), went to the new playlist to try again and all of the same 6 tracks were still showing there. Deleted them from the playlist, then went back to the root and damn, they were still present at the root level. Went back to playlist, yep still there. Quit iTunes, clicked on the iPod icon in the Finder and did Command-E to unmount, it said iPod was currently in use and could not be ejected. Shut down Mac and unhooked iPod.

Held iPod up, red ø “do not disconnect” on LCD went away, replaced with normal iPod menu, but when I went to Playlists, there were none except “On The Go”. Went to Albums: empty. Artists: empty. Songs: empty. Rebooted Mac, plugged iPod cradle into FireWire again, put iPod in cradle, it mounted on Desktop, launched iTunes. Hello, songs. Yes, all playlists show up just fine. Select a track at random, hit the play button in iTunes, yep, song plays just fine. Quit iTunes. Cmd-E the iPod, lift iPod out of cradle, ø changes to iPod menu, went to Albums: empty; Artists: empty; Playlists: empty; Songs: empty.

WTF?

I’ve got all the music that goes on the iPod backed up to a drive; I can, if necessary, create the playlists all over and drag/copy all the music over again, but it doesn’t currently let me delete what’s on there and doesn’t recognize what’s on there.

Something I should do? Prior to and/or instead of taking it back to the place I (recently) bought it (i.e., under warranty) and saying “Gimme one that works”, that is?

2

Here’s a quick guide to reset it:
Resetting iPod (with dock connector)
Most problems with iPod can be solved by resetting it.
To reset iPod:
1 Connect iPod to a power outlet using the iPod Power Adapter.
2 Toggle the Hold switch on and off (set it to Hold, then turn it off again).
3 Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons for at least 5 seconds, until the
Apple logo appears.

If Your iPod Won’t Turn On or Respond
• Make sure the Hold switch is off.
• If you’re using the iPod Remote, make sure the remote’s Hold switch is off.
• If that doesn’t work, connect iPod to the iPod Power Adapter and connect the
adapter to a working electrical outlet. Your iPod battery may need to be recharged.
• If that doesn’t work, your iPod may need to be reset (see above).

3

Wow, cool! Yes, that worked! (the first routine you explained)
Is there a word for what went wrong and/or what you just had me do? I feel like I just fixed a case of terminal cancer by dancing around doing the hokey-pokey.

Thanks. My girlfriend, whose iPod it actually is, is looking much happier already. (All our music and playlists were right there and music is now playing as I type).

4

It’s just a reset. I’m glad it worked. Nothing worse that an expensive, shiny paperweight.

5

Something similar happened to me due to a power outage and the reset saved me too.

6

I guess I meant, “Does it rebuild the Extents file or the Catalog file, (which is the HFS+ equivalent of the FAT, i.e, the database of what’s on the disk)? Or is the ‘thing’ that gets reset some kind of flash-parameter that’s part of whatever is the equivalent of an OS, as opposed to file storage space, for the iPod itself?” i.e. what’s the “it” that’s getting reset here?

Not that I need to know in order to appreciate it :slight_smile:

7

My guess would be that it’s the firmware on the iPod that needed to be reset.

As for why, it might be due to not being disconnected properly. That’d be my guess, I’m not familiar with the Mac side of things (I almost had a G5 but never opened the box and returned it for a PC laptop), but how long was the iPod/iTunes hung up for?
As for fun, since you have a photo iPod, here’s a link to changing the graphics for “Do Not Disconnect” etc to things like .gif of Hello Kitty (or your own., of course).

And here’s the Mac software needed to do it.