IPod failure after update : do not panick (too much)

Question

This message is both to thank helpers on the forum that saved me from having to send my iPod to repair and to those of you who are (or about) to experience the same problem.
My profile :
40Go 4th generation iPod with 20Go music in, always handled with extreme care, used daily for 16 months (so out of warranty) without a slightest faillure, including ripping to my new computer.
PowerBook G4 under Mac OSX 10.4.6. Just to say my message won’t help PC users, sorry.
Connection Firewire or USB2.
My nightmaric experience of 2006-03-23 update.
After I had updated, I transferred a recent playlist OK onto the iPod but to my surprise read 0 playlists, artists, songs etc on the iPod screen and could not access any tracks.
Did the 5Rs several times with no success, ie different alarm signals would show (not the sad face icon though), the iPod would not connect or would refuse to disconnect or would freeze every app. on my computer which always get a bit scarying. Checked the iPod under disk utility found out several errors.
After much fiddling around and thanks to fantastic help on the forum (track these by browsing my posts), I think I can tell you now what to do if the same happens to you and help you to recover a fully functional iPod in a couple of hours. But beware that this only applies if you don’t have any physical damage of your hardware. My iPod never made the strange noises that many users report. I should add that I am absolutely convinced that it is the update that interferes with some iPod models and so just the software has to be reinitialized.
First try a 5R of course, but if this does not solve the problem (in my case it surely did not), switch to disk mode and connect your iPod. If it opens iTunes, quit iTunes and go to disk utility. First check the disk in the SOS panel. It will give you an idea of bad sectors and/or failure to complete. If the checking is OK proceed to erase with the security option « zero out data ». If the disk has bad sectors, you should first do a quick erase with the « don’t erase data » option, then check if the disk passes the check up. If yes return to erase and erase again by selecting « zero out data ». The computer will warn you that you are going to lose functions of the iPod but don’t worry, you will restore these straight afterwards. This reformatting will take maybe a couple of hours but you should see it progressing smoothly with the elapsing time moving on. After it is completed, re-check the disk once more. You are now ready to restore, and I recommend that you do it using a previous soft version, eg, 2006-01-10 for instance, not 2006-03-23 which initially caused the problem. It may freeze while restoring. Don’t panick and try restoring again. I was successful at my second go. Complete restoring, as asked on your computer, by plugging to power supply. Then enter your own settings, langage etc, and come back to your computer, go to iTunes and…
… I wish you that, a couple of minutes later, you have hundreds songs back onto your favorite music companion and that you are ready for hours of bog-free listening like I am now.
Just to end up, I’d like to thank all the helpers on the forum (Mitch, Lyssa, Jeff… and co.) who give a lot of their time to the community in avery friendly way. I am in touch with Apple so that if ever the problem happens to be reasonably frequent, they do release a note asap.
Best of luck to everyone don’t hesitate to contact me on this thread if you need more details on the procedure, I’ll try to help as much as I can but I am not an expert just a regular user of Apple computers and slightly ; ) addicted to music and daily use of iPod (so not so mad afterall… ; ).
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   iPod 40G 4th gen

Answer 1

Don't give up HOPE ** this work for Mac users only**
so, after 4 days of trying the disk utility erase mode-- sometimes working sometimes not,,, ditto to all of these posts- my ipod seemed to have a hard drive failure the way it was clicking-- anyways-- here is what worked for me--
hold the middle button and play/pause until you see the check mark- (this puts the ipod into disk mode)
plug it in to your computer
open up the disk utility
choose Mac OS extended - **make sure the jornaled in not selected, and also **uncheck install OS9
then erase- you may get the question about naming your ipod if itunes opens and all that -- I'd name it, but make sure you check the option to manually update- you don't want to keep the box checked to sync with your itunes at this point-then eject it by using the eject button from itunes in the window on the left-
go to your ipod software updater folder (located in your utilities folder)---- here's the catch- the only updater that seemed to work for me- after 4 days of torment- was the
11-17-05 updater!- (I actually talked to a tech. on the phone and he said the latest update does not have a bug-yeah right,that's when all my problems started- but he said the one before it does!!- thanks for letting us know apple!)
so, double click it- hit restore - and wow- it actually worked- Good luck peeps- I know, myself, I was very disappointed in apple with this situation- My warranty ran out two months ago!- like many others I see here, I feared i was looking at another 300 dollars for the 30GB- but, alass it worked Amen- Let me know if I can help anyone- I'll check back on the board soon- to answer any questions i can
G4 Mac OS X (10.0.x)