Aug 29, '05 07:28:00AM • Contributed by: Jeff.hopper
Read on to see how I created an iPod with FAT32 and bootable HFS partitions, while maintaining its ability to be used as an iPod.
I have not tested this hint, and I'm not positive that everything works as described, so proceed at your own risk...]
Here's what I did...
- Update your iPod with the lastest updater (2005-06-26 for me).
- Now put a classical install of Tiger on it
- Reboot your classic Mac (PowerBook for me) with the iPod plug in. Turn on single user mode (Command-S during boot)
- Determine your device (eg /dev/rdisk1) using pdisk and then the L command.
- Delete your principal partition and make two others: the first one in HFS, the second one in FAT32 (beware with capitals). Do this all in pdisk, as show below:
Top level command (? for help): e Name of device: /dev/rdisk1 Edit /dev/rdisk1 - Command (? for help): d3 Command (? for help): c First block: 65599 Length in blocks: 6433888 Name of partition: iPod Command (? for help): p Command (? for help): C First block: 6499487 Length in blocks: 1500001 Name of partition: WIN Type of partition: DOS_FAT_32 Command (? for help): p Command (? for help): w confirm and Command (? for help): q Top level command (? for help): q
- Now change the MBR for the DOS partition:
~ Hopper$ fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1 fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory The signature for this MBR is invalid. Would you like to initialize the partition table? [y] y fdisk:*1>edit 1 Starting Ending #: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused Partition id ('0' to disable) [0 - FF]: [0] (? for help) b ou c Do you wish to edit in CHS mode? [n] n Partition offset [0 - 469020]: [63] 6499487 Partition size [1 - 469019]: [469019] 1500001 fdisk: 1> p Disk: /dev/rdisk2 geometry: 992/128/63 [7999488 sectors] Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55 Starting Ending #: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1: 0B 805 126 30 - 991 127 63 [ 6499487 - 1500001] Win95 FAT-32 2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused 3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused 4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused fdisk: 1> w fdisk: 1> q ~ Hopper$ pdisk - You must reboot your Mac now, and you'll see two partitions on the Desktop.
The main problem I encountered is iTunes synchronization with the FAT32 partitions, and I must umount this volume for changing music on the 'iPod volume.'
