hi awaaron,
i'm sure his drive is exactly like mine, the toshiba MK8010GAH from the 5 gen video ipods. i need the same help as scerda. i can't see the drive in disk management but i can in the device manager. when i go to "remove detachable storage" it is shown but without a drive letter assigned. i've tried the drive in it's new enclosure on several computers with the same result. the enclosure is 1.1 & 2.0 usb compatible. i'm lost.

iPod Data Recovery Software is a kind of software that recovers lost data from your iPod by using sophisticated sets of algorithm and program. This software works on all popular picture and video file formats and recovers lost data very quickly. Not only this, this software also repairs the damaged or corrupted files on the iPod. This software is not at all expensive and is easily affordable. You can run this software on all popular versions of Windows or Mac operating system.

that's a cool looking program jimmy. it won't work for what i want though. i'm trying to use the ipod disc as an external hard drive in a different enclosure. it's not being fully recognized outside of the ipod but when i put it back in, it works fine. strange

The Toshiba MK8010GAH will only work in a iPod. Its has a special interface (ATA CE) which windows does not understand. If you have data on the hard drive, you will need to install it back into the iPod and recover the data via USB.

If you want a external hard drive i would recommend purchasing a Samsung HS081HA 80GB Hard Drive and install it inside your hard drive enclosure.

I know that this post is 1 year old but maybe someone find the solution ?
Or maybe someone knows how to unlock MK8010GAH with PC3000 my friend has this board but I didn't find nothing with unlocking this drive...

I guess I'm bringing this thread back from the dead -- but it was by far the most relevant google result I came across so that is why I am replying with what I've discovered.

Using ubuntu 10.10 (the live usb netbook version) I have just formatted this toshiba mk8010gah with an ntfs partition and written a text file to it! I have not yet tried to install any OS on it, so that is the next hurdle. I have a sneaky suspicion that for any OS a bootloader like Chameleon will be necessary, but that is a whole other thread. The disk might be, however, usable as an external drive in an enclosure since it can be formatted. Still, I can't say for sure because that is not what I am attempting.

I did a LOT of things to it (trial and error!) so some of these steps may or may not be necessary and I'll leave it to the clever people who come after me to figure out which steps matter! Those clever people can also figure out what other filesystems it can be formatted with. In my trials ext3 worked okay - I wrote files to it. I have no idea about others though.

To boot into ubuntu you have to mash the keyboard at the beginning (maybe an arrow key, lol) to stop it from autobooting into whatever mode it does by default. Once you're at the menu, select Run Netbook Remix from USB. It might take ages to boot -- giving hard drive read errors. That's fine. Wait it out. Once you're at the purple and white Ubuntu dot dot dot screen you can press escape to toggle back into the text description of what is going on in the boot process. If it started giving intramfs prompts I just typed exit and hit enter as many times as it took to boot. I have no idea if that was right or wrong but it got me where I wanted to be. Ha.

Please don't try this if you don't understand what you are doing. Some of these commands are ridiculously dangerous. I'm trying my best to not make mistakes in the commands I am typing, but I'm not perfect. Don't type them blindly, think before you do it. If you aren't an experienced linux user then maybe this is not for you. It could be a disaster!

Throughout, I will assume /dev/sda is the hdd in question. Replace sda with sdX where X is your hard drive if your setup is different. To determine which letter you should be using:



also - all of these commands are run in terminal as root.



1) use fdisk to write a new empty mbr.



In my case, all 3 of the partitions were visible to me protected or not the second I booted into ubuntu. I also think that during my initial messing around I may have even deleted them. Makes no difference though. Writing a new MBR is the easiest way to start at square one. I'm still not sure I even understand the "HPA" terminology. I can't tell you what the fdisk -l output looked like because i never saved it which I should have. I apologize for that. Perhaps someone with an mk8010gah that hasn't been messed with could give the output of fdisk -l for everyone's benefit here.

2) Write zeroes to the whole disk. This takes ages and may not be necessary, but I did it. Honestly I'm not some kind of hard drive expert. Just call me thorough.



3) I think this is where I really turned the corner and got it working. See this article that gave me direction:

http://www.novell.com/support/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=7007193&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_TID_1_1



4) This last step is also loooong and slow.



Okay honestly -- mkfs.ntfs always failed until I specified that the sector size was 2048.

I'm not sure I fully even understand why or how this works, I just know that it did. And I hope it helps some of you. Turns out you don't need a massively expensive solution to "unlock" these drives. Just nerdy persistence. Ha.

C.

Gardenofsimple's process works like a charm, thank you soooo much. I had just bought a used Dell D430 whose hard hard drive crashed less than a week after I got it. I realized my old broken Ipod had the same kind of drive, a Toshiba MK3008GAL. So I put it in the laptop and immediately hit a brick wall when trying to partition it. I tried just about everything and was about to order a new drive when I found this thread. Then I Just followed gardenofsimple's process and was able to get Ubuntu netbook running on a drive that was pulled straight out of the Ipod. So that's my contribution to this thread, OS installed and working properly. Thanks Again!

THANKS FOR YOUR WORK!

I've got also a MK8010GAH and the same problems, you solved.

@stransk5: how did you install ubuntu? repartitioned? and how to install the bootloader? for me NOTHING works. the computer can't boot from the disk, neither with GRUB nor with LILO.

Installation runs like a charm, but when restarting first time, there is no way to boot the system.


THX!


Greets,
Frank

...got it working!

Used fdisk - after the process above - in the normal way to create one ext4 and one swap partition. Booting was not possible, so I installed GRUB2 with /boot to an USB stick.

So now I have to start the notebok with booting from USB and mounting / via GRUB.
Great!

Could you elaborate on the procedure to install Grub2 on a USB stick? Like you, I have Ubuntu 10.04 LTS installed on my MK8010GAH, but can't boot with it. I've tried various bootloaders, but none of them will see the installation on the hard drive.

It's normal? how long is the step 3? My process it's over 15 minutes!
Sorry for my english, but i'm italian...
I'm using a Live Cd of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric and when i send dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda the terminal appears like blocked...
It's normal?

I don't want to close the terminal, because i suspect this can damage my hdd (if it isn't already damaged)...
I my god

Okay, i'm closing the terminal and will try again.

Unfortunately you didn't wait long enough after your first posting for people to reply with suggestions, before you started to take actions. If you are asking questions in a web forum, you need to be realistic about how long it can take for you to get any replies. Also, this forum is not for Linux support, so I'll just give some brief comments.

FYI, after starting dd, you can get a progress report by sending a USR1 signal to its pid (process ID) - similar to:

# kill -USR1 [pid of dd]

You can find the pid of your dd process by using the ps command (e.g. ps -aux), for example.

There are alternative approaches, if your distro has the pv command installed.

You can also look at the console, or messages file (if that is enabled on your distro), or kernel message buffer (using dmesg), to see if there are obvious problems (e.g. lots of disk-related error messages being logged).

I have not tried the process described earlier in the thread by gardenofsimple but I'm not sure whether writing zeros to the whole disk using dd is necessary or not (even he/she isn't sure). However one thing is certain - using dd with no bs (block size) parameter will be slow, as every write will be just 512 bytes (so lots of overhead but little I/O). The "sweet spot" for the block size parameter (i.e. most efficient value) will depend on the hardware being used, but adding something like "bs=1M" to the command line would be a reasonable guess, and should improve the speed of the dd command given above significantly, as each write will then be 1MB.

(Just for people not familiar with Linux/Unix - it is not always appropriate to set a 1MB block size for dd. It depends on the specific intent & context in which the command is being used.)

So those are some things you can try, to help to answer your concern about whether the dd command is stalled, and how to make the listed dd command run quicker. If you need more details about dd, ps, or pv etc. then Google (or DuckDuckGo, or Bing, or ...) is your friend.

I've skip this step (2) and i'm on the last step... i'm crossing my fingers

It's true and i'm sorry.
Fortunately did not have a bad result... but operative systems like Windows cannot be installed on it, because this not appear **** bootable disk...(i'm weary and my english is deteriorating)
and gardenofsimple deserves the nobel for the impossible...thanks
Good Night

Same problem... i've searched, but anything...
Chameleon can't recognize the hdd, iBoot...same result...
How can i install grub2 for boot the Toshiba hdd with Ubuntu 11.10 on Acer Aspire One A110 Zg5?? Please

Hello, I´d like to "ressurect" this topic again ...

I got a broken (I broke it eheh) Ipod Video, and a MK8010GAH HDD, just like you.

So, thanks for all the tips from the previous posts, it really worked ... but you don´t need all those commands after all, after creating the partition just use the command "mkfs.ntfs -f -s 2048 /dev/sd??", being ?? the letter/number of the partition will do it, and really fast.

It worked in Linux flawlessy, copy and paste files and so on, but U can´t put a bootloader on it like you already tried.... my priority is not a HDD for booting, only to use as external HDD.

Then I started to test it on other devices .... didn´t work, except for a rooted Android Tablet (Genesis GT 7200) ... Cool huh ? Unfortunately, doesn´t work under Windows, or other devices (TV´s, etc..)

So, I really have hope that with some kind of special partition / type, we can at least use it as a external HDD. Does anybody have any clue ?

I've been hoping that someone would come along and resurrect this topic again, cause i'm also trying to use the drive.
I was successful with gardenofsimple's method, but i'm a bit new to linux. So booting from grub2 with /boot is something i'm still trying to wrap my head around. I managed to install different flavours of linux, but none of them can boot the OS once installed. Windows installation can't even create partitions and all the utilities in Hiren's BootCD and UBCD all failed too.
As I'm writing this, I'm giving it another go with the hopes of using an AIK windows 8 installed OS on an external HD with ALL the programs installed to this apparently un-bootable HDD.
I've tried (from the Win8 usb booted installation) to utilize diskpart to clean and create partitions, but the system log always shows "vds fails to write boot code on a disk during clean operation". So I guess this "new" windows' diskpart isn't much help.
So I'm busy again with wiping it using gardenofsimple's method with hopes of windows being able to initialize the disk eventually.
If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.
In the meantime, I'm hoping Frankd can reply and enlighten us on how to get the grub2 going so maybe I can use a 'virtualpc for Ubuntu' application to run windows... or even just stick with Ubuntu if I like it enough.

Seems we might be doomed... hoping that I'm wrong, but take a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_con ... on_overlay
http://atola.com/products/insight/password-removal.html

But I will be trying this:
http://www.hdat2.com/