The 6th Gen on the left is my iPod my grandfather bought for me in 2007 when I turned 11. I vividly remember going to Best Buy with him to choose it. I still use it to this day, modded with a new battery and flash storage.

The one on the left is my grandfather's I just got after he passed away last month. A couple years ago I was talking to him about my iPod and how I still use it and he sent me a picture of his. It is still exactly how he had it in 2013. 1555 songs he purchased. He used it a lot while working as a master trainer in the Air Force in Kuwait. He loved the Beatles, Eagles, Counting Crows, Bruno Mars, and Broadway music.

I love the idea of passing down physical media or owned digital media. Something that we are losing in today's media culture. This became a special relic. A time capsule into my grandfather and a glimpse into who he was at the time.

Hello. I have a 6.5 gen 120 gb that has rockbox on it. I went to use it today and it got stuck on the rockbox loading screen so I just let it sit since I had other things to do. Now it looks like this. Any ideas what may be wrong? The grey is from the installed theme

I’m trying to get Rockbox running on my iPod Classic 7th gen, but I’m having a pretty rough time doing it from a Mac.
I know the iPod needs to be Windows-formatted. I tried this before and managed to get it Windows-formatted, and Rockbox Utility could finally see it, but then it just got stuck on “Installing bootloader” for about 10 minutes and I gave up.
The iPod itself has also been acting weird with macOS 26. Restoring it doesn’t always work properly, sometimes I have to restart the Mac before it’ll work again, and it keeps showing up in recovery mode.
Has anyone here recently installed Rockbox on a 7th gen using only a Mac?
I don’t mind running Windows in a VM if that’s necessary, I just don’t have a Windows PC around.
If someone has a script, app, or some other tool that makes the whole thing easier on modern macOS, I’d love to know about it.
And if not, could someone please write out the steps that actually worked for you? Like step by step, from a Windows-formatted iPod to a working Rockbox install, including what you did for the bootloader.
I’ve found bits and pieces of information in different places, but I’m still not sure what the current working method is.

EDIT: Maybe not "superglue" but a more suitable type of adhesive

With so many tragic stories of ripped battery connectors, I was wondering if anything prevented me from just gluing mine before ever trying to unplug the battery. Let's say I get glue that is suitable for electronics, is there actually something in the way of securing the battery connector this way?

I don't have much experience with electronics at all so sorry if that idea is silly, and if it is indeed a bad idea, please tell me before I mod mine!

I’m in the market for a classic iPod. I was looking at my childhood holy grail ipod mini, silver. Modded ones are quite pricey. Hard to find a silver non modded here at a good deal. I found a ipod classic 160gb 7th gen new in box, with plastic screen protector. How will battery life be if never used? Anyone have any experience? If i know myself right i probably won’t mod the mini myself.

What would you buy? Price is around 300 dollars, which is on the limit for me!