Dual booting your iPod can be a pain in the butt with the limited amount of resources out there today. However, Jake and I have recently experimented, and have found the easiest way to do this. Jump the break for the guide.

Disclaimer: By following this guide, you agree that old-computer and related people take no responsibility for any damages to your iPod. This guide has only been tested on a 5.5G 30GB iPod (with the original apple firmware).

In order to use this guide, you must have disc use enabled on your iPod.

To get started, you need to download a few things. First, you need the rockbox firmware for your ipod. Next, you need Loader2 (link currently dead: Mirror). Finally, you need iPodpatcher (mirror).

Right click on your task bar and click Task Manager. Jump over to the processes tab and end iTunes.exe and iPodhelper.exe. Plug in your ipod.

Now, you want to create an easy to remember folder on your desktop. In this folder, place ipodpatcher.exe, the bins folder, and loader.bin (rename Loader2 to this, if not already named).

Next, in your start menu, find Run. Type “cmd” and hit enter. A black box with some text should pop up. Type in “cd C:\path\to\your\easily\remembered\folder”, replacing path\to\your\easily\remembered\folder with the location of the folder containing loader.bin and ipodpatcher.exe.

Let me take a moment to remind you that this process is 99.9% safe. However, there is a chance that something could happen to your iPod. Old-Computer is not responsible for any damages caused by following these steps.

Now, type in “ipodpatcher -ab loader.bin”. It should do some stuff, and then say something along the lines of “Press enter to exit”. If you get some errors, try the steps again. Don’t unplug your iPod yet. (If you really need to leave the computer or unplug your ipod for some weird reason, Make sure that it really is done writing to your ipod before you do, if it isn’t, you could seriously damage/brick your iPod).

Now, all you need to do is copy the .Rockbox folder from the rockbox file you downloaded to the root of your iPod. Unplug your ipod, do a reset, and you should see the boot menu.

Note: when booting to the Apple OS, it takes a while to load. If you would like to change from the Apple OS to Rockbox, you have to do a reset (Holding Menu and Select while the HDD isn’t spinning should work).

Enjoy your newly firmwared iPod!

(If you find that there is a problem with this guide, feel free to drop an email to jeff@old-computer.org)

Troubleshooting

• Some people have reported that their iPod goes into an infinite boot loop after installing this. If yours does, force it into disc mode and restore it with iTunes, or double-check your work.
• If you cannot access the Apple OS, you can uninstall the Loader2 by going to C:\path\to\your\folder\with\loader.bin\and\ipodpatcher in Command Prompt and typing “ipodpatcher.exe -u”