bought a knackered ipod off ebay because I thought it would be an easy fix, but it looks as if the hard drive is well and truly knackered because I keep getting the "sad" ipod icon and whatever i try, it keeps coming back to it.

What i've tried so far ..

Popped the back cover off and unplugged and reconnected the hard drive at both ends - a few times.

Shaken and tapped the hard drive.

Banged the ipod, connector point down, hard on a desk.

Dropped it on the floor.

I can force it into disk mode if i keep "menu" and "select" pressed for about 40 seconds but as soon as windows detects it, it effectively disconnects it and the ipod spins back to the sad ipod icon.

I can get into diagnostic mode and did a HDD test, and after about 40 minutes it came back with "19 GB".

I do think the hard drive is beyond saving, but if anyone knows of any weird tricks that might do something then i'd me really grateful .. cheers

By any chance, is it a 4G iPod?

Yeah, that's the one.

I've heard that unplugging, the plugging the hard drive back in sometimes works, if not just try giving it a good whack on a desk or something. I've heard of iPods being revived that way.

The same happened to mine 2 months ago but I managed to revive it by running the diagnostic tests despite the idiot at apple telling it was knackered. Sadly it's reverted back to the sad face so I will try the hard drive option but I'm not hopeful.

i've done all that.

it's currently sitting in disk mode at the moment, but it's now got a full charge on it so i'll try the ipod updater again to see if i get any joy but i know as soon as it connects, it'll disconnect itself almost immediately.

and i've smacked the crap out of it today as well

no luck .. so i've taken out the hard drive and i'm now going to put it in the freezer

That didn't work.

I put it into diagnostic mode and ran a HDD scan and got this ..

HDD SCAN
END SCAN
255

SCAN NG

Anyone have any ideas ??

Sounds like HDD failure to me.

Oh I'm 99% certain the HDD is buggered totally, but i'd be up for trying any outlandish ideas that some people may or may not have because i've really got nothing to lose ..

i'm debating removing the hard drive and just throwing it against a wall

Probably a silly suggestion but here goes anyway-

Would a new/borrowed hard drive fix this predicament?

well that's the plan. i'm hoping to buy a new hard drive off ebay to go in the ipod because essentially it's just a shell waiting for a drive to be connected.

well it had better work anyway because i threw the hard drive at the wall and now it's completely dead

Hahahaha...

I did that with mine, sold the iPod (minus HD) and have the HD in a box, crushed

i've got an ipod shuffle so in the worst case scenario i'll do the same and keep the shuffle.

would like to get this going though if i can ..

You mentioned you threw it at a wall.......which one?

That is north, south, east or west facing? Info is stored magnetically on the HDD so the earths magnetic field can have a detrimental effect has it goes flying through the air!

Mind you, others would claim that when it impacts on the wall that causes greater damage - opinions are divided!

I admire your resolve however, I have a dead Samsung MP3 (& I mean dead) but I'm determined to resurrect it!

StereRowe
Last edited by StereRowe : 16-11-2006 at 22:41

I couldn't say if it was north, south, east or west but i threw it against two walls and dropped it on the floor three times after that.

And that was after putting it in the freezer for half an hour as well ...

now it's just sitting on the table in front of me with the apple logo and nothing more. It resets but comes straight back to the apple logo - won't go to disk mode or diagnostic mode or anything.

just need to fork out for a replacement hard drive and that should bring it back from the dead hopefully.