JC at Mac Geekery has come across a potential solution to the iPod hard drive's 'click of death' that many owners will likely experience at some point or another (After all it's a hard drive and you walk/run/snowboard around with it all day. It has to throw in the towel some day).After hurling a dead 4G iPod off a 3rd story balcony to test an iPod case, JC discovered that his iPod was suddenly working again - but only for an hour at a time or so. This odd turn of events prompted him to investigate by opening up his iPod, in which case he discovered that his click of death (not necessarily everyone's) was a result of nothing more than an unseated hard drive cable. After putting everything back in its place, JC's 4G iPod is back on top and jamming again.
Check out JC's post for more details, but just in case you're in a similar boat, remember: I'm pretty sure opening your iPod is like tossing your warranty out the window and then running it over repeatedly with an SUV, so attempt this stuff at your own risk. If your warranty has already r-u-n-n-o-f-t, however, then you don't have much to lose.
[thanks William!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-02-2006 @ 10:14AM
Brian Allen said...
Thanks for the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" reference.
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6-02-2006 @ 10:25AM
fra said...
Open up the iPod
remove the battery plug from the battery plug thing
Lave it unplugged for an hour
Put everything back together
Reinstall iPodOS!
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6-02-2006 @ 10:26AM
Michael Curtis said...
The story about it working after throwing it out of a building isn't that surprising. When I used to work in IT, we had something called the slap test. When a hard drive fails, you would palm it and slap it down on a table as hard as you could. About 50% of the time, it would start working, at least long enough for you to get most of the files off of it.
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6-02-2006 @ 11:35AM
ChillyWilly said...
In addition to the slap test, freezing a hard drive (not in the freezer.. only works in winter climates) would work wonders. I've recovered files off a hard drive after it's been frozen outside all night. My guess is that this would work for iPods as well.
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6-02-2006 @ 12:15PM
kristin said...
Yea, I'm on my 4th iPod now and it's currently giving me that old "click of death" every few week. My fix — place it in my palm and slam it into wall/floor/post/thigh/whatever and it always comes back.
Guess I'll open it up next time it dies and try this...
k.
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6-02-2006 @ 12:41PM
Matt said...
strange mine didnt give me the click of death it just ... died and now it has gone off to some strange place so apple can give me a new one ... hopefully before download festival.
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6-02-2006 @ 12:41PM
Chris said...
I used to have an old Gateway 2000 notebook and I usually had to lift up the front edge and let it drop on the table to get it to boot. Apparently, the jarring effect would "unstick" the hard drive.
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6-02-2006 @ 12:44PM
Craig said...
(referring to comments) I thought that HDDs weren't meant to be slammed down on a table, cos the read/write heads would shatter the platters, so if you were lucky and the heads were parked you may be lucky, but if they were stuck above a platter slamming it down isn't good, right?
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6-02-2006 @ 2:19PM
Jordan said...
More than likely the fall unstuck the bearings or other parts that were frozen up, while at the same time loosening the cable.
He opened it up, tightened the cable and the bearings are still unstuck.
From reviving hard drives this way (and the freezer method), I must say that his iPod probably isn't going to last all that long.
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6-02-2006 @ 5:10PM
William said...
Sweet! I read this yesterday on Ars Technica, and I just tried it about an hour ago- and my iPod works again! I can sync and stuff now. And hopefully I'll be able to listen to my music longer than 30 seconds. Yay~
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6-02-2006 @ 6:31PM
Brandon said...
Wow! My 4G iPod has been 'dead' since last March...I'd just been making plans to replace it this summer. Saw this post, figured it was worth a shot. To my suprise, my iPod just booted up normally!
Thanks so much!
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6-02-2006 @ 7:01PM
Kim Halley said...
My video iPod died on the 27th day...
Hard drive failure... fortunately Amazon.com took it back and even gave me $10 credit for my trouble. Ipurchased a flash player from a lesser known manufacturer and I'd never go back.
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6-02-2006 @ 11:48PM
guido said...
worth noting - ive had a lot of success fixing dead & dying ipods by simply opening, unplugging, waiting and reconstructing.
a little extra reformatting and often things will be good as new.
i put it all together on a web page if anyone's interested. link:
http://www.ilovesueb.com/Site/ipod%20fix0r.html
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6-03-2006 @ 3:52AM
Brian said...
My 4th gen died with the CLICK OF DEATH (wonder where I have heard this term before) and I was not willing to pay for a replacement unit after only 2 years of casual usage.... so I was looking at ebay for a replacement drive.
Surprise surprise...... this worked with my ipod - THANKS HEAPS
I wonder how many people have gone down the Apple replacement option and it was realy just a poor fitting data cable???
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6-03-2006 @ 6:48PM
Greg Boone said...
This is the exact problem I had, except I took it to the apple store and said, "look it's broken" and they reseated the HD for me. The unseating was the result of dropping it on the concrete floor in my dorm room.
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