IPOD issues

[Michelle]

Does anyone know anything about what happens to IPODS when they go into restore mode? My IPOD plays fine, there's nothing wrong with my ITunes, and yesterday this all worked fine.

Today, another story. I need help!

[martyagt4]

Which version iPod is it?

[shawndoggy]

I had an old ipod video that wigged out and I tried every button pushing trick in the book to get it to work to no avail. Then right before I was gonna throw it out I read something about whacking it pretty hard with your hand. Sure enough it came right back to life after a little physical abuse.

[queequeg]

I had an old ipod video that wigged out and I tried every button pushing trick in the book to get it to work to no avail. Then right before I was gonna throw it out I read something about whacking it pretty hard with your hand. Sure enough it came right back to life after a little physical abuse.

Don't do this if you have an ipod that uses a hard disk drive inside: shocking the drive physically like that can cause hardware drive failure that will turn your ipod into a brick. If you absolutely cannot get the ipod running and have tried everything in your power you could do this as a last resort, but whacking it is more likely to damage the drive in your ipod than anything else.

You have an iPod with a hard disk inside of it if it is one of the larger models with a click or touch wheel on the front.

[ncermak]

I know denver is haul, but the Genii there are pretty good at fixing stuff...

[bobdea]

did you do a full "restore" ?

what model?

if it's a ipod touch most of the info for the iphone is also applicable.

with older/other ipods most issues and solutions are heavily dependant on the specific model and generation.

[shawndoggy]

Don't do this if you have an ipod that uses a hard disk drive inside: shocking the drive physically like that can cause hardware drive failure that will turn your ipod into a brick. If you absolutely cannot get the ipod running and have tried everything in your power you could do this as a last resort, but whacking it is more likely to damage the drive in your ipod than anything else.

You have an iPod with a hard disk inside of it if it is one of the larger models with a click or touch wheel on the front.

funny thing is that's EXACTLY what I had and this is a known fix for ipods that already seem to be bricked.

http://www.spillingcoffee.com/2006/07/13/how-to-fix-an-ipod-with-the-sad-ipod-icon/

[queequeg]

funny thing is that's EXACTLY what I had and this is a known fix for ipods that already seem to be bricked.

http://www.spillingcoffee.com/2006/07/13/how-to-fix-an-ipod-with-the-sad-ipod-icon/

It is also a very good way to permanently damage a hard drive. Like I said: you stand more of a chance doing permanent damage to the HD by doing this than anything else. That doesn't mean it won't occasionally fix something. If you've tried everything else then yeah, go ahead and give it a whack and see what happens - but it should absolutely not be the first thing you try.

The article you linked to also noted (in the comments) that you can open the ipod up and reseat the hd wiring, which seems to have come loose for some users. That is a way of dealing the problem that will fix the problem (if indeed this is the problem) without risking hardware damage to the drive. There are plenty of people for whom this fix has not worked, and many of them have probably damaged their drives by trying it. Also note: if the drive connectors are loose, whacking the iPod may jostle them back into place for some people, but the rest of the time it will probably loosen them further (while possibly damaging the hard drive).

The little sad icon can happen for many different reasons: Your connectors may be loose, in which case whacking it may help, though that is just as likely to destroy your drive. You may just have corrupted drive data (which can easily be fixed with software, and no amount of whacking will help). if you whack a hard drive with corrupted data and end up doing damage to the drive heads or platters inside the drive you end up with physical drive failure and your previously repairable problem is no longer repairable.

Just because something works some of the time doesn't mean it's a good solution. Better to fix things the way that works all of the time, and doesn't carry the risk of inflicting additional harm.

[Michelle]

Which version iPod is it?

It's the classic 80G Video with a click wheel (I suppose) on the front. http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/ Looks like this one.

Here's the deal:

The Ipod works fine when using it with headphones. Yesterday when I plugged it into ITUNES, it worked fine. I plugged it in today, and it says "your Ipod is in recovery. You must fully recover it before allowed to use it". So I went home and plugged it into Itunes there, and it worked fine.

Couple of things: We are on a network here at Bomber. Yesterday something funky happened with the drive letters, and some of my programs could not see the right drives (this also happened out of the blue, as we did nothing to any of the computers). I went back into ITunes and had to "show" it where the music library was (it is not on my local computer) and had to "add folder to library" as none of my songs would play ("can not locate file"). Now I have 2 of every song (one that owrks and one that doesn't).....ugh. However, if I clicked on the actual main library, it was fine. I also upgraded to Itunes 10 thinking that would help.

My computer at home said something like you might want to scan this drive for errors when I plugged the IPOD into the computer. I did that, and it worked fine.

Now, I plug it into ITunes at Bomber and it is not even showing up on my computer, but it has the "do not disconnect" sign on the IPOD.

What do I do now??

SO FRUSTRATING!

[queequeg]

It's the classic 80G Video with a click wheel (I suppose) on the front. http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/ Looks like this one.

Here's the deal:

The Ipod works fine when using it with headphones. Yesterday when I plugged it into ITUNES, it worked fine. I plugged it in today, and it says "your Ipod is in recovery. You must fully recover it before allowed to use it". So I went home and plugged it into Itunes there, and it worked fine.

Couple of things: We are on a network here at Bomber. Yesterday something funky happened with the drive letters, and some of my programs could not see the right drives (this also happened out of the blue, as we did nothing to any of the computers). I went back into ITunes and had to "show" it where the music library was (it is not on my local computer) and had to "add folder to library" as none of my songs would play ("can not locate file"). Now I have 2 of every song (one that owrks and one that doesn't).....ugh. However, if I clicked on the actual main library, it was fine. I also upgraded to Itunes 10 thinking that would help.

My computer at home said something like you might want to scan this drive for errors when I plugged the IPOD into the computer. I did that, and it worked fine.

Now, I plug it into ITunes at Bomber and it is not even showing up on my computer, but it has the "do not disconnect" sign on the IPOD.

What do I do now??

SO FRUSTRATING!

Ok so yeah, your iPod has a hard disk inside it. Don't subject it to any sudden impacts as this could damage the drive. (If the drive has been whacked/frozen/wet in the past, these could be contributing factors to the problem).

So it sounds like all of your music etc is synced with iTunes - which is good because that means you have a backup, and don't need to recover any data from the iPod.

Hard to tell exactly what the problem is of course, but here are some possibilities:

Could be that you just have some corrupted data on the drive, in which case a full restore via iTunes will solve the problem, assuming your iTunes library is in good shape.

Could be that you have a bad block on the drive that does not store data well anymore, and is causing problems. Depending upon how much empty space there is on the iPod (and how lucky you are) a full restore may or may not fix this problem. If a full restore does fix the problem, it will likely occur again at some point in the future (when this block gets addressed with data again). This is a type of hardware failure but it is less serious than most other kinds of hardware failure.

Could be that you have hardware failure, in which case there is nothing you can really do.

I'm guessing that you have either got some corrupted data on the drive, or that you have a bad block.

With the weird behavior going on with your windows machine, I would assume that the origin of the problem may have occurred there. The problem may have occurred while syncing between your iTunes library and your iPod, and I might assume that you have a (software) data corruption problem. If that is true, it is a repairable problem. The first thing I would be concerned about would be the state of the data on your computer: is your computer backed up? It sounds like you may need to clean up your iTunes library and get things sorted there before restoring to the ipod. I sent you a PM - give me a ring and I (may) be able to help.

[Michelle]

Thanks for the help....anyone know anything about Windows based networks?

[shawndoggy]

It is also a very good way to permanently damage a hard drive. Like I said: you stand more of a chance doing permanent damage to the HD by doing this than anything else. That doesn't mean it won't occasionally fix something. If you've tried everything else then yeah, go ahead and give it a whack and see what happens - but it should absolutely not be the first thing you try.

The article you linked to also noted (in the comments) that you can open the ipod up and reseat the hd wiring, which seems to have come loose for some users. That is a way of dealing the problem that will fix the problem (if indeed this is the problem) without risking hardware damage to the drive. There are plenty of people for whom this fix has not worked, and many of them have probably damaged their drives by trying it. Also note: if the drive connectors are loose, whacking the iPod may jostle them back into place for some people, but the rest of the time it will probably loosen them further (while possibly damaging the hard drive).

The little sad icon can happen for many different reasons: Your connectors may be loose, in which case whacking it may help, though that is just as likely to destroy your drive. You may just have corrupted drive data (which can easily be fixed with software, and no amount of whacking will help). if you whack a hard drive with corrupted data and end up doing damage to the drive heads or platters inside the drive you end up with physical drive failure and your previously repairable problem is no longer repairable.

Just because something works some of the time doesn't mean it's a good solution. Better to fix things the way that works all of the time, and doesn't carry the risk of inflicting additional harm.

LOL, dude, whacking it was not what I did first, nor does the linked article suggest it. If you read what I said, you would know that my ipod was "otherwise bricked." Bricked means no workie, no matter what. None of the other solutions worked. It was literally going to be thrown in the garbage. Then I saw the whack it idea, and guess what, it worked.

[queequeg]

LOL, dude, whacking it was not what I did first, nor does the linked article suggest it. If you read what I said, you would know that my ipod was "otherwise bricked." Bricked means no workie, no matter what. None of the other solutions worked. It was literally going to be thrown in the garbage. Then I saw the whack it idea, and guess what, it worked.

That may be so, but it was the first suggestion you gave to michelle, with almost no information to go on as far as what the actual problem was (your post was third, and the OP was not informative enough to indicate the nature of the problem). After hearing a little more from her it seems almost certain that her problem is data corruption that occurred while syncing: something that would not be resolved by whacking her ipod and is an easy software fix: so if she had whacked it she very likely could have damaged it, with no possibility of resolving the problem.

[shawndoggy]

That may be so, but it was the first suggestion you gave to michelle, with almost no information to go on as far as what the actual problem was (your post was third, and the OP was not informative enough to indicate the nature of the problem). After hearing a little more from her it seems almost certain that her problem is data corruption that occurred while syncing: something that would not be resolved by whacking her ipod and is an easy software fix: so if she had whacked it she very likely could have damaged it, with no possibility of resolving the problem.

And with that you will find no disagreement.

[Michelle]

HA HA boys I don't whack too many electronic things, unless the frustration level has gone over the top. then it's not so much a whacking, but more of a hucking and driving over repeatedly.....My phone, however, sees much more abuse in the form of being dropped, sat on, and thrown into a backpack. So far this one has survived.

Now back to my problem - I'm still not sure what the H is going on with it. Might have to resort to whacking the computer instead!

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

To the guys that know more about IPOD. Isn't there a way to update or re-install the software? I had an old one that was funky, I changed the battery and then did numerous updates and it finally straightened out. If in doubt hard reset?? Then re-install?

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[bjvircks]

There are conditions where 'percussive maintainence' can be a little less destructive for hard drives. If the unit is off and the hard drive has sent the read/write heads to park and the disk is no longer spinning... it is less stressful to the drive as a whole and less destructive to the disk surface. The direction from and location to where the whack is applied is important, too. Damage to hard drives is always cumulative. Spindles get bent a little more every time. Bearings get brinneled more. Heads whack into the active surface of the disks and damage the coating as well as kick up particulate material that floats around inside the sealed cavity and potentially gets stuck under the heads, affecting read/write. If its a brick... go for it!

[Michelle]

I just want it to work.

[bobdea]

if I remember correctly ipods can be formatted in a few different types of file systems so what I am about to say may or may not be helpful and you're gonna need access to a mac.

you can run the mac OS disk utility found in the utilities folder on that's in the applications folder

you can have it check out the disk, and sometimes even make repairs or at leas see if the disk is completely ****ed.

if all else fails you can install a new hd, it's not that hard.

[Seraph]

I just want it to work.

If you go onto the apple site there are instructions for both soft and hard resets. Try the soft reset first, if that doesn't work the hard reset will reformat your ipod and you'll need to resynch with your itunes to put all your stuff back on it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1320?viewlocale=en_us&locale=en_us

[Michelle]

Seraph, I was trying to avoid that. Since I am on multiple ITunes, it would have been difficult and a major pain.

However, it was a drive letter problem and Trailer Trash gets the prize! Wasn't Itunes or my IPOD at all, was my stupid computer. He fixed it for me, and is my new hero Plus he has a cool motorbike!

I bow down .....THANK YOU THANK YOU TT!!!!

[Michelle]

And thanks to everyone else that gave me advice and tried to help - I was really trying everything except the reformat. It is mucho appreciated!

[Michelle]

I know! What's life without GREAT 80s music?

[kieran]

I know! What's life without GREAT 80s music?

less hairy.

[trailertrash]

Thanks for the Bomber ______ Plate! You really shouldn't have, it wasn't that big a deal really!

:D