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replacing the hardrive of an ipod
Posted on December 24th, 2005 1,093 commentsplease support my other website: http://www.notPopular.com
My brother Justin loved his 20 gig 4th generation ipod until he dropped it at the gym one day. It stopped working all together and would make clicking noises when he would try to start it.
He had gotten it as a gift and didnt have the reciept for it, so he couldnt take it back unter warrenty I guess. Apple said that it would cost $250 to fix. Instead of fixing it, he spend the money on
a 30 gig 5th generation. I asked him for the broken ipod so I could tinker with it. After I got it from him, I decided that it would be cool to own an ipod, and that if i could fix it for less then the
retail price, I would be a head of the game. I documented my adventure of trying to fix my ipod, check it out.- When I would start the ipod, I would get an icon of a folder and a warning sign. The ipod would then make a bunch of clicking noises. That make me think that the hard drive was crapped out.
- Since it was already broken, why not take it apart and try to make it work. There was no clear way to ebter the ipod, so I decided to pry off the metal back using the thinnest screw driver I could find.
It wasnt that hard to work the screw drive between the metal and the plastic. I worked the screw driver down the side of the case, until it popped off.
- I flipped the ipod over, and opened it up slowly, I noticed that there was a ribbon cable connecting the guts if the ipod to the jacks mounted to the metal back. I was careful not to mess this connection up.
- The ipod uses an ide harddrive, the connector pulled directly off without any problems. I now hard the bad harddrive free,
- The drive had blue rubber bumpers wrapped around it, and on the back, there was a foam mat that was glued to the drive.
- Removing the bumpers was no problem, they pulled directly off with out any fight.
- I tried to pull the foam off the drive by pulling on it, but that wasnt working, so I desided to get a razor blade scraper and screape it off. It worked well.
- Once I had the foam off, I could see that it was a toshiba drive. Model MK2004GAL. I looke dofr replacements online, but was only able to find the model MK2006GAL. I compared the MK2004GAL and the MK2006GAL, and didnt see any big differences, so I ordered one. 3 days letter I had my new drive. It didnt have the apple logo on it, but who cares, it was only $100!
- The blue bumpers went on with out a problem, and fit like a glove.
- To get the foam to stick to the new drive, I went super ghetto and reached in my desk, and came up with a glue stick! Hey, it goet the job done.
- The new drive went in, just like the old one came out. I connected the IDE connection, and I was ready to close it up.
- I put the back on, and pressed down on it evenly. The back snapped without any problems.
- Next, I downloaded the ipod updater (11-17-2005) from apple.com, and installed it. I hooked up my newly rebuilt ipod, and did a restore. It went really fast.
- After the restore, I had to hook up my ipod to the wall charger. I didnt have one on hand so i tried all kinds of methods of going around it. In the middle of me trying to hack around it, My buddy chris called, I told him to bring over his wall charger.
- 5 minutes later Chris showed up with a charger. I plugged in the ipod, it reset itself, and then I was up and running with my newly rebuilt ipod.
I was really supprised at how easy it was to replace the hard drive in a 4th gen ipod. Im sure that someone is going to call me an idiot for opening the case that way. I dont care though. I got this thing working and that all that matters, and I did it for under $100. Screw apple for wanting to charge $250 for 20 munites worth of work and $100 worth of parts.
I hope that through my experience, someone else can bring back to life one of their dead ipods.
1,093 responses to “replacing the hardrive of an ipod”
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Bill Eberly December 27th, 2005 at 13:34
Impressive! I’ve been wondering how to do that in the quite likely event that my ipod dies (I drop it alot). Using elmers glue may not have been the best idea, since the hard drive does get fairly hot.
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nicely done. this is awesome for people like me who didn’t purchase any added warranty for their iPod. thanks for the info, josh!
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I’m bookmarking this for future reference…glad I saw it on the diggnation site…
never know when I might need it.thanks for such clear cut directions, and pics.
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JakeBechtold December 27th, 2005 at 13:43
Nice Job. I, too, am bookmarking this for future referance.
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That is not a broken IPOD.. A Sad face will show you it is bad. i recently had that and the Hard Drive was clicking and what I did was put it on a computer that did not have ITUNES installed and used windows to format it like it was a regular hard drive. the when you plug it in just restore it and it should work.
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What size drive did you replace with? Did you find upsized drives available? If so, what sizes did you find? Can you provide us with some links to sites that sell the replacement drives?
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Thomas Henwood December 27th, 2005 at 13:56
Cool, I’ll rember that, although it seems more likely that I’ll need a new battery sooner than a new harddrive anyone know where I can get one of those?
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Wow, someone actually put something useful on the intarwebs!
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Chris Louden December 27th, 2005 at 14:16
Wonder what would have happened if you has popped in a 100GB laptop drive?
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LoathRevolver December 27th, 2005 at 14:20
Where did you get the new 1.8 HDD? I’ve been looking online, but can’t find a good, cheap source. Any ideas?
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Chris Jones December 27th, 2005 at 14:21
You get an iPod Battery from http://ipodbattery.com.
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Awesome blog!! Maybe I can buy a used ipod with HD problems from Ebay. Maybe it’s worth a shot.
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Very nice tutorial. It will come in handy someday. Hopefully not soon
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2nd Grade Teacher December 27th, 2005 at 15:17
Congrats on the fix. However, why can’t people who post stories take the extra ten seconds to make sure they actually spelled words correctly? It would certainly add some credibility to the post.
Bah! -
i havew fixed ipods that have lost a connection with the hardrive. Even the sad face, ive fixed two!
This involves having two ipods and switching their hard drives, this only works for 4th gens though i havent figured it out for the pile of 3rd gens i have. i swapped two 4th hard drives that each gave me the sad face and tried to mount with an apple and i got both mounted from the same computer, A folder icon on a fourth gen means it needs to be repaired and zeroed out with Norton disk doctor or disk utility on a macintosh.Both ipods were bought off ebay with HD problems. One i had to replace the mother board after constant unmounting and restoring. I think it was sat on for a long period of time warping the board and causing circuits to short. But I spent and fixed two Ipods with ”claimed HD problems” for less than a used or refurbished from apple. -
Not to say your way doesnt work, but mine was doing the same exact problem, showing either the pic shown above or a sad face on it, and I was able to fix it by either:
A) Slide the hold button back and forth about 10 time quickly, and then Hold down: Menu/middle button/pause.play button, this puts the ipod into some special mode with which I was then able to restore it via the itunes restore program. Problem is, a few weeks later the problem came back with the error screen and clicking noise, so…
B) Simply hold it in one hand, and smack it with your other hand. I was told do try this by a friend online, and wa-la, it has not had a single problem since which was over 2 months ago. Saves a ton of time, not to mention the money for a new drive.
While some may say beating the crap out of your ipod is a bad idea, it does work
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SquatcHman December 27th, 2005 at 16:18
Now I haven’t gotten a sad Ipod icon yet, but I have gotten the battery and far more often the folder icon. One thing that seems to be the biggest problem is that the unit continuously resets itself making it impossible to mount.
Any ideas?
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TO LoathRevolver -
google it.
http://www.interloper.com/products/product-details.php?productid=53030331&cat=530
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SquatcHman December 27th, 2005 at 16:25
Christ… it finally booted after the “hold and slap” move. CMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON…
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Ginger December 27th, 2005 at 16:41
Second grade teacher, you are not very helpful. You teach second grade. What happened to “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.” Or are you teaching them to be anal and annoying. This post obviously was meant to be helpful.
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Albert Einstein December 27th, 2005 at 19:38
You are god. I fall to my knees and worship you.
Uh…Thanks
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Issac Newton December 27th, 2005 at 19:58
BRILLANT! FASTIDIOUS JOB DOCUMENTING YOUR ADVENTURE!! THX
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Ginger is a Bitch December 27th, 2005 at 22:23
20 On Tuesday, 12-27-2005 @ 04:41pm, Ginger said…
Second grade teacher, you are not very helpful. You teach second grade. What happened to “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.” Or are you teaching them to be anal and annoying. This post obviously was meant to be helpful.
******************
Take your own advice bitch -
Stephen Carboni December 27th, 2005 at 23:25
Just to let you know in the beginning, I have had that folder come up before and that doesn’t mean that the hard drive is corrupt. All you would have to do it read the manual and it tells you how to bring the hdd back to normal. So you might have just wasted $100.00 for nothing when you could have just read the manual to see how to bring it back to normal.
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actually, the drive wouldnt spin up. if you shook the ipod you could hear something was rolling around in the hard drive. It made a horrible clicking / grinding noise. Trust me, I have been around computers enough to know when a HD goes bad. I wish i would have ripped the drive apart and document it. Thanks for all the responces!
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Laythor December 28th, 2005 at 00:06
You were able to do it for 100 because you cut the capacity down to 20gig? A 40gig would have only cost 31 bucks more on eWiz.com, why didnt you go for the same size drive?
http://www.ewiz.com/query.php?categry=59&brand=Toshiba&dp=1&dt=&categry=59&brand=Toshiba&pa0=&pa1=&pa2=&pa3=&pa4=&pa5=&searchStr=Search+from+current+results&myanchor=%23displaytop&categry=59&brand=Toshiba&pa0=&pa1=&pa2=&pa3=&pa4=1.8+inch&pa5=&nl=10&searchStr=Search+from+current+results&ob=&myanchor=%23displaytop -
Brennan December 28th, 2005 at 06:23
Great guide! But are you sure it’s that easy?
Probably it’s time to REVIVE my dead iPod too…
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Rosaa333 December 28th, 2005 at 08:21
If just to teach how to open an iPod, your blog is really worth it.
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indroo December 28th, 2005 at 08:45
Great job boy, great job!
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Dan the Man December 28th, 2005 at 11:08
“if you shoot the ipod you could hear something was rolling aroun din the hard drive. ”
Uh yeah. Shooting your iPod is not recommended.
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DanMan December 28th, 2005 at 11:10
“if you shoot the ipod you could hear something was rolling aroun din the hard drive. ”
Uh yeah. Shooting your iPod is not recommended.
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Great job!
I have a 20GG ipod is an older model w/no vidio.Can i change the hard drive on it so i can download vidio music?? -
EmmasDad_Tony December 28th, 2005 at 13:04
Excellent! I got my iPod wet (not on purpose), and had to take it apart, dry off the circuit boards, etc. It worked for a few months, but slowly started acting up. First, it wouldn’t connect with the computer anymore. It would charge, but no detection on the PC. Next, it wouldn’t charge anymore, so I knew, a few more days and it was history. I gave it a decent burial, but kept the HD. So my Q is this: How can I hook up a 3rd gen 30GB HD to a standard PC IDE controller? Anybody have a linky?
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BOO
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here is the best method to fix your ipod…
1. get a hammer
2. bash it for a few hours to releive stress
3 get a better player.. http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/ -
Andrew December 28th, 2005 at 17:20
Holy Christ! Hold and Slap! I was ready to go out tomorrow and shell out 400 bucks on a new video ipod. Now after smacking my old one and it coming back to life — forget it!
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an0nym0u5 December 28th, 2005 at 17:46
The price on iPod repairs by apple is so high, because they vary rarely repair them… they just replace them with the same model (a bunch of the replacements have been rebuilt, but not on site).
This at least reminded me that I could put a bigger drive into a unit that is actually dead.
Other than that…
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Elwing December 28th, 2005 at 18:03
Getting a new 1.8″ drive is the hard part. Only two manufacturers make them: Toshiba and Hitachi, and the largest available size is 80GB. I recently bought a Toshiba through newegg.com for my laptop, so they had them at one point.
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I agree with Second grade teacher – great article, but please take time to proof read it which will add credibility to the article.
There are plenty of badly written documents on the Internet – Having one that is written well helps a great deal.
Ginger – Its constructive criticism – you, however are not being constructive when you just insult people. Wake up and listen to others once in a while and you might actually learn something.
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COOL!
You’re my hero. Definately bookmarking this for when this happens to my ipod…
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sebastienb December 28th, 2005 at 21:44
My ipod same vrison 20 gig crashes when saving position form an podcast” resume playback form a podcast” and some times when playign a song and if i hit it hard enough it starts playing again. Think i’ll change the HD thanks for the instruciton to open it , could’nt find it anywere
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Luke Moulton December 28th, 2005 at 21:52
Yep, that one’s going straight to my del.icio.us account for safe keeping (as long as Yahoo! holds up their end of the bargain!).
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im had the whole broken hard drive/clicking sound problem… sucked i bought a new ipod video but i still have my old ipod if anyone wants it
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Brandon December 28th, 2005 at 22:10
Hey Chris if you still got that broken ipod id like to mess with it send me an email at gotapinupgirl at yahoo.com.
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oliver December 29th, 2005 at 00:49
Cool! Just like that haa…thanks. Also thanks to Laythor.
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Jack of all trades December 29th, 2005 at 06:07
Quick solution for everyone….stop dropping your IPODS
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eljo (Morpurgo.nl) December 29th, 2005 at 06:49
Great this step by step explanation, simple as replacing a battery on a wristwatch
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komikx December 29th, 2005 at 07:01
Tigerdirect has a cable to connect a laptop HD to a regular IDE cable in your PC. THis costs US$9.99 and is a real lifesaver.
Use the URL below or just google “laptop drive adapter” and pick one of the choices.
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Nice work. Wonder if it’s possible to find a harddrive with more gig then 20 and the same size of 4th gen tobisha harddrive
That would be like 2k5 awsome.
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Joel Guevarra December 29th, 2005 at 10:06
Huh…my iPod photo had the same problem. All I did was bring it to the nearest Apple Center, w/o my receipt cuz I lost it, and they were more than happy to replace it for me. Got it 2 weeks later. Yes, a brand new 60gb iPod photo, free of charge. They even called me to say that it was ready for pickup. Now that’s good service. I’m from the Philippines by the way, so, I’m not sure if the same goes from other countries.
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Tippenmeister December 29th, 2005 at 12:22
I have a 64-year old Remington with a dodgy ampersand key, shredding ribbons ahoy. Now how to replace that little puppy?
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Keith Chester December 29th, 2005 at 14:33
Interesting article. I pulled out my old busted 15 gig 3rd (or 2nd?) gen ipod. It’s the one before all the buttons were moved onto the clickwheel. I opened itu p and found no foam but plastic surrounding a hard drive, and weird copper tape to replace the IDE cable I’m guessing. The rubber bumpers are still there. The harddrive in these are Toshiba MK1504GAL’s, which I found online for 40 bucks! When I went to get it repaired they quoted me 300 so I just bought a damned new ipod and used my college acceptance letter to get a discount greater than the recycling program. What a rip off! I’ll probably order it and see if it’ll work. I dropped the ipod and heard similar clicking noises – both the Apple Tech Support and I believed it to be a damaged hard drive so let’s see what I can do with this. There’s slight damage with the dock connector (a noticeable dent) so we’ll see what happens. But damn, nice article and tutorial. I’m also going to check out the battery and see if there’s a cheap way to extend it.
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Howard December 29th, 2005 at 14:55
If you want to increase the disk drive size, you can do it without problem as long as you get a new back plate for your iPod to make room for the thicker Hard Disk Thickness. I think you can proably go up to 60 or 80 GB
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Thanks so much for this. Some guy dropped my iPod and it was rendered useless until I followed these instructions and fixed the connection from the hard drive to the motherboard. Minus a few dings, it’s as good as new once again.
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has anyone told Laythor that the guy had a 20gb to begin with, not a 40gb?
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super log December 30th, 2005 at 11:28
yeah i know, he had a 20gb not a 40gb lol, cant believe nobody cought it after all those posts.
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legato895 December 30th, 2005 at 12:05
o
m
g
thank you so much! i just posted a lenghty artical on ars’s forums about how i couldn’t get a replacement ipod because my computer had now way of getting usb 2.0 and now, through the many different solutions presented to me, its working, at least for now! i also have no fear changing out the hdd in the future, but lets hope it doesn’t come to that!
thank you so much, for getting this conversation started!
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The connector on the toshiba hard drive is a 50 pin female connection that is specific to only the toshiba drives. I’m having a hard time finding one that fits it, so I can connect it to a standard 3.5 ide connection
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archos4evah December 30th, 2005 at 12:59
I upgraded my Archos 20GB with a new 100GB drive a year or so ago – works great! But 100GB is already feeling a little tight. Want 120GB next, heh.
I am going to try to do the same to my little sisters ipod, make a 15GB become a 60GB or something!
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sl123000 December 30th, 2005 at 18:45
I recently bought a 5th generation ipod and my brother got 1 too so he gave me his old 1 (4th Gen) and before he gave it to me he stepped on the screen and (some how) managed to put that heavy A$$ thing in the washing maciene and got soaked, so i tried getting the ipod open to dry up the circuts and motherboared and change the screen, i tried to get it open the way it was displayed in this artical and the ipods plastic split in two pieces inbetween the screen and the click wheel… thanks alot… 1 question though, is there a way to hook the ipod up a computer and use it as an external Hard Drive w/o having the ipod?
and another question does any one know a way to get an ipod mini open? (i have 5 ipod minis) -
I had the same problem with my 40GB 4G ipod not starting. I tried everything else, and the found these posts. After reading, I tried “smacking” the ipod.
It actually did work.
I held it in my left hand with the click wheel up, and with as much force as I could, smacked the side of it with my right hand
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Wow, Tried everything to get my 6 month old IPOD 60G working. Just smacked it on the back twice and it works like a champ. Thanks
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wow where did u get 20 gb ffor 1oo bucks
can u help me look for mine?
i have 3rd generation
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Andreas December 31st, 2005 at 06:16
Cool dude (:
Nice work, well done!
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Andrea December 31st, 2005 at 07:51
I did replace the battery in my iPod 2nd. gen. with success. My only advice is be prepared for a few new scratches. If you iPod is already scratched and well worn, it probably won’t matter that much. This article makes me want to disassemble and upgrfade my perfectly good 20GB iPod for the fun of it.
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shamus December 31st, 2005 at 11:51
If the Hard Drive Is extermaly hot does this mean that i need a new one?
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I just tried smacking my ipod like others had suggested and it worked. I was doubtful at first but ran out of options. one smack and presto.
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@ shamus January 1st, 2006 at 07:56
Do you mean while it runs, Shamus?
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Will barrett January 1st, 2006 at 08:54
First, it wouldn’t connect with the computer anymore. It would charge, but no detection on the PC. Next, it wouldn’t charge anymore, so I knew, a few more days and it was history.
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Does anyone know if a 30gb harddrive will fit inside the stock ipod 4th generation casing?
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Jon Smith January 1st, 2006 at 12:58
stan: you’re a genius! i had the same problem, a 4th gen with a sad face and clicking noise…was gonna replace the harddrive, luckily i saw your post…smacked it in my hand – it stopped clicking, then i ran the ipod updater, and it’s “good to go”!!!!
thanks man!!!!
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shamus January 1st, 2006 at 19:57
yes my ipod is only hot when its running does this mean i need a new HDD or close to it?
(it gets so hot that i cant hold it)
(and the battery fully chared only lasts 5 minutes) -
shamus January 1st, 2006 at 19:58
and another thing, is any one else here experinceing the problem?
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Another satisfied IPOD spanker. My IPOD started randomly messing up, but all the built in diagnostics passed. I was having EXTREMELY long syncs that would ofter lock up my itunes and the CPU to some degree. It was definitely the IPOD b/c it happend the same on multiple CPUs. Anyway, I turned it off, and gave it a couple of firm slaps, and violla! Seems to be working. I can’t believe I have found any other threads on the “ball&peen” method of fixing ipods. But thanks!
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cpt.pete January 2nd, 2006 at 08:22
I can’t get my ipod 10gig 3g to mount. the drive seems to be spinning, tryed the slap treatment, ran the updater program but that just shows a spinning ball for ever? any suggestions?
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nice job man. im saving it now as a pdf.
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Stan, you are the man! I can’t believe it worked!
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FUCK I TRIED TO SMAKING AT IT AND STILL WONT OWRK!!!
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does anyone have broken ipod i could get it for free
or working ipod for good price?
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Jonathan January 3rd, 2006 at 01:58
iPod slappers UNITE!
I was soooooo sceptical when I first heard the “drop it” or “”Slap it” solution but as I was having severe dramaas the other day and no other fix seemed to work, I just held it firmly in my left hand and gave the back a slap. Connected to the pc straight away and uploaded the music without so much as a glitch.
Today it crashed when plugged into the pc again (gonna have top check out my system I think) and I ended up with the sad icon face. Couldn’t even get the iPod into dick mode this time and was beginning to think I’d finally stuffed it for good after hours of tinkering. Even the same slap didn’t work this time.
Then after hours of trying to charge it, reformat it etc, I toiggled the hold switch fast a few times (like someone above suggested) before giving it a slap to the back and a slap to the side (again like someone abovve suggested).
Perfect.
I guess it’s all in the way it is slapped.
Of course, it more than liekly means that there is a loose connection in there someowhere but thanks to this blog, should it ever really become unuseable, I now know how to open it up and check those connections.
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I won a 20gb photo i pod ,which I haven’t unwrapped yet …..my question is there anyway to format it to accept video or am i dreaming?
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ciaran January 3rd, 2006 at 16:53
Add another name to the list of happy slappers! My iPod clapped out recently, only a week after warranty. Horrible clicks and folder icons are no more, following a hearty slap on the back.
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wordy rappinghood January 3rd, 2006 at 19:23
this visual point of reference was quite helpful. i’ve had an out-of-commission 4th gen click-wheel 20G ipod just sitting on a shelf for several months. i was getting an array of “!” errors (both the front and the folder “!” as well as the battery exclamatory), and couldn’t reset the ipod or put it into disk mode. the most progress it would make would be to show the apple logo and then it would inevitable fail with an exclamatory error regardless of whether it was plugging into my powerbook or the charger.
after reviewing the walkthrough, i just disassembled my ipod, disconnected the HD from the IDE connection and prompt reconnected it and reassembled and now it it working perfectly. It was quite easy and I just used a butterknife to separate the body of the ipod. I recommend everyone try this quick fix before investing in a new HD. Good luck.
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Skyler January 3rd, 2006 at 19:29
I dropped my iPod, and the ribbon wire came out of place, and disconnected from the back cover.. is there anything i can do to reconnect it, and still make it work??
p.s. it’s a 20 gig
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shamus January 3rd, 2006 at 19:29
GW:I won a 20gb photo i pod ,which I haven’t unwrapped yet …..my question is there anyway to format it to accept video or am i dreaming?
anwswer is yes look up video mod for ipod picure/nano it works for both.
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Smitty January 3rd, 2006 at 19:50
Hey…
If anyone has an ipod (working or not) they wanted to get rid of, i would be glad to take it off of your hands…
figure it’s worth a try..
if you have one, please email me at smittles2003@yahoo.com
thanks,
smitty -
hey, GW, if you have i ipod photo, try ipod linux. this works on a nano to watch video, and you should check this out to watch vids on the photo click the link and check it out.
http://ipodlinuxinstl.sourceforge.net/index.shtml -
sorrentossun January 4th, 2006 at 04:21
The happy slappers have another convert! After trying apple’s ‘five R’s’ to remove the sad icon I came across this blog and the slapping technique. Figuring that $250 for a fix on a 4th gen was a bit steep I gave it a go and hey presto! one healthy ipod and a happy bank manager. Well done for this blog, it’s now bookmarked for the eventual failure….
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Coolguy January 4th, 2006 at 13:22
my ipod nano broke and so i opened it up and tryed a few things, then i got out my trusty 9 volt baterie and randomly zoting places. i got it to work. (i was so happy i yelled it’s alive!)
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Osmolarity January 4th, 2006 at 17:32
So five minutes after sending in a warranty repair request, I come to this site (trying to find out if bad harddrives on 40 gig ipod photos are common), and then try the smack technique. It works! Of course, I expect the thing to crash again tomorrow, but at least I can listen to it tonight!
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thanks guys for the video info …..next question – i-tunes has split up my limewire tracks allowing some music into my library and others staying into owner’s limewire tunes. the problem is that i can’t transfer all the songs from limewire to library to install into the i-pod . I’ve looked through all the settings but can’t quite figure it out – any hints?
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nonstatic January 6th, 2006 at 03:59
the 30gb 1.8″ toshiba drives are exactly the same dimensions…i got one for only $20 more than the 20gb online. once you go to 40gb, those are double-platter drives and will not fit. toshiba is just now releasing a 40gb single platter drive but it is not available in the states yet.
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Hodgie January 6th, 2006 at 14:17
any ideas way i get ipod sevice error when i’m trying the ipod updater after replacing u/s hard drive??
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dennis January 6th, 2006 at 17:50
great guide, thanks so much. replaced my 4th gen 20g broken hard drive with a mates 3rd gen 20g with a broken screen.
the hard drive turned out to be exactly the same model (MK2004GAL). i found opening the ipod case easier from the cable/docking port end first rather than the sides though. get the screwdriver in and twist.
And on a few posts, in my experience, a folder with an exclamation can mean a broken hard disk, it can also mean an unformatted harddisk. put your ear to the ipod when starting up, if it takes a long time and makes horrible clicking noises, then it’s gone, if the icon appears quickly and the hard disk is spinning quietly, then you simply need to plug it in and let the ipod software do a restore.
hate to state the obvious, but hold and slap does not work. -
shamus January 6th, 2006 at 19:21
hold and slap does work maybe just not for you
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alienz January 7th, 2006 at 19:57
bravo .. great blog .. whoever needs replacement parts or batteries you can get them @ ipod mechanic here’s the linky
http://ipodmechanic.com//index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=6671c215e1dbf247c239247b5d03f0db
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Shitty U2 IPOD January 7th, 2006 at 23:40
I have a U2 20gig ipod that will not turn on. I’ve tried smaking it which didn’t work. Before it broke it had half charge so i don’t think it’s the battery. When i plug it in its not detected and the screen doesn’t turn on. Any suggestions.
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Jovan Puyo January 8th, 2006 at 07:16
Great great instructional blog! I really appreciated it that I bookmarked it already.
I searched Google for the drive you specified and I found the same model from ewiz.com. Here’s the link (http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=T20MK2006L&c=fr&pid=0cdf685c6347e4d05fe991cd44239303eae2ab1fad3cc585cf3e31e39e6bf8d5).
Just want to make sure that’s the one I need!
Thanks man!
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Anup and Adam January 8th, 2006 at 09:29
we just tried the smack the ipod method to get an ipod to work that had been dead for months with sad face and whirring and what not, didnt work
BUT BUT BUT BUT
when smashed against a table it worked!!! so there u have it, if something doesnt work hitting it and throwing it actually fixes it
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Very good blog! I will maybe attempt an upgrade from 20 to 40 Gb .
Q: Does anyone know how to take apart Ipod to fix the wheel? Mine is skipping from 12 to 6 o’clock on the wheel. Any info is welcome!
John_herr@hotmail.comThanks again, great post.
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liam_ratcliffe January 8th, 2006 at 15:10
i got my ipod 20 gb 4th gen on xmas and i dropped it not long after, ive tried everything even the slapping and it still making clicking noises and showing apple icon and then the folder and ! icon. i don’t want to risk opening it up. any suggestions? or can i get it rplaced on my warranty? any help would be great
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sparkslord January 8th, 2006 at 15:55
I have attempted to reair my wifes ipod, without success. It shows the corrupted folder Icon. I tried using numerous disk utilities on bot Mac and PC platforms. The drive is not seen. I have used the slap method and hold method. I have opened the ipod to check for loose connections (this was way easier than I expected). My next step is to replace the drive. Does anyone know if a 4th gen HD will fit a 3rd gen Ipod?
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Lonnie wheeler January 8th, 2006 at 17:27
I just brought my old lady her first ipod for christmas off ebay I think I paid to much for it but anyway I tryed to reformat it for my pc and erase the old and put on her kind of crap or whatever she whould like on it and now it will not do anything but come on show the book then shut down I didn’t want to give it to her until it was loaded so she still don’t know I have it
so like others above I would be interested in a cheap ipod of any kind that works when I say cheap it has to be cheap like I said above I paid to much for the first one when she see’s it on my bill she will probley shoot me if anyone cares or has one they dont want email me at prostockchopper@aol.com PLEASE! AND THANK YOU… -
YOUR BRAIN January 8th, 2006 at 18:50
Let me tell you once and for all. If someone smacked their broken iPod into working, there is a loose connection and likely still loose. Hitting it will ONLY cause potential damage. If you think getting it to work by hitting is a better option, you are an idiot. You have a perfect guide right here to work from. Do it right the first time and it may work for a long time. Hitting it may make an intermittent connect work temporarily, BUT THE PROBLEM IS STILL THERE. Let me add that 95% of the posts ENCOURAGING you to bash it are from jokers trying to get morons to say “gee, maybe I should try that, I’m sooo desperate to make my iPod work again….God help me…make this smack work!” Ask yourself, “Am I really that pathetic?” C’mon people, think for yourselves! BTW, great tutorial, thanks!
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Mac tech January 8th, 2006 at 20:22
to Your Brain: while you are correct about the potential for additional damage, the quick test of one or two slaps to confirm that there is a losse connection is far less damaging than the number of drops that most pod users inlict on their pods. Stating that, I am a Mac tech and would NEVER have slapped my own pod. I did slap a “dead”, out-of warranty pod and it worked. So… it is not the best solution, but it is better than the $ given to Apple for the lay person to get it “fixed”. I do plan to crack the case and check the connectors to confirm your thoughts, but not everyone would.
to Josh: Nice Blog. Thanks.
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Steven Petrillo January 9th, 2006 at 09:33
Does anyone know if you can put in hard drives other than Toshiba into an iPod, as long as they match the specs of the Toshiba?
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Scott Foust January 9th, 2006 at 13:01
I’ve read that upgrading the drive from ***4GAL to ***6GAL will cause the firewire update to stop working. Can anyone confirm this?
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darryl January 9th, 2006 at 18:46
awesome this site, will make me more money now that i can fix all these broken ipods now.
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just so you all know, slapping a hard drive, is actually a last resort technique i was taught in tech school for use with hard drives that have crashed and have no backup. the idea is that the head in the drive has become slightly out of place. it needs to be at a speciffic distance from the surface of the disk to properly read it. with something like an ipod, it’s basically just a hard drive and a screen that you put in your pocket, so it gets banged up a lot and the likelyhood of the head becoming out of place is much higher. giving the unit a firm slap sometimes vibrates the head so that it settles back to it’s original position.
anyway, point was, in the future if a drive in your pc stops working, keep in mind that you can possibly use this same trick to get it working again, at least for long enough to copy essential files to a new drive.
the way we were told to do it was to hold it levelly over a carpeted floor and drop it with the top facing down.
it really is a last resort though…it runs the risk of making your problem [way] worse, especially if the head wasn’t the problem to begin with, and it was just corrupted data causing the problem, or a bad cable. in fact, when my professor started talking about it, the first thing he said was, “i probably shouldn’t tell you all this, but…”
so don’t smack your ipod as soon as it stops working. make sure there’s no other solution, then give it a shot.
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Mickey January 10th, 2006 at 13:33
Great instructions. I was ready to change out my hard drive when I read the first message on the slap. I figured what the heck… I have to spend the money for a new one anyway…. why not try it.
Low and behold…. it worked…!!! I am not sure how long it will hold it but it worked and I am very happy for now …. thanks a lot…
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Let me start off by saying that the slapping method some of you guys are using is just a temporary solution to a problem that will not go away by spanking your ipods a few times. But u can do whatever the hell u want, i couldnt care less. Anywayz moving on to my success story. I bought a Philips HDD120 with a 20gb hard drive almost a year ago; it was a decent alternative to the ipod and it looked much better, but four months ago i dropped it and something got messed up in the circuit board so i couldnt repair it. Therefore i decided to buy a 3G ipod with a 15 GB HD on ebay. I’ve been using it without any problems ever since, i’ve also dropped it at the gym a few times but still, it always worked perfectly. All that changed last week when i bought one of those FM transmitters for my car- a waste of money dont buy that crap. I plugged it in the car’s cigarrette lighter and decided to listen to my songs on the way to school. Fifteen mins later the iPOD crashed , the folder icon with the exclamation sign appeared on the screen and i could hear the clickin’ noise so it was obvious that there was something wrong with the HD. I tried restoring it and then i ran the diagnostic thing. As i had suspected the HD test failed. I wasnt gonna pay $100++ for a new HD so i opened up my old philips hdd 120 and to my surprise i found out that both units used the same HD. I swapped the HDs and now i have a 20 GB ipod working like a charm.
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Your Brain January 10th, 2006 at 15:28
Thanks for the insight Mac Tech. I may have been a bit harsh, but hate to see some misguided folks ruin something that may not have been otherwise an unsolvable problem. I guess Josh and a couple others have previously added their caveats. Your probably very correct about how many times people drop those in day to day usage. Not a reason to do it on purpose, but a good point.
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darren January 11th, 2006 at 14:43
my ipod gets the same folder icon with the exclaimation point! It continually resets itself everytime i turn it on. The only way i can keep it on is if i put it in disk mode. Even still, once i plug it into my computer to restore it, it’ll reset itself even in disk mode, so i can’t even restore it. I’ve tried the slap method, not sure if i’m doing it right because its not working. The hard drive looks fine, no scratches, no clicking sounds, but i still think its the problem. i switched the harddrive between one working 20gig 4gen ipod and this 20gig 4gen ipod that doesn’t work. when i switch the hd’s…the same problem transfers to the new housing. Anyone have this problem? Do I really have to replace the hd or is there something else i can do to reformat it ipod style?
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can you do this with a mini also?
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jonathan diaz January 12th, 2006 at 20:10
i had the same
face problem and i just opened my ipod and disconnected the battery and hard drive for like 1 hour. i plugged it in again and my ipod 4g was working again. Anyways i have a 2nd gen 6gig ipod mini for sale at $125 dollars. Hit me up if u intersted. -
i'm boring January 13th, 2006 at 05:41
to steven petrillo-
as far as i know you can put any ide harddrive that will fit in it. hell, even if it doesn’t fit you can still attach it and make it work.
case and point
http://www.command-tab.com/index.php/ipod-super -
I followed the instructions to the letter and once again am the proud owner of a fully functional 4G 20GB iPod. Thanks to Josh and to Laythor for the info. I froogled the toshiba drive, the MK2006GAL, and found it on eWiz for only $88. Considering this drive costs upwards of $100 elsewhere, it was a great tip, thanks!!
By the way, I used a silicon rubber (RTV) adhesive sealant to glue the foam on the new drive, considering the heat output of the iPod when functioning. Thanks to Bill Eberly above for the observation.
Once again thanks to all!
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Flex Kavana January 13th, 2006 at 15:12
Well, I read all 100+ posts and had been experiencing many of the same symptoms (major one being the slow but constant clicking of the HD)with my 4Gen 20G iPod (Yes, I had dropped it by accident). Jumped thru all the regular hoops and was certain I’d have to send it back. Then I found this blog.
I turned iPod to its side, held it in my left hand and firmly smacked it on the side. Can you beleive for the first time in weeks I actually got the menu. Plugged it up via USB to my computer and iTunes recognized it and automatically updated it. It’s charging right now as I type.
I agree with an earlier poster that if my dropping the iPod caused something to become loose, than smacking it may only be a temporary fix. I may need to eventually carefully open the iPod and secure what may have become loose. However, I am puddle happy right now that all is not lost as I originally thought. At least I dont have to send it away (yet).
Great blog, and great input from all.
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Cool blog. I can’t believe I scrolled through and read the whole thing. I was nearly in tears with all the “whoo-hoo!” pod-spanking comments. My 4G 40GB just went on the fritz, exactly 2 weeks after the 1-year warranty expired. WTF? I’ve tried everything, twice. When the dude at the Apple store told me the drive needed to be replaced at a cool $250, I nearly threw the crappy pod against the wall. Now I can’t wait to get home and spank mine to see if it helps. I’m not dumb enough to think a spanking fixes everything – duh – but when all else fails…
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savannah January 14th, 2006 at 14:39
i have an ipod mini. and whenever i press any buttons, put it on hold, or even try hold and slap, it appears with an apple logo and then a folder and ! icon. i don’t want to spend money trying to fix it and i really don’t have money to buy a new one. so does anyone know of a way it can be fixed for FREE?
thnx
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my ipod went kaput cuz i letf it in my moms car glove cabinet and it was for like 3 day and it just wont work like this error sign appears on it when i format it and i crie daily
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Help Me January 14th, 2006 at 21:35
Well, I just tried to open mine up and give it a whirl. I waited two days, plugged it in really quick, and the screen’s light kept going on and off. I quickly unplugged it, and got in there with a box cutter. So, I opened it, cleaned it out, and now absolutely nothing works. Does anyone have any reasons why not? The battery was at full charge before getting inflicted with the H20. It does sound like something might have loosened in the HD. I can open it up and fix it (I know how), but I would feel better knowing that it was the problem…
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jeffry January 15th, 2006 at 06:34
thanks guys,
over the holidays my son and i restored his 4th generation ipod. (he got a video ipod) we read the blog and tried several of the suggestions. finally (as several posts suggested) i gave the ipod a spanking… and lo and behold it came back to life. thanks alot… we recovered the older ipod and loaded it up with songs for my wife and now she is happily using it. ah the power of beating the crap out of technology!!! -
Michael January 15th, 2006 at 07:29
Hey, I have the same problem and I want to do the same thing you did, does it matter if it is Hewlett Packard, or is it same hard drive? Thanks
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Michael January 15th, 2006 at 07:38
I’ve got the same problem, and I want to try it your way, so I need to know if it matters if you have an HP iPod or if it doesnt matter. Thank you.
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Does it matter if you have an HP iPod?
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Will the hard drive be the same for a 20gb HP?
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Willaim January 15th, 2006 at 08:12
Did you bid for the replacement?
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peter Vandoorne January 15th, 2006 at 11:32
here peter from belgium , sames problems and repared by slapping it
great , thanks…
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shakermaniac January 15th, 2006 at 18:15
another convert. mine had the sad face so i gave it a quick slap after tring everything else and then it showed the folder with the exclamation and then another slap and hey presto it works again. Does this mean it was a harddrive problem and if so is it only a temporary solution. Cn anyone suggest a longer term one or will i have to buy a new one or replace the hard drive in the long-run?
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Great website – but before you change your harddrive try the blog tip #16 above.
I had managed to demagnetize parts of my HD so that for weeks I couldn’t do anything – it would only click and click and give me the FolderExlamation mark picture.
I was just about to take my 40GB iPod apart using this website and buy a new HD when I read that if my iPod did not show an unhappy face I could reset it by:
push center and play button while
lock and unlock the iPod 10 timesthis put’s the ipod in a special mode
then run the updater, I had to leave mine for over 3 hours before it recognized the iPod, but when I woke up in the morning, my iPod was back to normal, and with the latest SW. Just had to resynch the whole thing.
I probably tried 15 times what I just explained and it wasn’t until I just let the updater and iPod sit for several hours that it finally worked. So don’t give up!
Great website, fantastic pictures! Thanks, PN
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John K January 15th, 2006 at 21:24
10 days after my 20 GB HP Ipod warranty ran out I dropped it. Even though I had a protective cover on it. I “lost” all my songs. The menus reverted back to the original setup but the songs were all gone. A look at SETTINGS ABOUT showed it stilled have 16.7 GB of data but I couldn’t access anything.
HP email tech support was helpful but all they could do was confirm that the hard drive was kaput. Hp does not service HP Ipods anymore but they will sell you a replacement… for $265 – no thanks!
So, I’m following your lead here. FYI the HP Ipod has the exact same hard drive – the Toshiba MK2004GAl. Thanks to a previous poster I went to ewiz.com and ordered a 30 GB hard drive for $102 (about $125 including CA tax and shipping). A whole lot less than a new IPOD.
I should have it later this week. Anything I need to do to format the HD to accept photos and video? -
turbo mcguggenhymen January 16th, 2006 at 08:05
>> fantastic blog!!!!
>> my 40 ipod would start up, then you could hear the hard drive clicking over and over again and then the dreaded *sad face* would appear.
>>I tried everything and was considering buying the toshiba drive when i read ” turn it on, hold it in your right hand, and then bash it’s side into the palm of your left”
>> AND IT NOW WORKS PERFECTLY : )
thanks
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you rock. you saved me $150, and some humility.
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drdmoney365 January 16th, 2006 at 15:46
Hold and Slap…Works Like A Charm. I am so glad that this site has worthy information. unlike apple support. OMFG. DO the 5 fucking R’s!!! If apple wants to be a competitive company, they need better troubleshooting guides.
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CHuston January 16th, 2006 at 20:33
I too am a believer in smacking. I was putting my ear up to the ipod and could hear my hd spining and then dying every 10 seconds. I plugged it in and it was only transfering about 1 songs every 20 seconds. I held it in my hand, hit is as hard as I could about 3 times, and boom now it is loading songs like its new. Maybe the new hd is a long term fix but I thought mine was dead. Great blog.
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Awesome blog. I tried everything to fix my 30g iPod Photo with warning sign and folder, i was ready take it to Apple when i found your smacking technique. Man, it saved my iPod for free.
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i’ve slapped the shit out of mine and it still wont work
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RadiusMan January 17th, 2006 at 23:25
I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in with the slapping fiasco.
I opened up my ipod today and found that the ribon that connected the iPod HD to the main board was just a TAD bit out of place. The connector apparently is really easy to pull it out enough where it doesn’t create a good connection. All I did was push this little ribbon back in as snug as I could and BOOM the iPod worked like a charm. It is apparent that these iPods have hard drive connector ribbons that are easy lodged from their place. I never once dropped it, ever, and it still did that to me. Slapping it probably gives it enough force to make a slightly better connection to the HD and therefore start working again. This is why I think the slapping method works. In fact, i’d ask the original poster of this blog to remove the new HD he put in and put in the old one snugly and see if it works — I bet it will. Too bad I already bought a new iPod
-RadiusMan -
my nano screen broke what should i do? please please please help me
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John K January 18th, 2006 at 19:07
I got my new 30 GB drive from ewiz.com in 2 days. My apologies, in my earlier post I said the 30 GB cost $102, it’s actually $109. Anyway, it took about 2 minutes to put it in, snap on the back and plug it in. It took a while for it to download the 4896 songs I have in itunes but it works great and I now have 10 more GBs of space!
Thanks for the great post and for saving me $$. My check to you is in the mail!
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hi, im having the same problem as shamus. my battery only lsts 5min when fully chargeed and it get burning hot when i charge it. its a third gen ipod. hELP!!!
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Was about to take it apart, but thought to try the “slap the damn thing” approach. It worked. Only thing I figure is that HDD’s are sometimes subject to “stiction” and slapping it like this get the head to move freely again.
Go figure….
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Spanked mine. It worked again. But could not help taking it apart and having a look. It was indeed easy to take it apart. 5 mins work.
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I too have given mine a spank, it works a treat now. Many thanks, saved me £150
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superinflamo January 19th, 2006 at 16:38
yo guys i just got my kuzins dead ipod n now i am goin to buy his for bout 20-30 bucks then buy the harddrive for another 100 or so
yep yepdan el man
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My mate’s ipod had the same prob with the whirring HD and the clicking then dying, I came across this site while looking for help. I just checked out the fix at the top and didn’t even scroll this far down so I didn’t know about the slapping fix, anyways I read through the “replacing hard drive” and then decided to give it a right good shake as I thought he had nothing to lose and Bob’s yer uncle, one mate delighted and one free lunch for me….and he swears it’s working better than before.
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where can one buy these drives
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Matt B January 20th, 2006 at 13:58
Well … I tried all the erase/restore stuff on the Apple website, attempted to reformat the hard drive on a PC without iTunes, took the iPod apart and checked the connections, did everything short of “the smack” and the hard drive replacement. Nothing would make the sad face go away. I didn’t want to do it, but I gave it a whack. I’m now happily listening to Dave Brubeck again. What can I say?
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I’d have to caution against using a screwdriver to open the ipod. The potential for damaging the ipod (deep scratches, bending or denting the case, or even damaging the internals if you’re not careful) are too great in my mind.
If you can find something else to use, that is thin, hard (but softer than metal), and stiff enough to pry with, use that instead.The best thing that I’ve found for this are medium or hard plastic guitar picks. They’re perfect – the plastic won’t even scratch the ipod, they’re thin enough to slip in easily and not bend the back of the case, and they’re cheap.
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Sir Charles XXVI January 21st, 2006 at 03:24
I held it with one hand… I smacked it with the palm of the other… and it worked!!! I searched everywhere on the internet (for around an hour) and found only one site that related to me, and no one knew how to fix the problem. Only here, where it wasn’t even the intent of the original posting, did I learn to show love to my ipod by giving it a good smack. That’s amazing!!!
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Excellent blog. FYI: for those who like me don’t have the correct plastic wedge for opening the iPOD…with a scalpel I shaved a plastic golf tee into a wedge shape and it did the trick for getting the back casing off. BTW: if the HDD isn’t spinning up then no amount of slapping will resuscitate the iPOD. As per a couple of other entries the real difficulty is sourcing an Apple branded HDD. I’ve got a 2nd Gen. 20Gb with 1.8″ Toshiba MK2003GAH – would love to know if there are any other HDD’s that will work; it would be great if I could increase the capacity too!
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I see that you used the MK2006GAL to replace the MK2004GAL drive. My gen 3 iPod used a 15GB Toshiba MK1504GAL. I wanted to replace it with a 20GB MK2004GAL, which I’m told should work. However, like you I can’t find one so I bought a MK2006GAL. It doesn’t work. The MK2006GAL won’t format using Apple’s disk utility. I tried it on 3 computers. In researching what the difference was between a MK2004GAL and a MK2006GAL, I see that the older one uses ATA-5 interface while the 2006 uses ATA-6 interface. The INCITS standards committee claims that the change from ATA-5 to ATA-6 involves speed and a few other features but should not affect backward compatibiity. Anyway, I’m now back in the market for an MK2004GAL. Not sure this is the problem, though, but I suspect that the gen 3 iPod only works with the ATA-5 interface.
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junglegirl January 22nd, 2006 at 07:01
Ok I’ve tried everything I know how and nothing has worked yet, so I’m hoping someone has some more advice. 20GB 4th gen iPod was dropped, now has warning folder icon and clicking noises. I have taken it apart and disconnected then reconnected the hard drive, but that did nothing. I shook the hard drive and didn’t hear anything moving inside. And yes, I’ve slapped it, several times, to no avail. I can get it into disk mode, but the computer won’t recognise it so I can’t update or restore. It never appears in “my computer” nor in iTunes. It will say “do not disconnect” while it attempts to connect for about ten seconds, then it gives up. After a few seconds it tries again, repeating this cycle. For the ten or so seconds that it’s trying to connect, it will appear in the device manager under computer management as a disk drive, but still the iPod updater doesn’t recognise it. To PN who wrote comment 133, is this what yours was doing? The updater also gives up after a few seconds and says “can’t mount iPod,” so I can’t really imagine that leaving it hooked up overnight will do anything, but I’ll try it tonight anyway. If I can’t fix it, is there any chance of recovering the music? No, I don’t have it backed up on a computer. Thanks for any help.
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Stephanie January 22nd, 2006 at 14:32
Sweet choice of tunes. I am going to try this and try to get my Piece of CRAP ipod working. Thanks for the info.
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InNeedOfHelp January 22nd, 2006 at 17:17
I opened my iPod as the folder with exclamation mark kept appearing, and whenever I got it into Disk Mode it crashed.
So i opened it and the tape had gone dry which conencts the hard disk to the board and it came off!!
PLEASE OHH PLEASE HOW DO I FIX THIS?!
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evando January 22nd, 2006 at 21:24
Awesome site!
I’m beginning to believe that I’ll need to replace my HDD. However, the HDD Test feature in my iPod’s diagnostic mode says HDD Pass. Any suggestions? Explanations? I’ve tried almost everything, and I’m just too chicken to slap my iPod (it’s just so precious to me).
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Brilliant advice, great pictures, well done, I’m going to have a go!!
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steve Winkler January 23rd, 2006 at 11:24
HOLD AND SLAP…it worked for me
… I even had the sad ipod face of gloom and doom… -
Amazing! I was about to search eBay for some hard drives after getting the sad iPod face, but wanted to make sure that it was an operation I could handle. (This, mind you, LESS THAN A MONTH after the limited warranty ran out.)
Read the smacking advice and it seems to work like a (temporary) charm! One good hit on the side while it was face up and it stopped making the horrible “the hard drive isn’t working properly” cycling noises. Menu loaded fine, nothing’s lost, and I’m a very happy person.
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Joel Reynolds January 23rd, 2006 at 20:43
Just for the record – 4th Gen 20 GB. The day my warranty ran out, it broke, got the sad face, the folder and the spinning drive that stopped with a clunk. Read all about the slapping going on and decided to give it a try – worked great – but I hit the side of the ipod against my kitchen table. Dinning room tables will probably work too. Good stuff.
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Jokerman January 24th, 2006 at 14:31
Great blog lots of great tips, others just random linkage whoring.
So I was planning on upgrading my ipod’s harddrive to somethign with a bit more GB’s but I was wondering if this would my ipods battery usage?
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To whoever posted the hold and slap move,
THANK YOU SO MUCH
You saved me $250!!!
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Real Happy Sam!!! January 25th, 2006 at 12:39
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! -
Michael January 25th, 2006 at 18:55
HOW DO YOU GET THE CASE OFF? I TRIED FOR 2 HOURS THIS WONT WORK HOW DID YOU DO IT?! I CANT FIGURE OUT A WAY TO OPEN THE THING
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Great work….I love the fact that people like you selflessly put these money-saving tips on the web. As much as I love Apple, I was not happy by the collapse of the iPod after 1 year and 21 days of buying it.
Thanks !
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evando January 26th, 2006 at 20:07
I’m sort of embarassed to say that in my stress, I became an iPod spanker. While I’m not proud of this, it did get my malfunctioning iPod to start normally. However, it still won’t connect to iTunes properly. I’ve done almost everything: restored, rolled back the firmware, installed an older version of iTunes. What else can I do? I’m getting pretty desperate here.
MAYBE I’ll try to replace the HDD…
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Well what do you know.. the slap trick worked with my ipod!
Thanks muchly!!!!
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Oh my god the smack thing worked. I was dreading going out and getting a new pod later tonight.
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Josh…you are mentioned in this blog–> http://askpang.typepad.com/relevant_history/2004/11/meeting_the_sad.html
This blog has a BAZILLION comments, including one from “Eddie”, who suggesting the “hold and slap” method. I was DESPERATE…as most of us are…and thinking I would have to change out my HD, spending lots of money in the process. So, I just slapped it a couple times…and the backlight pops on and I’m HAPPY AS HELL! Woo-hoo, it works! That’s what those Apple Store people probably do when they go into the back with your iPod… they’re all sitting back there slapping iPods…HA!
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My family has 30G, 40G & 20G iPods; the 30 & 40 are [warranty] replacements; my 20G (Dad gets the small one) is just out of warranty and I’m sweating. I treat this thing as if it were filled with nitroglycerine. It acts goofy sometime but I use the keypad combinations from the Apple site with success…BUT…in a weird way, I’m almost looking forward to popping this thing open after reading all this-! I have never slapped my iPod but remember owning an ancient Macintosh IIx with a giant 40 M drive–I began to get the sad face icon and learned from a mac tech that I simply had to lift the HD out of the box, hold it firmly at the level and rapidly twist it axially–jerking it, really–and the drive would free itself–damned if it didn’t work and I started that IIx like that every day for several years. Apple has about lost my business in the desktop area; their designers’ credo seems to be “function follows form”–I have a giant DELL that makes my G4 look like an Etch-a-Sketch by comparison. Nowadays Apple seems bent on making juke boxes. (Sorry for the editorializing.) Thanks for your great blog, son-!
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I had the same problem, stuck and clicking ipod hard drive. I just spanked my ipod and it’s working fine.
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i’m actually about to do this, i’m just waiting on the hard drive to come in, i’ll come back and tell you if it worked or not. i really hope it does.
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I can’t believe it!!! My 60 gig iPod photo hard drive died during iTunes synch. After that it would only click and would not mount. I tried everything. And I mean everything. I read this post, turned the iPod over and smacked the crap out of it one time and it fired right up. Thank you!!!!!
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Jordon Andrus January 29th, 2006 at 20:52
yeah i just got an apple 20gb fourth generation from my friend. he found it in a parking lot and didn’t want it. it has a cracked screen and the hard drive just craped out, but i’m going to try the “HOLD AND SLAP” to see if that will work. I hope it does, because i dont really have $160 for a new 20 gig.
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Jordon Andrus January 29th, 2006 at 21:06
Can anyone tell me how i can fix my hard drive without slapping it. that didnt work on mine for some reason, so is there any whay to fix it?
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Following up on my earlier post above, I can confirm that the Apple branded TOSHIBA 1.8″ MK4004GAH 40Gb drive works (and fits) in a 2nd Generation iPOD – now I’ll upgrade the battery to the longer lasting 2200mAH and I’ll have a super-size-me 2nd Gen.
BTW – all this has been done at less than half the price (inc. battery & carriage!) Apple wanted to charge for a direct like-for-like 20Gb HDD replacement… -
liek i said that i was gonna do this procedure, and i did and hell yes it did work
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Thank you so much! That sounds exactly like what’s wrong with my ipod. I’m gonna try to fix it. I hope it really is the same problem.
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hakeem January 30th, 2006 at 16:04
I want and ipod for $200
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Julian January 30th, 2006 at 17:55
A 3G 20gb ipod was making the terrible noise and showing the bad folder icon. I couldn’t resetting it or format it because it wasn’t recognized by the computer at all. I got a 30gb mk3006gal hdd from ewiz and put it in there. I reset it using the iPodupdater from apple.com and now it’s working just fine. 28.5gb available space.
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Vinny N. January 30th, 2006 at 20:07
Oh my gosh. Hold and slap really worked for me!!!! I was laughing at the earlier post suggesting this. My brother’s ipod wasn’t working right and had the same symptoms described above. (hard-drive making noise and the bad folder icon. I tried everything that the ipod site suggested(reset, restore, etc.). I tried to do a restore, but the my computer gave me the error of “can’t mount the ipod” I saw this site and was planning on replacing the hard-drive. I thought, “what the heck” held the ipod firmly in my right hand and smacked it on the side. About 5 seconds later the menu screen appeared. If I ever need to change the hardrive out at least I know how from this site.
Thanks,
Vinny from Salt Lake City, Utah -
Justin January 30th, 2006 at 20:40
I had the exact same problem… iPod was not responding, hard drive was clicking and I kept getting that sad little iPod icon. I couldn’t reset the iPod and my computer wouldn’t recognize it. I figured the hard drive had failed. I was ready to give up. Well, I tried the old trusted method of slapping the iPod and it miraculously started working again. This is obviously temporary, but for now I can listen to music! If it continues to fail, I will replace the hard drive just like Josh explained above.
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My iPod completely stopped, the Hard Drive was clicking and a sad face appeared on the screen. Well, after reading some messages, I finally tried the simple “hold and slap” move…
…and the iPod was back to life!! -
My pod quit. So I read above comments and slap the shit out of it, like it owned me money. didn’t work. but i got new HDD like josh and now is like new!
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thanks i wanted to know how to do that.
can you tell me were to get an i pod hard drive from? plz -
filmy porno January 31st, 2006 at 14:38
Hello
Pretty good article, nice job !
Regards from filmy porno -
JimmySprinkle January 31st, 2006 at 20:49
OMG, this is probably the 4th mistreated iPod i ahve seen. Recently, i bought an iPod 20GB 4th Generation from my friend PJ, which had the same problem; it would start up, show the file with the exclamation mark, then click a bunch and turn off. I brought it home, and ofter looking on the Apple Website, it states that that icon means it needs to be RE-FORMATTED! All you would have needed to do was plug it into your computer and re-format it with an old iPod update, or like me, use the installation disk that came with your iPod. This has always worked for, so try this before jumping to conclusions that the hard-drive is broken.
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StrongBad January 31st, 2006 at 22:26
Glorious day! Thank you Joshua for starting this thread! Bet you’re pretty popular with the honeys now…
I have become a proud iPod spanker. It’s not all I spank, but I digress. >:-) My God! I can’t believe it worked! I will probably end up following the directions above to replace the drive (for -
StrongBad January 31st, 2006 at 22:30
Cont’d from above. This system doesn’t seem to like
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hey jimmy sprinkle if you read the article correctly he cant mount the ipod onto the computer, the hard drive was entirely messed up. so even if you could reformat it, which in his case and mine we couldnt, there would be no point. i had gotten the same exact thing. that dreaded folder with the exclamation point and all it did was click whir die. the computer wouldnt even catch that it was there, i even was so desperate as to slap the damn thing. nothing. so i bought the hard drive 3 day shipping, came out to about 106.61 open the ipod, plugged it in voila. new ipod for me.
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Andrew February 1st, 2006 at 04:20
I was able to disconnect the ide ribbon and do the hold and slap method, and reconnect it. i was able to do it twice, now im unable to do it for some reason. any reason why? i think you can only do it once. so now im stuck at square one again, and now i cant shake the hdd to make it work again. :/
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Mark from Clemson February 1st, 2006 at 05:38
GREAT SITE!! Same story, dropped ipod in the gym, clicking confirmed dead HD. Upgraded to 30GB (MK3006GAL) from 20GB. New HD had no operating system and couldn’t update with apple.com’s updater. Took it to BestBuy’s Geek Squad, they said call 1-800-MY-APPLE. Didn’t have time to talk to them so I popped in the CD that came w/ my ipod. It reconized the ipod needed formatting and now it’s working great. Bottom Line…Upgraded a dead ipod to 30GB for only $118(ewiz.com) in only 30 minutes.
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Ferghal February 1st, 2006 at 11:35
Excellent tutorial, I had a broken HD, do I took out the HD of my old iPod and threw it into my new one. Worked perfectly! Cheers.
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Rogelio Montagne February 1st, 2006 at 13:02
Where you bought the new Hard MK 2004GAL
Do you have the internet addres for this eletronics Store? -
Piperman February 2nd, 2006 at 03:05
I dont Beleive it, my sisters 4th gen 40 gig had been dead for some months, with a €275 fee from apple to fix it! So she just bought a new one.
she Slapped it yesterday and its back to life !!
Excellent. Thats a bit crazy that that seems to be fixing ipods for so many people.
is it the hard drive needle being freed again?
or what is the slap actually doing to fix it? -
http://www.ewiz.com/query.php?categry=21&s=toshiba&Go+Search%21.x=41&Go+Search%21.y=15
thats the list of hard driveshttp://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=T20MK2006L
and thats the one i got. -
SMACK IT IT WORKS!!! My 40gb 4th gen ipod also showed the sad ipod icon so i found this site. however, as good as the tutorial was, I kept reading about people “smacking their ipods.” I figured mine is already broken so why not give it a shot. lo and behold the freakin thing works and all my music is still there!!!
Hold it in your left hand with the click wheel up and smack it on the SIDE as hard as you can. Apple should give this out as technical advice, better yet you could send me $300 and I’ll “fix” your ipod for you. -
Crazy Mouse February 3rd, 2006 at 15:42
I smacked my 4th gen pod and it’s working better than it did when it was brand new ! NO JOKES. The smacking payed my bills.
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Richard Stenlund February 5th, 2006 at 08:32
I was desperate and had already looked around for buying a new one, but thought what the heck I´ll give it a shot and smacked it hard twice. Now it works great again and who said that violence doens´t help
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My ipod, I think, is buggered. Fixable most likely with a lot of dosh. I have slapped it and all, but with no luck. It just keeps scrolling very fast past all my songs, not allowing me to play anything, and is very sluggish when slidding screens.
Any ideas? It’s in warrenty, but of course I lost the bloddy thing.
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Mattc007 February 6th, 2006 at 14:21
The smack technique worked on my “folder-icon, clicky” ipod! I cannot believe it!
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great help thanks!
I held it in the left hand, smacked it twice, took hold off and low and behold – a working IPOD!!
For people who are in the UK and have to replace drive, dabs.com has them for £52 (model above) 20GB which is pretty cool.
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Thanks,
I had the clicking, whiring sound and sad faced icon. I tried the five steps posted at apple to no avail. Ten slaps later and the pod is back to normal.
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d gerrard February 7th, 2006 at 07:42
I was about to sue Apple as my warrant was out of date by 3 days….got the sad face of death we all hate. Told it would cost almost £200 to fix….one firm slp later and holding down the 3 keys as above and its WORKING!!!! No technique required. Happy days!
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Holden February 7th, 2006 at 17:33
Clicky hard drive and exclamation folder problem was cured in one slap! Since then I’ve slapped everything. Broken toaster, alarm clock, whatever. Doesn’t work but sure feels good.
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Leandro February 7th, 2006 at 20:49
LOL Stan is tha man!!!! Every one hold your ipod and give it the smack down. I havent used my ipod for 4 months and i was giving up until today i gave it the slap. this is so freakin funny. slap slap slap
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Great site. Have 30G ipod photo out of warranty and recently dropped. No amount of software reinstalling would help the key hold was stuck and the device useless. Having seen you sight I decided to take the back off. To my pleasant surprise the cable attaching the key hold to the motherboard had simply come unplugged. Stuck that back in and hey presto it works again.
Thanks
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I had all the same issues: Sad face, ala Sex and the City, and that file folder kept popping up. The drive sounded like it wanted to ran but it only geared up then clicked and crashed. I read all these posts, hit it twice and it works! Im convinced Apple only makes these things to work for a certain amount of time knowing that we will just run out and by new ones. Bastards! Thanks everyone.
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Since November, my ipod loads the apple symbol, the hard drive clicks and clicks and clicks, and then I get the exclamation point and folder. I had recently given up on it until I saw ipodrepairguide.com. I was about to pay a few bucks to get a guide on how to fix my ipod myself….until I saw this site. I opened up my ipod using a nail filer. I looked to see where the harddrive was connected to the motherboard, pressed down firmly, then resealed the ipod. To my joy, the ipod works PERFECTLY. I am so happy I didn’t have to pay $300 bucks(Ipod broke three days after warranty).
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lynettstoy February 8th, 2006 at 22:22
My son’s 4G 40GB ipod went bonkers about a week out of warranty. Add to the mess that it was one that was co-branded with HP, and there seems no way to get straight answers from either company, which sent me looking for a way to fix what he has. I’ve dabble with the insides of all my computers over the years, and felt that it was the hard drive, and that I could probably replace it when I googled onto this site. Wow! I teach, but I would never complain about the typos since your presentaion was very complete, laid out with excellent pictures (a picture is worth a thousand words!), and for the most part, the posts have had important perspectives, and added more knowledge about the whole process. The son is a music major at KU, and uses the ipod for presentations, etc., besides living with it in his pocket. He was so distressed when it failed that I sent him the shuffle that I received for Christmas, feeling that some music was better than none. I forwarded this blog to him late last night, and he tried the slap with his ipod and it seems like new, leaving him with both ipods and me with none. My feeling is that the slapping will buy you time, but the hard drive is showing the signs of wear, so I will probably purchase a new hard drive for the ineveitable phone call that says the ipod has really given up the ghost for good. I think that the successful slapping is a kick in the seat for owners who have not backed up all of the music on the ipod, keeping a copy safe in the event of hard drive failure, or total ipod loss. What I wish I could figure out is a way to replace the hard drive with flash memory, even if it meant having 6 – 10 gigs, since I know that my son changes his programs frequently and that 10 gigs would be ample for the day to day use. Personally, I think any time you can eliminate a moving part you will increase durability. If anyone can figure out that conversion, it would be a godsend!
If I had known then what I know now, I would have purchased the ipod from Best Buy with the three year extended warranty, something that I believe is the best advice I could offer anyone. In my research, I found that ipods with hard drives have about a 20% failure rate at just over one year and that the larger hard drives seem more susceptible to failure than the smaller ones. I believe that Apple is happy with that, as it becomes a stimulus for the buyers to upgrade, but I think that $300 – $400 for one year of service is a bit steep. My hat is off to you for providing an excellent tutorial on a common problem. Even though you could have replaced the hard drive with a 40GB without a problem, it seems wise to me to try the $100 aproach first. If, at the end of a year or so you need to replace it again, you will already have saved $40 – $60 dollars towards hard drive #3. If the mystique of opening up the ipod is removed, then these need not be totally disposable, though expensive, gadgets. Josh, first rate job, and you have my gratitude and thanks!
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Me again. I just wanted to let everyone know that yes, I Shawn, was an avid IPOD slapper. Out of frustration of getting the exclamation and folder icon, I slapped my ipod. It was a hard day at work! My ipod didn’t have my music ready when I got home so I had to unleash my frustration! Anyways, that was only a temporary fix..it worked for a while, but then stopped working until I did the fix that I stated a couple posts up.
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Keith Jones February 9th, 2006 at 06:53
My 20 Gig ipod died, sounded like the hard drive. I found this page and did exactly as you did and behold, for $90 I have my ipod back working beautifully!
Thanks
Now though, I am wondering if the old hard drive could be reformatted (didn’t try while it was in the ipod), anyone know if these drives can be stuck into a G4 powerbook?
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Dude! I can not believe it, the SLAP WORKED!!!
Tried lots of stuff to relieve the iPod of its click clicking sad faced moment.
Then, holding it in the left hand flat, slapped it hard with a flat right hand, first on the front, then on the back. Plugged it in. Bammm. It works. AMAZZZZZING.
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My 40 gig ipod gave me the sad icon with exclamation mark symbol also . The clicking noise too . Couldnt restore it , windows wouldnt recognize it , nothing . I Opened it up , disconnected the hard drive , waited 10 minutes , re-connected it , put it back together and its working like NEW . Screw Apple and their 200$ fee to fix it .
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IPODSLAPPER February 9th, 2006 at 20:01
I just bought a used/broken ipod off ebay. Had the usual symptoms ! + folder icon. Slapped the bad boy and its working just fine. Thank you all for all the great info that Apple seems to not want anyone to know.
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Hey just so u guys know i had a problem very similar to josh’s on my ipod (30gb photo). my brother had the same problem and when the tech guys at best buy fixed it they said his hard drive was loose. so as long as you have ur ipod open just pop the hard drive out then back in and see if it works. It worked on my ipod and i didnt even have to spend another $100 dollars on a hard drive. Just my 2 cents. Hope that helps you guys save a little money
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mac72566 February 10th, 2006 at 09:16
I have told a couple of people who were selling their “broken” ipods on e-bay and at least one person got it working again.
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I had similiar problems to everyone else,except mine started after the last update came out (dated 10-1-06) I thought I must have screwed something up or it was bad software. After reading all the posts I thought I might try opening up the Ipod and checking the HD connection instead of slapping that sucker.A few pushes and all is well again in Ipod land. The slapping has the same effect however I think that opening up and firmly reseating the connection will provide a longer term solution. Many thanks to Josh for the info.
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Well I was having serious Ipod Issues.
This was my 3rd Ipod under warranty…geeesh…and now this one was clicking and whirring and dying…and out of warranty! Couldnt see them (apple) repairing it…so I took it to my car, and was going to bring it to Apple…but first…I help it in my hand and gave it a good whack against the padded inside of the car door!
As with all the other posts above, the thing has been working like a dream for 2 days now.
Will keep you posted when the trouble returns….
Short term or long term fix…who the hell knows!
Peace -
Devin Roberts February 12th, 2006 at 12:36
thats alot of help for future referance but on my ipod nano my sceen is broke what do i do to fix that
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Gary Smiley February 12th, 2006 at 13:30
My wife’s Ipod just got the sad face icon, and we tried everything. We read your article and all the posts. Tried whacking it a few times. No luck. So we were prepared to pull the hard drive. I opened the back, and I disconnected the drive. Then I figured, what the heck, maybe the plug was ajar, let me plug it back in and try it one more time. And it worked! My wife is ecstatic! It’s fixed!
Now, suppose I had sent it back to Apple and paid the $250 or whatever to get it fixed. Does this mean that they easily could have pushed the cable plug back in and charged me $250 for 5 minutes’ work?
- Gary -
the slap trick worked!!!–hp and apple were of no help thanks so much everyone!!!
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Brother Johnson February 13th, 2006 at 03:56
I just wanted to know whether, for all those who have tried it, when you replaced the hard drive in the iPod, you can retrieve the songs that were on it before. I have some tunes that I may never hear again now that my iPod has popped its cork. Don’t care much about the iPod but I want my songs.
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If you have been using iTunes you will still have all your songs on the computers that they have been saved on BUT if the computers HD is shagged you will have lost all of it…i lost my first iPod in a fire and what makes it worse was that it was connected to my computer!
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STAN YOU ARE THE MAN! I was getting ready to give up on my ipod that i just recently bought used. I suspected that it was damaged in the shipping or something and I was so close to throwing it away until I stumbled on this site. I read all the comments and just for luck I banged it against my leg and waaalaaa! it works!
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Bruce Ostrover February 14th, 2006 at 12:02
Hey, can you tell me where you bought the 40GB drive from, I have the same problem, and I am gonna try this now …
Thanx.
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Thanks a million for the info. I was able to repair my wife’s iPod, which had the same problem 1 month after the warranty expired.
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ok while the slap trick worked temporarily, roughly 1 week later it’s having problems again. did the slap trick work as a permanent fix for anyone?
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I followed this guide cause my HD was whirring n clicking so i took it apart and the IDE pins weren’t in the HD any more im not sure how often this happens but b4 you go out n buy a new HD try unplugging and plugging in the IDE cables again. Worked a treat thanks a million. Oh and isn’t it shit how a tiny dint voids your warranty >_
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Holy crap! #16 by Stan worked. Stan is the man!!! I had the same sad face smile happen to me. So I shopped for the hard drive after finding the repair info above. I cringed to the prices of new Toshiba drives. I decided to read on people postings here and Stan’s was it! I figured I could couldn’t make it any worse by hitting it. One thing I want to add to his posting is that after I smacked mine it made a chirp noise very briefly. Then the light went on. We’ll see how long before it goes out again (if it does) but at least it works! Thanks again Stan!
Chris
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How do I repair my click wheel? Everything works except scrolling and volume control. Very annoying. I’ve restored, deleted, reinstalled, updated, charged, and restarted. Even tried the hair dryer on it (as suggestion I saw on another site). Sometimes, if I go round & round on the wheel, it will advance one item for every 6 or 7 times around. Makes me think it’s a software problem, not a hardware problem.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Scot -
adam lawrence February 17th, 2006 at 17:07
Great blog Josh.
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Dude, you totally rock
I had the same problem, was about to condemn to the fate and buy a new one when I saw your guide.
I opened up the ipod using a piano screw, straight out the ribbon cable a little, now, it works like a charm, dude, u rock!@
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Smacking it really works, save me lots of money
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hubbard February 20th, 2006 at 14:25
if you wanna find out if you ipods drive is knckered you can test it, just hold down menu and the middle button at the same time which resets it and then when you see the apple symbol holf the center button and the back a track button and you get the config menu on the second page you can scan the hardrive for bad sectors, or just bang it on the side works for me.
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my 20 gig harddrive is done for. I followed these instructions and popped it open and tried fiddling with the connector, but to no avail. My question: if I have a 4th gen 20gig, can I buy a 30 or 40 gig and have it fit as well, with no hassle?
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hayden February 22nd, 2006 at 05:28
oh my god.
when i was a child, the only way to get the 8bit nes working was to blow in the cartridge, for some magical reason…
15 years later, and the only way to fix my state-of-the-art ipod is too SMACK IT.
it REALLY does work. amazing.
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Fredrik February 23rd, 2006 at 12:20
To Nick.
Yes, you can. I followed the awsome instructions here and – voila – works perfectly.
I had a 4th gen 40gig iPod and bought the 60 gig toshiba MK6006GAH (cheaper and available directly)
No hassle at all!Bought the disc from:
http://www.computeruniverse.net (German store, sorry…) -
Martin February 24th, 2006 at 06:33
Thanks for the tip! I did the same but it still doesn’t work. I can’t update the Ipod it still shows the sign of the defekt hard drive. Any idea what went wrong?
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Just tried a Toshiba MK3006GAL in a 3rd Gen ipod. It doesn’t work. The drive is recognized by disk utility but cannot be formated or partitioned and is therefore not accessable for restrore. Any attemps to put the right partition map on it with pdisk also failed. It cannot be recognized correctly when in the ipod and attached through firewire. Any suggestions are welcome.
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Someone mentioned an note book drive to ide adaptor from tiger direct which would not be helpful. iPod drives are 1.8 inch. Does anyone know the source of 1.8 inch drive to IDE or USB adaptor?
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Spanky February 24th, 2006 at 19:29
I am typing this on a braille keyboard because now I have gone blind because of all the spanking I have been doing. But it truly does work. I happened upon this blog after I had, as a last resort “spanked my ipod” The ipod had been acting strange for about a week. It was skipping songs menus were freezing, I was resetting it a lot. I restored the software and tried to update it and it locked up. After resetting it I got the !folder icon and the hard drive was clicking, in my frustration I gave it a good smack, reset, did a software restore and reloaded my library. All is well so far!!!
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Johnny M February 25th, 2006 at 01:16
Great blog guys I had a cracked screen and didnt want to mess with it ( or just didnt have the stones )but I sent it to a place in Canada and they replaced it for 80.00 and sent it back like new maybe yf my drive goes or should i say when I might try it myself ( Unless the price to buy the drive isnt much less then the fix I can get from the same company ) Keep up the great posts.By the way these guys were super helpful via email if you need to speak to a tech or sell your broken one to them.
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Johnny M February 25th, 2006 at 01:18
Sorry just realized I didnt give you guys the web address for the company I dealt with .
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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU February 25th, 2006 at 04:18
I BOW DOWN TO WHOEVER CAME UP WITH THE HAND SLAP YOUR IPOD!
I can’t beleive it. Saved my 4g 40gb that I haven’t used in months because of a sad ipod icon
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I’ve whacked and smacked and the HD clicking whirring sound stopped. This is after I took it apart (thanks much to Josh for making it possible to even think I could do such a thing)disconnected the HD and put it back together. I plugged it into the computer and got the same visuals he posted as far as updating and re-formatting/re-setting. But all I get when I try to DL music is the circle with the slash flashing “do not disconnect” which is what I got before I took it apart. It does not recognize it in the source column on itunes. Date and time and screen works fine. Updater keeps saying there is a service error now. At wits end….anybody got any ideas? Is a new HD emminent?
Thanks to anyone in advance who responds!
ko -
Scott Eriksen February 25th, 2006 at 08:51
Hey great job, i opened mine up today to see how i could replace my broken screen. If you have any help let me know, i got as far as you did with the hard drive out and the ipod open and such. But i can’t figure out how to get to the screen. Any help would have me closer to jamming again.
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podhustler February 25th, 2006 at 20:26
If you got that far, then taking out the screen will be just as easy…
First disconnect the ribbon cable connecting the back part of the case to the mainboard.
you’ll need a #6 torx bit, unscrew the 6 screws that hold on the mainboard. lift the mainboard gently and disconnect the touchwheel ribbon by lifting the black lever ( its some sort of clasp), and pull out the cable.now the mainboard should come out easily and you disconnect the lcd ribbon cable the same way as the ribbon cable; just lift up the black part of the clasp and it will slide right out.
Ive been fixing ipods for a few months now, and i cant believe how easy it is
I hope this helped -
Chris Houston February 26th, 2006 at 02:41
For 4G iPods with Folder+Exclamation Point icon and/or clicking HD sound, I’ve had success with a couple of ideas mentioned here above:
1) mount the iPod as an external Firewire HD (iTunes not set to launch), then reformat the HD (in my case, I used Disk Utility from Mac OS 10.4.4 and reformatted in Mac OS Extended), then apply the latest iPod Updater (from Jan. 2006). This brought a dead 4G iPod back to life; it had been used on a PC. No idea if the “switch” in OS used had any bearing.
2) the “whack the iPod” method. As many others have said, the clicking HD that won’t mount CAN indeed be fixed by whacking the iPod into the palm of your hand. Here’s what I did:
- leave iPod turned ON (in my case, it wouldn’t get past Apple logo, then folder with exclamation mark, all the while clicking like mad)
- hold iPod on its side, in right hand, back of iPod against your palm
- whack it “fairly hard” (this will vary depending on your wild side) into your left palm.
That’s it. In my case, the iPod kicked in IMMEDIATELY and started to boot up, finished booting and went to songs. From that point, I mounted it on the desktop via Firewire, the battery started charging, and I used Restore from iPod Updater Jan. 2006, which wiped all the songs off, but now the iPod has been working fine for weeks. -
ChessyShaw February 26th, 2006 at 06:48
Oh my god I hate my iPod. I read every single post, and thought, what the hell, I’ve tried everything else, why not give the smacking method a go? I was 100% sceptical of it but as soon as i’d practically thrown the iPod with rage at my desk (admittedly a step further than smacking),the first time i ran iPod updater after that, it worked again! I can’t believe its success and would also like to say that I loved your blog, thanks!
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HEY THANK U SO MUCH MA IPOD HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AND IT WORKS THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH
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Sharon February 26th, 2006 at 13:00
Hey! Was looking on the internet one last time for help before going out and buying a new iPod. Found this site, read the comments, smacked the crap out of my iPod… voila! working again! Many thanks.
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Josh, I applaud you for taking the time to post such a detailed pictorial of this process. I have a suggestion for everyone. First, however, my story. A month short of warranty expiration itunes stopped recognizing my daughter’s 20G HP + ipod. Everything else about the ipod was normal. I assumed it to be our glitchy computer and/or it’s software – to be dealt with after the holidays. Well, I spent 2 days uninstalling/reinstalling software, resetting, restoring, etc. the ipod multiple times. Now of course it’s out of warranty, so HP wants $45 to help try to troubleshoot (with no guarantees). I elected to try the free email support. Their troubleshooting ended with a disc scan that reported normal, however it took only 14 min which they said was much to fast. The result was that they couldn’t help since I hadn’t called during the warranty period when the problem first occurred. However, even their tech guys agreed with my logic that the symptoms pointed to a computer/software problem and not a problem with the ipod itself. Turns out to be a bad hard drive, which they don’t fix. They offered me a reconditioned same replacement 30G for $270. I felt insulted and cheated. Anyway, I opened it up per this blog, unplugged the harddrive, reinstalled it and now finally after this latest restore/reformat, it now is recognized by itunes. In the interim, I ordered my daughter a new video version, so it looks like “I” now have an ipod.
Here’s my suggestion to everyone and I’m going to do it with our new ipod. Make sure you call in while your ipod is under warranty for any and every glitch that occurs. (got the folder icon, but it cleared, everything OK now; momentarily froze, OK now; skipped a couple of times, OK now; etc. Get it in the records. Get a case number. These things obviously have hard drive problems. Might be able to make a better case when it does fail outside of the warranty.
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ipodproblems February 27th, 2006 at 18:49
So check this out folks. I have had my ipod for a little over a year and all of the sudden the hard drive crashes when I am trying to upload a song. (sad face, folder w/ exclamation point etc, apple symbol etc.) I take it the apple store and the employee says, “sorry man but your hard drive is finished and it will cost $250 to replace it.” Even if I had $250 to spare, I would not pay on principle. So I go home and find this site. Slapped my ipod a couple times, did a restore, and now I am uploading my library to my ipod. Thx guys!!!
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Josh perhaps you could help me also!
I have a 4G 40GB Ipod B&W and appears exclamation mark and folder.
I followed this site comments and orientation but no success.
I smashed the Ipod and after a few trials only noise of HD changes a little bit.
Even when I remove the HD same icon appears on screen. ( It means something?, may be that is not a problem of the HD and can be the motherboard?)
Do you think if I buy a new HD may solve the problem? -
ipodproblems February 28th, 2006 at 20:06
A little update (no pun intended). My ipod’s HD somehow crashed again when I was transferring music after a total restore. I waited a little while and went through the same routine as before, reinstalled itunes, ran the updater, spanked the ipod a couple of times etc. Now I can say, LO and BEHOLD it is playing music again! I have my entire library on it now. Rejoice!!!
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mike e February 28th, 2006 at 21:54
holy crap, my ipod has been out of commission for three months now and my roommate sent this blog to me. My ipod was giving the broken folder symbol and making those horrible clicking noises when I was trying to start it. I smacked it for a few minutes and it decided to work again. THANK YOU!!!
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div kler February 28th, 2006 at 22:40
Muy bien amigo, excelente tutorial, si algun dia mi ipod muere, ahora se que hacer. Gracias.
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HOLY CRAP! I got the folder icon last night when trying to update my firmware and it came up with a disk write error when I tried to update it. Essentially, the ipod was bricked. I tried everything…put it in disk mode, try to run chkdisk on it, nothing. I figured I had nothing to lose so I gave it a smack after reading this blog and tried to update it again. WORKED! Unreal….now to reload my ipod.
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ive been getting the sad face and all that. ipods been out of commision. i read this, i gave it a nice smack, it then went to the main ipod menu. i started screaming and yelling, got all excited. i had my ipod updater program up and ready and instead of doign the smart thing and restoring , my excitement got the best of me and i hit update instead. it appeared to have updated, it then told me to plug it into the external av box to finish charging. now my ipod wont respond at all ? help ??
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I was about to follow the directions to purchase and install a new hard drive since I’ve been getting the clicking noise for a few days, and having exhausted all of my options. But I decided to read on and ultimately concluded (successfully!) that all it needed was a few good smacks. Thanks.
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Sha... March 1st, 2006 at 20:24
LOL, I agree with the 2nd grade teacher, but thats a dude for you and the nails were a bit gross, but overall, this was the only tute I could find online and it was very helpful. I’m scared to try it, but I guess I’ll have to. Thanks kid! ;o)
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ive got a 4g 40gb ipod.i used to get the sad face icon but after a wile it started to work again.but now it turns on and gets the apple logo and the turns off again.any advice?
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Just as i was about to give up and throw my 3rd generation 15gb ipod in the bin. Now, thanks to your detailed work, i have ordered a 20gb hard drive on ebay and am going to try the same. Fingers crossed all will go well. Thank you for the information. Much appreciated
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Dennis Farrell March 2nd, 2006 at 08:34
HELP!!! My I have a 4th generation iPod (40gb) and it hasn’t worked for a while now… it simply dislpays the apple symbol on the screen. It makes whirly noises when I try to do anything with it, but that’s it. Luckily I saved my music a few days earlier, but can anyone save my little baby!!??!!
I live in Thailand now too and therefore getting parts or whatever may be tricky. Is it a case of buyng a new one?
Any help, please email ifidontreplyimdead@hotmail.co.uk
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Dolemike March 2nd, 2006 at 09:21
Thanks for saving me some cash! I stumbled upon this website after debating whether or not to invest more money on a new IPOD. An employee at the Apple store told me that my IPOD was shot after it was giving me the same problems others have mentioned above after only 13 months.
After disconnecting the hard drive, I was curious to see what would happen if I plugged it back in. To my amazement, it worked like brand new! All for free after disconnecting and then reconnecting the hard drive. Now when I plug it in, my computer recognizes it, it no longer freezes up, or skips whole albums.
Thanks again.
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Vinny March 2nd, 2006 at 14:41
Excellent work there, I have a dead iPod at the moment so I think I will follow up on this and get one of those drives. Great!
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janice March 3rd, 2006 at 19:58
Wow- I just gave my dead-for-a-week-now ipod a smack on its little behind and now it’s working. It had given me the sad face and whirling sounds, but no real startup. I’m so happy now I think I would give you a kidney!
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nevada17 March 3rd, 2006 at 20:41
Fantastic tutorial. I followed the instructions line by line and was finished with my new Ipod in under 30 mins. Thank you for saving me a lot of time and hassle. As for the grade school teacher that wanted the grammar changes… well those who can do those who cant … you get the picture.
Thanks again
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Gianni Copolla March 3rd, 2006 at 20:55
Thanks mate. I did it with my ipod and it worked really well!
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Spank me March 4th, 2006 at 00:01
Sad IPOD. Tried the 4 R’s that Apple recommends (including reset & restore) with no luck. Finally held it in one hand and spanked it with the other … Success!!! Time to bring back corporal punishment. Thanks for the tip.
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bruceatk March 4th, 2006 at 18:22
Glad I found this thread. My daughter’s 20gig just went off warrenty and had the sad face. It was purchased from HP and the only option they provide is to buy a replacement for $319.00.
I was reading through this in preparation for replacing the HD and I figured trying the slap wouldn’t hurt. After many reboots and trying to connect to the PC we had given up.
I gave one slap on the back, set it down, and it booted up fine.
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Cubic Zirconia March 5th, 2006 at 11:54
He he, i have about 20 killed HDD in office
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Giles March 5th, 2006 at 14:29
thanks alot for this step-by-step guide. I followed and it worked fine! Once again many thanks and I suggest if others have same problem follow this it works!!! saves forking out another £200+ for a new one.
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kukaburra March 5th, 2006 at 14:47
Awesome blog… i have just gotten a new 5th gen ipod but will bookmark this for if i happen to drop it down the way… always have been a butterfingers.
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Anyone know how to replace a iPod 60G display, and where to purchace a display? Any help is greatly appreciated.
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Simon March 6th, 2006 at 08:33
..and you can really not just use it as an external hard disk, but also play music?
There are rumors in some forums that you would need to kind of preformat it before you could use apple’s updater. or that you had to “apple brand” it somehow. There is also some repair service who does this job for you. But I guess that are just rumors and the apple updater + 4 Gen ipod + mk2006gal are really working without a trick…. right? -
Simon March 6th, 2006 at 09:05
IF IT DIDN’T WORK you might wanna try that:
I read a suggestion (in German) that if the new harddisk doesn’t get recognized / cannot be formatted with apple’s updater, it’S probably because it’s in raw format/not formatted at all. This guy could make it work by connecting the iPod with the broken drive to apples updater. Then waited till the disk didn’t make a sound. Then connecting the new drive and click on “restore” at the updater. if the new is bigger than the old, you have to restart pc and now you should be able to run apples updater again and it should work… according to this dude… -
David March 6th, 2006 at 11:20
My 40GB Ipod went bad this morning, and I have a Best Buy 4 year warranty. Trouble is, I have a lot of personal data on the drive. I would like to remove the drive, erase it, then reinstall it and get the Ipod replaced at BB.
Question: how can I erase the hard drive to make certain all data is gone?
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can anyone make a list of harddisks that work for the respective ipods of the third and fourth generation.
thanks, Alex -
Hey all, opened my 4th gen 40gig ipod up, cause I dropped it and am getting the clikcing noises. Have a model MKH4004GAH will the MKH2006GAL work? If anyone knows please let me know. Great directions by the way also!!!
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Great idea Josh, I got a Toshiba MK2006GAL to replace my 4th gen 20 gig drive model MK2004GAL.
Did as shown above, and works
Just restored it and giving it a good recharge.I found the ipod where I worked and used it a lot for a year til the drive took a dump. So $90 for a new drive was a great fn deal.
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caleb chao March 8th, 2006 at 17:27
GREAT SITE!! So even though the MK2006GAL HDD does not have that little apple logo on the bottom corner, it should still work if i use the ipod updater?? Cuz i thought only the original apple toshiba HDD had some sort of special apple ipod files.
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crackinUp March 9th, 2006 at 10:20
Hey Josh, thanks for posting this and all the follow up repsonses are great, too. One of the best sources of input I’ve found on this iPod problem (which seems to happen quite a bit). I have an iPod that was showing the folder icon and was acting like the hard drive just froze. So, after reading this, I decided to do a little surgery. I didn’t want to smack the whole iPod, since there are some senstive components in there, so I took it all apart and checked everything separately. Yep, the hard drive was frozen, so I smacked it… but that didn’t fix it. So, I did what they all tell you not to do and I took out my electronics tools and cracked open the hard drive. There’s not much too them, just a basic platter and a read arm with some electronics on a breadboard. Using a small screwdriver, I turned the platter using the indentations on it’s hub. It was tight. I wiggled a few things, lifted the read arm with my screwdriver (careful not to touch anything sensitive) and wiggled it around gently and then it all the sudden freed up!!! With the iPod and the hard drive open, I plugged everything back together and could see the hard drive platter spin up, the read arm wiggle back and forth as it got it’s bearings, and Voila!!! It was all up and running again. Been running perfectly since.
So, when ya’ll smack your hard drive, it’s probably just freeing up a bound platter/arm. For some reason these hard drives have a tendency to lock up at times and just need a little something to free them up. For those hard drives that don’t respond to a whack, getting into the drive and loosening it is probably needed. Everything on here makes sense as far as the ’smacking method’ after what I saw in my iPod.
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ipod hitter March 9th, 2006 at 16:52
Please make me a member of the “hit-the-shit-out-of-the-ipod-if-you-want-it-work club” IT WORKS!!!
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mcgarnicle March 9th, 2006 at 18:37
I’ve had a dead 20g 4th Gen Ipod since Christmas – the Apple store told me it was a fried hardrive offered me a nice 10% discount on a new Ipod if I gave them the carcass.
So I’ve been looking for a replacement hard drive, stumbled on this site, and decided to give the corpse a smack.
It worked. For the first time in three months the Ipod is back. Why doesn’t Apple tell us a smack may be better than $30 off another Ipod?
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jlafds March 9th, 2006 at 18:44
Would a 3G 15gb hard drive work in a 4G 20gb ipod. I hope so because I just bought one off ebay… Please respond sooon please!!!
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my 3rd gen 15 gb went bananas the other day for no reason.. all i can think is i left it on pause for a full day… anyway everything works, the lock, pc reads it when i connect usb, but none of the touch buttons work anymore. anyone ever tried switching out the button sensors?
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Just tried the smack fix for a dead ipod with a sad face and exclamation mark and it actually works!!!!!!!!! saved myself a lot of money sending it for repair. Thanks
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phentermine March 11th, 2006 at 07:29
Thanks so very much for taking your time to create this very useful and informative site. I have learned a lot from your site. Thanks!! I think you have done an excellent job with your site. I will return in the near future.
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My 4G 40GB iPod was just hankerin’ for a spankerin’. Crashed three times in a week, then wouldn’t mount to the desktop or to iTunes. I lost a ton of songs reformatting it. So on the 3rd crash, I poked around online and found this post in the hopes that something out there could save me the cost of buying a new iPod. I figured slapping it wouldn’t make much difference if it wouldn’t work at all, right?
One knuckle sandwich to the “sad iPod face” later, it was behaving like a dream! It sounds ridiculous, but it actually does work! Thanks!
I’ll get around to cracking it open to check the connections, but in the meantime it knows who’s boss.
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OneHandClapping March 12th, 2006 at 03:27
HAAAAA!!!!… i have a first gen ipod, been working great for couple years… bout 4 months ago the screen went dead… tried everything, searching on net to find others with this problem, no luck… went to apple, no luck… talked to others, no luck… was about to throw it away when i came across this website, was to be my last activity before chucking… came across the guy who said that he WHACKED IT to see what would happen…. i thought, what the hell i’m only going to chuck it… HEY PRESTO, IT WORKED!!!!… i held the ipod and whacked it on the back with my other hand really hard… the screen reappeared!!!! haaaaaaaa it workd
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I got a 2ND generation ipod for 40 bucks off ebay. But the audio jack dont work.. DO i need to buy the jack or the whole thing (board)?
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Kevin Davidson March 13th, 2006 at 15:38
Thanks – I replaced the motherboard, and in so doing I think the hard drive got messed up. but I’m writing to let you know an alternate way to open an ipod: a ‘thin’ .033 or .05 guitar pick! work it around the inside, its perfect.
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Wombat March 13th, 2006 at 17:35
It works. Whack your iPod as hard as you can and it’ll kick back into action. Great blog, by the way.
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one question. did ipod updater just found your newly installed hard drive? i mean i have one totally formatted for FAT32 (windows file system) and computer doesn’t recognize it at all. however when i get out the hard drive and plug it with a usb adapter computer does recognize it like an external usb hard drive.
so, are you sure that you’ve just assembled ipod with a totally new unformatted drive and updater found it?!?! (by the way why there’s U2 ipod on a screenshot?)
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PodBoy March 14th, 2006 at 08:29
Another happy Pod Spanker!! (HDD clicking)
My ex-gf left her old broken 40GB 4G iPod in my letterbox with a note explaining her “new partner” had bought her a replacment iPod Nano and I could have her old broken one back (Wasn’t that a nice gesture?!). Naturally, holding the unit, and whacking the shite out of it seemed like the perfect solution to trying to make that sad little face happy. And guess what?!! IT WORKED!! (and guess who has 20 times the storage capacity?)
I think I will format the drive though. The way she used to delete and re-upload albums – I’m sure it’s fragmented – which can’t be good for the drive.
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Mark Woll March 14th, 2006 at 18:04
Any thoughts on this one? While digging around in an old flower pot in the backyard of an investment property we have, we actually found a pink IPOD mini. It was there for who knows how long, wet, not working; dead. I opened it up, charged it and it worked for a moment then stopped. I then carefully cleaed all the contacts, fixed a shorted headphone board and let it dry out for a few days and it works! I updated the software.
But………I can’t put more than about 219 songs on it; they just won’t load. I disk checked it and rebooted it; no dice. Disk checker said all ok. Only 219 songs, not one more.
What do you think, buy a new Harddrive or what?
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Michael Schwalbert March 14th, 2006 at 20:25
Thanks for the instructions. My iPod was displaying a sad face and I could not get it to start up, go into disk mode, or connect to my computer. I took it apart, jiggled some wires, and blew on the hard drive connections like an old school nintendo game. Not very technical, but it fixed my iPod. It works just fine now. I imagine it was simply a loose connection to the hard drive.
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You’re the man i would say. However i just got curious…as you changed the harddisk in there. How would the ipod be able to detect it as a ipod again. Get what i mean? Imagine when you plug it in your com, it detects as a mass usb device and lets you use it as a harddisk and able to detect in your itunes etc…it is just the chip components in the ipod that detects or? So it seems that it looks a 2.5″ harddisk. Imagine you placing a larger size other than the original 20gb in there..i wonder will it work or not…imagine your ipod running on 120gb instead of 20gb…its a whole lot of whooping experience to bring it ard…anyway my ipod’s been giving me heaps of problem recently. I still can play my songs, use the ipod as per normal, but as i plug it into my computer running windows xp w/sp2, it hangs there and all i see in MY COMPUTER after a while is (E:)Removable Drive tat’s all. Can’t even open it up to view the contents..sighz..anyone has any idea…btw..i test on 4 computers running windows xp and got the same error.
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jim van kennen March 15th, 2006 at 20:26
thanks for the tutorial. did a hdd switch and the 40 g machine is working again. others suggest the 40 g machine is a lemmon. anyone figure out a solution for a dead click wheel? great fotos!
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I chucked mine against the wall and it died…
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The disk drive diagnostic software said it couldn’t be repaired,
the noise the drive was making was pretty discouraging as well,
but I found this blog, and a couple of solid whacks along
the side of the ol’ pod with my palm and now perhaps it’ll last
’til the next generation comes out. Thanks! -
So my 4G 40GB iPod died two weeks ago. It showed me the folder icon and sometimes the sad ipod face and made a loud clicking. I ordered a new new hard drive but it still won’t work. My Computer doesn’t regonize the ipod and I can’t reset or restore it. The strange thing is that the new hard drive is making a loud clicking noise when I try to start the ipod. It sounds exactly like the noise the broken hard drive used to make…..any suggestions what i could do. By the way….I tried “smacking” my ipod but it won’t work for me…..
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Wow, better than television!
Great blog,
I can not even begin to tell you my whole ipod drama but I can tell you how it ended…
SLAP!(firm and confident) and instead of the clicking sound the harddrive made and sad ipod icon it showed the harddrive does Whizzzzzz without clicks and showed the folder exclamation point icon which allowed me to restore the ipod (after a 10 months rest) but why does it not show the right capacity size ? it says 19,6 GB while it’s a 60GB and I can only put 19,6GB worth of mp3’s on it.
Anyways better than nothing right?!
So in case of no other option;
Slap your pod up -
Janice March 18th, 2006 at 01:51
This is so awesome!!!Thanks a lot for the guide. I will try to save my dead ipod!
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FlyingSquirrel March 19th, 2006 at 09:26
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
For the post about uninstalling iTunes and iPod software and just addressing the iPod as if it was a normal drive. It worked! My iPod was giving me the folder + exclamation point + apple.com/support/ipod screen, and repeat attempts following all instructions on their website, including multiple restores, left me with only option of sending the thing in to Apple. I uninstalled the iTunes and iPod software, and after restarting my iPod just was a normal drive. I used Norton Utilities Disc Doctor, with the Fix Errors checkbox checked, and it fixed whatever the problem was. This would always be a good thing to try before sending the unit back to Apple. Thanks again for making the world a better place. Long live my iPod! -
I have been taking my 5thgen video ipod ebay buy apart. Bought it with a broken sceen. It works but I can’t see anything. It is pretty much taken apart the same way. Start at headphone side and work around with 2 prying tools.Be careful because the headphone jack and battery has to be disconected by pulling conectors away from the motherboard. drive conector should be removed from drive side. To get the screen out, remove 6 phillips screws on the side and pull the aluminum chassy away from face. then you should see how to remove the screen. Don’t lose the any screws like i did. Lost one somewhere. I put the rest in plastic zipbag. DOes anyone konw if the 30gb video can be expanded with the 60 gig drive? I know the others model can be expanded this way. Anyone find a drive/ipod model cross referance? My 30gb video has a toshiba mk3008gal. It works so I don’t have to replace it.
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no chance nobody will ever answer those posts anymore… just too much replies on this blog. BUT, i have to say that, with CrackinUp, things recently got a whole lot better!!!! i’m miserable since, after having red (most of all) those comments (yeah, well, my job’s boring), i’m quite convinced indeed that slapping the shit out of an ipod works. and yet, it didn’t work for me… (and i ‘m obviously not the only one) But, what the hell, CrackinUp is right, let’s open the goddamm HDD! once again, it is, after all, “broken”.
now, the same way josh pictured the process of simply opening the ipod, i would have really liked to see some pics for the HDD. coz i’m no computer expert, i’m ready… but scared. THAT, my dear CrackinUp, would be VERY INTERESTING !!! -
Lboogie March 20th, 2006 at 22:54
thanks man i dunno who u are but u inspired me to open my ipod…i did and now its working!
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David Walker March 21st, 2006 at 03:16
ipod slap seems to work but I assume that the the IDE cable or something needs attenion so will open up and check. But saved the day. Forget the spelling guys this is a really useful place for those with ipods that have given up!!!!!
BUT REALLY SHOULD IPODS ONLY LAST A YEAR or SO, I HAVE 4 IN THE FAMILY 2 MINIS A 15GB 3G AND 20GB 4G AND ALL HAVE AHD TO BE REPAIRED. I DONT THINK SONY WOULD HAVE PUT OUT SUCH A POOR PRODUCT OR IS APPLE JUST MAKING US BUY NEW IPODS EVEY YEAR!!!!
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Todd Williams March 21st, 2006 at 06:31
This is the exact problem I am having and the “geniuses” at Apple told me the same thing they told you. I couldn’t find this problem anywhere troubleshooting, so I did a Google for “folder warning sign ipod problem” and this was the first link that popped up. I’m glad you documented it like that, you have solved a major problem for me and I would imagine, eventually, quite a few more people. Thanks.
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Charles Weiss March 21st, 2006 at 13:30
SMACKING WORKS
TRY IT
i had the dead ipod / folder icons appearing plus whir then click sound
4th gen ipod
what a great site
saved my day
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Feather March 21st, 2006 at 14:10
Hey: for everyone asking where you can get hard drives? EBAY. Mostly 3rd/4th gen, anywhere from 5-60 GB. Not a lot of any one type, but at least one for almost every capacity. Lots of helpful info in the ads too; the item descriptions will mention stuff about different size HD vs. case, etc. I’m buying a HD afflicted 3rd gen 20GB iPod & refurbishing it myself; all in all, it’ll cost about $130, if I have to buy a new HD. If I don’t have to, it’ll be $70 & I get all the music that the person before had on the iPod.
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Feather March 21st, 2006 at 14:44
Hey, for people who were wondering which drive sizes work for what, here’s the explanation of iPod drive labels.
Ex: MK4004GAH (on 40GB drive)
GAH(40GB+) is thicker than GAL(20GB>), and replacing a GAL HD with GAH will probably mean that you need to get a larger backplate.
4004: 40 is the size of the drive. so 2004 is 20 GB, 3004=30 GB, etc. Don’t know what the last 2 digits stand for, but I think they are linked to the series of the HD or the year the hard drive was developed.. If anyone else knows for sure, I woule love to find out.
Don’t know what the MK stands for but I think it has something to do with the drive being iPod compatible. Other Toshiba drives that I’ve seen have different letters & label formats.To whoever was asking where to get screens: eBay. There’s all kinds of stuff on eBay, search under mp3 Players & accessories. It’s cheaper than newegg.com and House of Computers, and easier than Froogle/Google, with a larger selection than anywhere else I’ve seen(I’ve been researching this). Screens, HDs, main boards(a few) and HD connectors(the little ribbon things). Haven’t seen any batteries yet, but there is at least one large lot of iPod parts on sale, and you can buy cheap broken iPods.
Make sure to see if the item has been tested, some have & some haven’t, but the description should say.
Check to see what gen the drive is compatible with; usually the seller will put that in the description somewhere.I hope this info helps somebody. I’ve been wanting an iPod but was scared off by the expense until I saw this post & realized I could get a broken iPOd & fix it for less than half the price of a new one.
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After getting the frowny face and/or folder icon error message on my 4G 20GB ipod (plus the whir and click noise others have described when it tried to boot up), I was poking around this site for info on how to get at the hard drive. It is out of warranty, so I figured what the hell.
Ran across the various posts about the “smack” technique (hold your ipod in one hand, smack it with the other).
I laughed … that can’t possibly solve the problem.
But, it did solve the problem. Back up and running like nothing ever happened. Not sure how long it will last, but it’s better than the $300 paperweight I owned last week.
Thanks for the tip.
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Feather March 21st, 2006 at 20:04
286 On Monday, 03-06-2006 @ 11:20am, David said…
My 40GB Ipod went bad this morning, and I have a Best Buy 4 year warranty. Trouble is, I have a lot of personal data on the drive. I would like to remove the drive, erase it, then reinstall it and get the Ipod replaced at BB. Question: how can I erase the hard drive to make certain all data is gone?
Reformat the HD, that should wipe all the data.
294 On Thursday, 03-09-2006 @ 06:44pm, jlafds said…
Would a 3G 15gb hard drive work in a 4G 20gb ipod. I hope so because I just bought one off ebay… Please respond sooon please!!!
Yes, it should work. HD ads usually say “3rd or 4th gen”, so I imagine one will work in the other. To make sure, pop open the iPod & check the connector cables to see if the ports(where the cable connects) is the same.
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Hey, I have an iphoto 20 gig. i’ve tried the smack technique, it worked. Then it broke about 2 months later again. I smacked it again at it worked, then it stuffed up again about a month ago.
As i got it from Cash Converters (i’m an aussie) i had no warranty, but it only cost me $290, so i decided ‘what the hey’ and i cracked it open. I also cracked open the hard drive. Pretty cool.I decided to hold the little arm thingy down in place (cos that’s what actually makes the clicking noise) and it started kicking again! Lucky me! Then, it died again about 3 weeks ago and i’ve tried everything and it won’t work.
Should i just buy a new harddrive? Anyone know where the best place to purchase one is?
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crackinUp March 22nd, 2006 at 15:24
If any of you are wondering what’s going on inside your ‘clicking’ hard drive, here’s a peek at what the guts look like: http://www.maplin.co.uk/images/Full/36450i0.jpg …a hard drive is just a data platter and a read arm. Some hard drives have multiple platters. The speed the platter spins is indicated on the drive and the little reader are is often controlled by a linear motor. It can move up to 50 times a second, and it’s freakin’ sensitive… so sensitive it can tend to bind up, which is why smacking it helps free it up. When they truly go bad, though, there’s not much you can do to repair the platter nor arm. On the 3G iPods (most of what I’ve worked on), the hard drive circuit boards are easily interchangeable, but you aren’t going to be swapping out platters any time soon. Plus, the torx screws are so small it makes these hard drives difficult to get into.
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janevt March 22nd, 2006 at 16:01
stumbled across this blog when searching for solutions to an iPod which was giving me the folder with exclamation point, the sad iPod face with exclamation point, not being recognized by the computer, and the geniuses at Apple offered me a new one for $250. no thanks. i figured i’d try the smack technique although i was skeptical. whaddya know…toggled the hold switch about 10 times fast, one swift spank to the side and one to the back and it started to show signs of life, but i still couldn’t see my music. i plugged it into the computer and a message popped up saying it was a volume mac couldn’t read and gave me the option to initialize…chose that option and about 3 seconds later an icon popped up saying it was repaired. i unplugged it, plugged it in again and it was working like the day i got it.
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This is a follow-up to post 155. I am replacing a 15GB hard disk with a 20 GB hard disk in a 3rd-gen ipod. After trying a MK2006GAL that wouldn’t partition in the 3rd gen iPod, I was finally able to locate a new MK2004GAL. The difference is the older MK2004GAL uses the ATA-5 interface. I had a theory that the 3rd gen would only work with the older ATA-5 interface even though the ATA-6 is supposed to be backwards-compatible. This seems to be the case. The MK2004GAL works fine where the MK2006GAL would not. I was concerned that the iPod would not recognize a larger disk but it has no problem. This disk shows an 18.5 GB capacity. Did a restore and everything is working. While I was at it, I replaced the battery, so it should be good as new (even better since the disk is larger).
Conclusion: If you want to upgrade your 3rd-gen iPod to a 20GB disk, don’t buy the MK2006GAL, try to find a new MK2004GAL. (A refurbished or used one is going to be very risky.) There are new ones out there. I found one vendor who has them in stock (new) but would only sell them in lots of 100. The nice people at Interloper.com found a MK2004GAL for me. It’s new and came with 1 year warranty for $113. New battery came from batteryship.com for $17. -
Alex B March 22nd, 2006 at 22:02
Holy Shit Man, Just Holy Shit. I tried jumping through loops to fix my friends ipod, new drivers, linux, the works. Turns out all I needed was to throw the damn thing against the wall. Just Holy Shit.
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adrian Moen Guthe March 23rd, 2006 at 15:07
holy crap! the “hold and smack”-move worked for me too! too awesome.
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The best place I have found for hard drives and other ipod parts is on eBay. (http://stores.ebay.com/iPodparts)
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Alastair Haigh March 25th, 2006 at 02:19
I’ve just done it myself, for half the price of paying someone to do it for me, and it was as easy as you made it look.
Many, many thanks! -
I just wanted to thank everyone who said to smack the crap out of your ipod. I have a 3G 40gb non color that has been fixed twice already and its not even a year old. Well it broke down again and this time, before sending it to Apple, I decided to look for an answer on the web. Well I found this site and since everyone was saying to just smack your ipod, i decided to smack mine. Guess what it works. It is even recognized by the computer now yay.
So once again I would just like to say Thank You -
smacking your ipod KICKS ASS…..I couldn’t figure out how to open the thing so i started reading the comments and gave it a couple big whacks and it finally connected…THANK YOU
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David Walker March 25th, 2006 at 16:02
Interesting movie on opening 4th Gen ipod see
http://www.ipoddoctor.co.uk/4gmovie.php I assume that 3rd gen is covered on their site somewhere. -
In England you can just take it into the shop and they will replace it straight off! Ive had 3 replacments already! ^_^
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Benthefolksinger March 26th, 2006 at 19:30
seriously…I’m really freaked out. The smacking method truly works. I found this blog looking for help with a clicking ipod. Noisy drives usually need replacing and I’ve changed many many regular drives. I thought FOR SURE the smacking method was a troll having fun, but I thought wtf? I probably have to replace it anyway…and it worked! Great ipod hack, sir, and great blog.
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My problem is different still.
My 4th generation 20GB ipod fell onto a treadmill, and then flew off the back. Everything works perfectly, except for the sound output. Is there any way that I could fix this? The battery and HD are working perfectly (well its an ipod battery so ‘perfect’ is not exactly perfect). -
Sorry- no need to answer that, i used the guide to remove the cover and found that a cable had come out- if only i had known how to take the cover off 3 months ago!!!!
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Yeh last few times m iPods frozen i was in town. I just smakced it against a lamppost and it worked fine!
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Matt F March 27th, 2006 at 21:42
Another satisfied smacker!
40gb 4th gen ipod works fine for 1 year 2 weeks. Ipod suddenly starts not working. Wierd clicking noises coming from ipod along with hearing the hard drive starting to spin again and again. Thinking a new 30gb video ipod might be nice. Read this article and start thinking about replacing hard drive. Decide to give ipod a smack. Ipod now recognized by itunes and the updater. Booya!
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Can anyone help? My girlfriend purchased an ipod off ebay for me for my birthday. I think she bid to quickly and didn’t see that it had the folder icon and was “sold as is.” I tried to reformat it using the ipod updater but my computer will not detect it so I bought a hard drive off ebay. I am still having the same problem however. The computer will not detect it and ipod updater stops responding. When I place my ear at the bottom of the hard drive it sounds like a clock ticking and a soft whistle sound. In diagnostic mode while trying to test the hard drive it said “start….” For 4 hours so I gave up on that. Does anyone have any advise? And yes I even tried the “slapping” technique.
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G. Sassoverde March 28th, 2006 at 21:56
Very helpful post. I dropped my iPod photo into our icy cold swimming pool this morning, staring in abject horror as $300 settled gently on the bottom. Racked with despair, I fished it out, went straight to the ‘Net, and was fortunate enough to stumble on your fine instructions. Might as well give it a shot… I cracked open the case, blow-dried all the components, pulled the hard drive, and let everything sit on top of a warm 1TB hard drive for a few hours. This evening I put everything all back together, used iPod Restore to reformat the drive… Miraculously, it works! Thanks, pal.
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sillyns March 29th, 2006 at 07:11
For ARev, try poping it open and pulling the plug on the battery for a few minutes, plug it back in and see what happens. I had a friends that we doing pretty much the same thing and it is working now.
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STUPID-ASSED SPAMMERS!! I used the “smack the hell out of it” remedy, and while it worked for a while, it eventually turned into a horrible whining sound that resembled a banshee!! The only remedy was to open the Ipod and remove the drive (or battery) So to all you smackers out there, I say “Good luck”!
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Just dropped my ipod in the toliet at work and now it just shows the apple logo and the drive doesn’t move. Its dead inside. Can anyone help me to figure out if it is the board or the hard drive? I would really appreciate it..
) -
I couldn’t read anymore about spanking I’d much rather replace a hard drive. I have an ‘antigue’ 1g that I got as a hand me down from my brother. Obviously it has about 5gigs of space. I’d love to upgrade it to a much larger capacity hdd and possibly give it a few more capabilities, like photos for example.
Any advice? Can it be done?
Just curious. -
wow. so My ipod died recently. I looked at this. hit it on my knee a couple times and the clicking became the whirring grinding noise.
. So i took it apart fiddled with stuff put it back together an dhit it on the side. Now it works just like new except for that annoying grinding noise. It’s probably onyl a temporary solution but hey I’m leaving for a trip in two days so thank God. You are all geniuses. -
If you have any more comments about spaning your ipod to get it to work, please post your comments here http://www.notpopular.com/blog/comments.php?blogID=69.
I made a blog post specifically about spanking the ipod. Thank you so much for all the awesome feedback!
–Josh
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All comments about smacking your ipod that are posted here will be moved to the blog post specifically about this subject
http://www.notpopular.com/blog/comments.php?blogID=69, so please post them there -
bwarper April 7th, 2006 at 07:48
un $%^&ing believeable!!!
SMACKing my ipod that had the clicking hard drive worked!!!
THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 -
Before you buy a replacement HDD, try this: once the foam is off the disk, put it in a sturdy freezer bag, squeezing as much air as possible out of the bag before sealing it. Put the bag in the freezer for 24 hours or more. Try putting the HDD back into your iPod now. The back may still be sticky enough that you don’t need to use any glue to get the foam to stick.
I tried this five weeks ago, and the iPod is working better than ever. I didn’t even need to do a Restore on it.
Josh’s photos are great. The only difficulty I had was getting the screwdriver in initially. I managed to slip a Swiss Army knife blade in, which then made room for the screwdriver–problem solved. Thanks Josh!!!
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David April 7th, 2006 at 15:09
Great site. Here’s another one for hitting it. My college age daughter had the folder icon, warning sign, etc. and was crying (yea, she’s too old for that). She insists that everyone in the dorm has problems and that iPods only last 1-2 years (I have had mine 4 and replaced a battery without problem). The discussions about rebooting were helpful, but did not work. I told her to SLAP THAT THING, and it worked. I was looking forward to a home repair project, but not this time. Thanks for the great discussion.
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schroedes April 7th, 2006 at 18:22
yeah, i have been having the clicking problem since a week after i got my ipod. i instinctively started hiting it and found that it worked, but today i went online to see if that was safe, cuz today i beat the shit out of it, but the clicking stopped. but i guess its ok, cuz other people are doing it. oh yeah, and i reccomend doing a full format in disk mode in windows after u get it to work again. the itunes reformat doesnt seem to last as long. and if anyone cant get it to work after hitting it, hit each corner on a table, and try it again. thats what i found works the best.
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lynettstoy April 9th, 2006 at 08:23
I posted a couple of months ago when my son’s ipod was in the process of dying. Since then I have done quite a bit research, some first hand, into the ipod hard drive problem. As I suspected, slapping only bought enough time to guarantee that all info was backed up before the eventual doom. I found eWiz.com to be the best source of replacement hard drives, in price as well as service. They have the Toshiba hard drives from 20gb and up for the last three years, although the oldest are being discontinued. Those last two numbers refer to the year of manufacture. A word of note: The most current or newest hard drive has a DIFFERENT PLUG TYPE FROM THE ONE NEEDED FOR THE OLDER IPOD!!! It has a ZIF plug and there is not a way, YET, for this hard drive to be used in 4 G or older ipods. It IS the hard drive in the 5 G ipods. It is smaller in every way from it’s earlier versions, but the plug is not in common use yet and there does not seem to be a way to make it work in older machines — yet.
I have to say that I decided to buy my son a new ipod after researching the critters. I did, indeed, buy it at Best Buy with all of the extended warranty they offered (2 more years). Having dealt with them before, I felt that their extended warranty was better than Apple’s, because in the end, if it can’t be fixed (outdated technology), they give you the purchase price back, allowing you to buy the most recent version. The prices on these things don’t seem to be going up, so it seems like a good deal, and easy to use anywhere.
I grew fond of my Shuffle and decided that I would enjoy the original ipod; face it, they are addictive! I have replaced the hard drive in the old ipod, putting in a 30GB where there was once a 40GB, and I think that hard drive was $112 at eWiz.com. All seems well. The hard drives carry the factory warranty for 1 year from them, and they guarantee no DOA, giving you 15 days to return it if it is defective coming from them.
Last thought about hard drives from eBay, which I normally love. Most of these HD’s are being pulled from ailing ipods. There is no way of knowing how many hours are on the used HD, or even if it is a HD that has already been slapped a few times. These hard drives are intricate pieces of engeering and more fragile than most people realize. Static electricity can fry them, and you have no way of knowing how knowledgeable the person is who decided to pull the HD out to recover a few bucks. Losing the use of the ipod is frustrating enough – if you are going to try to fix it, spend a few dollars more and give yourself the best possible chance of being successful with the repair.
Just my humble opinion.
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robertfo April 10th, 2006 at 02:15
Thanks!
I have an iPod 20Gb 4th G. It began making klicking noises and showing a sad icon, I contacted Apple who wanted aroung 250$ to look at it. My son told me about this blog, I read all the comments and tried to smash the iPod with no results. I searched the internet for a HD in Sweden, I found it at Komplett.se, it took almost a month to arrive, but the price was OK 1099 SKr 120-130$. To put the iPod together and format it was an easy task.
I went for the 20Gb HD, I bought a iPod 30Gb and it is a little thicker, I didn’t want to have more variables in the problem that the obvious ones, a new HD, without Apples logo and maybe some extra things in it.
But everything went perfectly, to open the case I used a Swiss pocket knive.
Thanks again.
Robert Fo -
wordword April 11th, 2006 at 09:46
You need to put a warning at the top. Chances are this ipod did not need the harddrive replaced, like many others have commented. The ipod clicks when it gets messed up but is fixable with a reinstall of the os.
Please tell people to make sure by trying a reinstall before they decide that their ipod is broken. Yet again, simple software (not hardware) problems cause the spinning and clicking.
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I was ready to throw away my iPod until I saw this article. I now love you and want to have your children.
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Josh Carpenter April 12th, 2006 at 14:53
Son of a bitch….I had the same folder icon….clicking sound from the hardrive…I couldn’t do crap with it….Gave it a couple of hard whacks to the side….restored it…Im rocking to it right now…………THANK YOU!!!!!
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Great Presentation, Good Project for my daughter and I, we ordered a hard drive, found one in 5 minutes on google, $110 delivered. Only snag was the updater, one computer kept hanging, tried it on another computer, got an error msg. Windows XP found the hard drive when I hooked it up to the machine, I found it in explorer and tried to open the hard drive, windows asked “do you want to format this drive?” provided a pop up window, fat32…… once I had XP format the drive(2 minutes), Ipod updater got all happy and did the deal per your blog instructions.
Beat spending $250 on apple’s rip off service policy. Should have replaced the battery while I was in there.
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KittenPotPie April 13th, 2006 at 06:33
Wow! I am so inspired to fix mine now, my ipod was acting funny for a while and then crapped up, when I took it to the apple store the guy got it started again. It’s out of warranty so I had to pay him in gummi bears, but they want $270 to send it to be repaired/replaced. It works now, but it freezes and skips and I can hear the click in the HD. After reading your blog, I’m going to replace the HD myself. Excellent page btw, thank you!!!
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Thanks! I just replaced the 40GB hard drive in my 4G ipod. Easy!
BTW, the cheapest place I found for the drive was:
$128 shipped with taxes.
Ken
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johanna April 14th, 2006 at 12:40
for all the people who think that the hitting technique is just a joke…try it…and you might discover that it actually works. think of it as shifting something that got dislodged back into place. my ipod had a sad face and the people at hp told me it would have to be replaced, and i came here and i hit the side of the ipod holding it face up and it worked!
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LorCon April 14th, 2006 at 21:27
Thanks so much for this site!! My baby son knocked my 4G 20gb ipod off a table and I got the dreaded sad face. The husband ordered and installed a 30gb hard drive. Once I figured out I needed to do a quick format on the new drive and then delete and reinstall itunes and the ipod updater (might not have been necessary for everyone, but was for me) I was able to get my ipod working again. A little over $110 and I’ve got 150% the capacity I had and a hard drive that I know is new. Thanks again!
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Lien Nguyen April 15th, 2006 at 02:38
Hi,
I have the same ipod and was wondering if it’s possible of replacing the 20gb drive with the 40gb, 60gb??
thanks -
i’ve got a 20gb ipod and the sad face keeps appearing and some clicking noise ave tried smacking it but still doesn’t work and the clicking noises continue can i get any tips on what to do please.
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an hour ago we were depressed after the Apple store guy told us the 1.5 year old ipod was history. Said it needed a new hard drive. Now I’m slap happy. Once on the back followed by once on the side and it worked like a charm. Many thanks.
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OMG I can’t believe hitting it worked
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. I am about to go on a trip and this was my last hope
I can’t believe it I’m so happy in case you cared, but thanks for your help. -
You a fu(ken legend mate, good sh!t
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I have a 3rd gen ipod 20 GB the part number is MK2004GAL i was wondering if i can get a 30 GB MK3006GAL do u know if that works??!!?
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RuleZ023 April 18th, 2006 at 01:49
I haven’t been up to anything these days. So it goes. I can’t be bothered with anything these days.
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David of post 384. I think the answer is no because of an incompatiblity with the new HDD interfaces and the old iPod. I don’t think the ‘06 Toshiba disks will work in the 3rd gen (read my posts 153 and 322).
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umm, it worked ? hitting it worked? i was about to order new battery / hd as well !
nice one mate
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the hole hitin your ipod thing doesn`t work you have throw at somthing or step on it reslly hard try it, it works great!
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RuleZ023 April 20th, 2006 at 01:58
I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. I don’t care. So it goes. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. I’ve just been hanging out waiting for something to happen, but that’s how it is.
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Nice site!
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Martin England April 20th, 2006 at 21:16
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! After reading this entire blog…all I could think is what a bunch of crap. Damn if I didn’t finally spank my non-functioning IPOD………..TADA!!!!!!! IT WORKED.
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RuleZ023 April 20th, 2006 at 22:37
Not much on my mind lately. My life’s been completely boring these days. I’ve just been hanging out not getting anything done. So it goes.
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THANKS SO MUCH,
this info has saved me a lot of money which I diddnt have.
Now my ipod works, i cant belive it!My theory: maybe apple put a little device in the hard drive which breaks down on purpose, so loads of people pay hundreds of $$$ or £££ to get it fixed, and all the apple employees to is give is a slap and post it back.
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daniel April 21st, 2006 at 20:06
you are a genius!! i was planning on opening my broken ipod myself but i didnt know how, now thanks to you i opened it in 5 minutes.
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furball April 21st, 2006 at 20:20
hey great site! I just broke mine open and replaced the battery…easily done. I hear the rattling noise that some folks are talking about does that mean a busted HD? when I try to charge my 3rd gen. 10GB a symbol that looks like the connector that goes to the bottom of the I-pod comes up. I haven’t been able to figure out what it means..any help would be great. Oh, I also ran updater 2006-01-10 and it said to unplug it after it said it had updated it, so I did and then it wouldn’t charge or anything after that…anyhoo help would be great…
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Chris OnAir April 24th, 2006 at 10:00
Hahahah Its so funny! i mean we have got all this very good but complicated and costly solutions and the easiest ones are involving smacking around the ipod! and it works to!! hahaha i dont thin apple thought that people would be going around and smacking their ipods to get them to work.
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NoiPodinStockholm April 25th, 2006 at 13:19
I have a broken MK1504GAL HD in 3rd Gen iPod – Does anyone know if I can replace it with MK2006GAL? Comments in 153 & 322 said that it didn’t work. Does anyone have any other experience.
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Thanks Josh – bought a new MK2004GAL drive for £45 and replaced it following your instructions. As good as new now and for a quarter of the cost Apple wanted to charge me.
A quick tip for anyone else doing this: – the easiest way to get the case off is to work from the adapter port at the bottom of the iPod. Put a thin screwdriver in the adapter hole and lift the silver case where its thinnest. Then use a 2nd screwdriver to insert under the gap and prise it off.
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Juanita April 27th, 2006 at 08:05
Does this work on the iPod Mini?
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Forget all this hard drive changing rubbish, just give your naughty little ipod a slap, because THIS WORKS. I had the dreaded sad icon, constant clicking in the hard drive was unable to mount it on my pc. So, out of sheer anger and frustration I threw it across the room(not too hard, you don’t want to completely smash it!). It hit the wall and landed on the floor. I picked it up, pressed the menu button and, hey presto, it started up as normal. I then reformatted and restored and it’s now brand new. Magic.
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Juanita April 27th, 2006 at 12:17
Oh my gosh!!! It not only works on the regular iPods but the Mini’s too!!! I threw my friend’s mini on the floor and it worked! WOW!!
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samcrane April 27th, 2006 at 18:59
Smacking worked for me! Had a 4th G iPod with failing harddrive… clicking noises, skipping songs, wouldn’t mount, etc. I took it to the “Genius” Bar and all they offered me was a replacment for $250. Instead, I took it home, held it upside-down, gave it two good smacks. It’s been working fine now for two weeks and counting!
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I tried slapping it first and then dropping it on the table repeatedly (to the bemusement of my wife who has spent the last year nursing it like a baby), but that didn’t fix it. I didn’t chuck it at the wall as I didn’t want to damage the screen or circuitboard. I’ve got a new disk now so its no help to me, but a suggestion for others might be to follow Josh’s instructions on removing the disk and then throwing that instead. No harm done if it doesn’t work as its knackered anyway.
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NoiPodinStockholm April 28th, 2006 at 09:33
Steve where did you get a MK2004GAL for £45? Was it new, used, or refurbished? I have heard conflicting guidance about using refurbished hds, but that seems like all that is available. Smacking and hitting mine didn’t work. My iPod hit concrete sidewalk smack flat down, pretty sure hd is broken. I have taken the ipod apart and everything looks OK, but when I shake the hd I hear a rattle – can’t be a good sign.
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john wildish April 28th, 2006 at 11:26
I recently had a (pretty new) ipod photo which had the sad face picture. Also the unit wont charge and would not connect to my PC. after reading this I gave it a sharp slap on the side and hey presto its working again!!!
Thank You!!!!!! -
Mary Z April 29th, 2006 at 06:42
Josh – this was great – especially the pictures! My daughter’s 20 gb ipod stopped working, displaying the folder and explanation point and www. URL for apple support and the hard-drive made a noise. I tried all solutions to restart/restore it with no success. I even tried the slapping solution (I can’t believe I actually tried that one – glad I didn’t damaage any internal components). I ordered the 2006 version from http://www.Teksale.com for $100 and it arrived yesterday. I installed it successfully and restored my daughter’s itunes library in less than one hour. The Teksale site offers a 1 year. warranty on the hard-drive for another $6 which I purchased. We are good to go once again!!! Thanks for sharing. (I am a 52 yr. old Mom and java/software engineer. If I can do this, anyone can)
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Steve N April 29th, 2006 at 08:06
I just performed a hard drive replacement on a 3G iPod. I found opening the case to be the greatest challenge. I tried a tool optained from ipodmods but found it to be ineffective. I finally opened the case with a guitar pick (Fender thin). It worked like a charm, and only costs 25 cents – the pick got chewed up, but it did not harm the iPod.
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Got the HDD for £45 on eBay, brand new and sealed. That includes £10 discount for sending in broken drive. Dunno what he does with them, probably throws them against a wall and sells them again!
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NoiPodinStockholm April 30th, 2006 at 14:16
Mary Z, This might be a dumb question, but was your daughter’s 20 gb iPod 3G? Really want to try a new 2006 with warranty, but not sure it will work in 3G.
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Holiday422003 May 1st, 2006 at 11:26
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!, I received a broken ipod and it was in really bad shape, couldn’t get it to do anything and every component look to be bad, HD, motherboard, battery..etc. I was about to throw it in the garbage when I was interested in refurbished hard drive and I found that refurbishing the hard drive was out of the question, I put the ipod back together and surprise the thing started to come to life, but the hard drive was clicking and even though I could get music loaded on it, it would play a few seconds and quite and the hard drive seem to have a life of it’s own. Ok!!!!!!!!!!! so I read everyone’s comments on slapping it and I really thought ya’ll crazy. But in a moment of nothing else to do but ditch it, I slapped it and nothing changed, so I slapped it again all the while laughing at myself and WHOLLY COW IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is working great and the hard drive no longer clicks, all is running smooth and quiet. Go Friggin figure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Thanks all!!!!!!!!!! Even if it works for an hour which I went back and tried it numerous times and still great, it’s worth it..I’m bowled over..LOL
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Anton May 1st, 2006 at 16:42
Here’s the status on my iPod. I am getting the exclamation folder icon but The HD seems to be ok. Ok as in it is spinning in disk mode without any clicking noises but in normal mode it spins then it shows the apple icon, folder icon, clicks, then turns off. I just want to know what part is acting up so I can buy a replacement for it and make my iPod work again. Can anyone help me on this? is it the motherboard or HD or something else? Thank you very much
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Mary Z May 2nd, 2006 at 12:39
To NoipodinStockholm – my daughter’s ipod was 4th gen 20 gb click-wheel ipod just like Josh’s. I don’t know anything about 3rd gen. . .
but this worked great. The place I got the hard-drive Teksale.com had a 1 yr. warranty – you might be able to buy one from them and return it if it does not work. Good luck. -
noiPodinStockholm May 3rd, 2006 at 15:33
Thanks Mary and Steve! I found the eBay guy selling MK2004GAL that you recommended, but I lost out on the bidding. I also found information about installing a MK2006GAL in a 3G iPod at
http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/ There were also instructions about what to do after the new HD is installed. -
YamBond May 4th, 2006 at 14:15
so i tried what you said and got the same type of hard drive (got a 15 gig instead of a 10 haha) and my once dead iPod came back to life thanks to you! it was actually easier that what you said and it was well worth 80$ to have it work it again!
j00 r l33t!!! thanks alot man
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Nikki May 4th, 2006 at 16:34
Ok, so my IPod started showing the folder with unhappy face a few months ago. I was in Las Vegas so I just put it aside. On the trip home, it started working again. Then, as I was cutting the grass yesterday, it did it again. So, I figured that a new hard drive was what it needed. In the process of looking for one, I came here. Read all of your wonderful posts and tried the slap technique. Nothing. So, I got a good hold of the thing and beat the s@#$ out of it against the floor and now it works! Wonderful. Thanks and keep beating up those IPods.
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After I saw your article, I replaced HD with Toshiba 30GB and had 4th G iPod. It works flawlessly. Many Thanks!!
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Just tried the slap trick on my daughter’s 4thG 40GB Ipod. IT WORKED!!!! I was just about ready to send it to a guy for repair or buy a replacement drive. Needless to say, my wife’s very pleased (as is my daughter).
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Slapper May 6th, 2006 at 18:00
After trying all the troubleshooting guides on Apple’s support web site with no luck, I tried the “slap” method. (I prefer to call the the “impact adjustment.”). This did the trick! Boy, am I glad google led me to this web site. Let’s hope my iPod continues to work for a while now.
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jonathan May 6th, 2006 at 18:57
the slap works………..i have had the same prob. for 3 weeks……..i went to the apple store today and prety much threw my pod on the counter and he thing booted up……i didnt understand it ….when i got home i found this sight and holly s@#t it works just fine………..i will have to agree that the harddrive is haveing a hard time spinning up so you just have to help it……….thanks
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If the hard drive problem was caused by bad blocks, you may be able to have to controller remap them to spares.
It may be different for some drives, but if you have an adapter to plug the drive into a PC, you may be able to do the remap by initiating an OFFLINE S.M.A.R.T. test by using Linux smartmontools http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/. After playing around with this on my laptop drive, for the life of me I couldn’t locate the bad blocks anymore by using all sort of scanning tools. They were just gone.
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normal person May 9th, 2006 at 04:27
u sad sad man. get a life. take pictures of friends, if u have any apart from ur “buddy Chris”. ipods r good tho.
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webjones May 9th, 2006 at 08:31
Nice writeup. My daughter’s 4th gen. 20 gig hard drive started making the “whirrrr click…” recently. Taking the hard drive out and smacking it on the desk fixed it for a few months. But I just put a new 30 gig Toshiba drive in and it works great.
BTW, be sure and check the dimensions before upgrading hard drive. Toshiba makes different lengths, and when you go up in capacity they get thicker. A 40 gig is almost twice as thick as the 20 gig and so won’t fit in the case.
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Rosstamon May 10th, 2006 at 08:27
Thank goodness I found your blog and bookmarked it a couple of months ago. Recently, I was one week away from a 10 hour plane ride. I decided I should fix the iPod so I could take it with me. I found the exact HD on a certain infamous online auction site. In all it cost me $167.50 -price plus express shipping. This HD came with the foam glued on and the little white plastic bracket that surrounds the HD in the iPod cavity. So I bought it. Rush shipped it. And about 4 hours after I received it, my iPod was up and running like old times. It only actually took about 20 minutes to replace the drive and then I had 4500 songs to upload. Thanks for your service to the iPod community.
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Old Dog May 12th, 2006 at 21:39
Oh man – I owe the “whack-it” guys a big thanks! Sad iPod, Clicking Hard Drive – certainly thought I was in for a little iPod surgery. A few HARD whacks & all’s well. Better advice than Apple Care – no doubt.
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fat Tony May 12th, 2006 at 23:03
Mine locked up and froze, so i froze it (just the hard drive) in the frezer for 2 hrs. worked like a charm. still working today……slapping didnt work
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dillan May 14th, 2006 at 15:47
WOW like WOWWWWWW. i cant believe it. my friend tried slapping and everything, and it didnt work, so she threw it up in hte arm about 30 feet and it hit hte pavement, and it WORKED!!! like crazy huh? but it works normally..except for a few scratches, but hey, it WORKS!
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fish Fisher May 16th, 2006 at 02:38
I haven’t been up to anything recently. SMACKING WORKS TRY IT i had the dead ipod / folder icons appearing plus whir then click sound 4th gen ipod what a great site saved my day.
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Any ideas guys…..?
Tried slapping it, recconecting the drive and still mines buggered.
3rd gen 20gb. Used to get the folder/! with the whir click but i managed to get it to mount in disc mode and reformat. now it starts up fine but as soon as i connect the charge lead/dock, it freezes up and i have to do a full restart… built in apple test mode says HDD FAIL. I cant charge it or put any music on it at all.
Any help would be appreciated.
cheers. -
Patrick M May 21st, 2006 at 05:52
For the past few weeks ipod would not turn on or connect to a pc; it would make a strange sound and produce the apple symbol and then the sad face pic suggesting I visit apple.com/support (which had no useful info at all). SMACKING THE REAR OF THE IPOD HARD WITH MY HAND SEVERAL TIMES FIXED MY PROBLEM. Thanks to whoever suggested this method, it saved me lots of money and allowed me to use my frustration in a constructive way…
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Franzi May 25th, 2006 at 11:48
Thank you! I can’t believe it worked! My iPOD survived and is as good as new! Thanks for this detailed page, i guess I wouldn’t have tried!
Best wishes from Germany!
P.S. I’ve also heard of the smacking-trick before, but whe the HD is broken, it’ll stay broken!
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fryheit May 28th, 2006 at 08:04
great! nice manual to replace the harddrive! now my 4g 20gb works again! thanks man
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Tyson Moore May 29th, 2006 at 15:13
Thank you SOO much! I just got my iPod working again!
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my 4g 20gb ipod harddisk got killed yesterday. at the moment there are mostly MK3006GAL harddisks to find. is it possible to take them instead of the MK2006GAL? thanks
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MikeyC311 May 31st, 2006 at 10:57
I didn’t believe slapping it would work. My pod hasnt worked in weeks, and it wasnt looking good. So i slapped it. IT WORKED! Whoever came up with the slapping idea deserves a medal.
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Marcel May 31st, 2006 at 15:24
Hi, I’ve got a question. Is it possible to replace my 20GB 4Gen. iPod HD for a 30GB or 40GB harddisk?
Thanks.
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jacob S. May 31st, 2006 at 20:18
Amazingly, the punch worked. IT is not a straight side punch, but more of a diagonal from the upper right to the lower left. Then…reinstall ipod updater and iTunes and enjoy!
Thanks for saving me $300. This man is a genius
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rosemania May 31st, 2006 at 21:58
Thanx a lot! I had trouble opening my iPod so I just throw it to the floor and it pops up like a coke.
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Dubstar June 2nd, 2006 at 10:31
Thanx!! I found a canadian site with realy good prices on parts and repairs!!http//www.ipodzone.ca
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Ron Kiener June 2nd, 2006 at 11:58
Tremendous tutorial. After Apple rejected their in-warranty service obligation because of dimples on the silver backside (what a joke!), i found this site. Amazingly, the slap referred to by some actually worked on my daughter’s ipod for about one day. I found a drive at nowdirect.com for $87 with shipping and followed the instructions on this site. A couple of false starts getting the update to load and write to the new drive, but eventually it all came together. My daughter is elated.
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Hugh Donnelly June 3rd, 2006 at 13:06
4th Gen 40GB with folder icon whirring, clicks twice, repeats this etc. All suggestions on apple.com didn’t work. Tried slapping it. Worked fine. Thanks to all. Excellent tutorial though.
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David G June 7th, 2006 at 13:33
No way!!! I just performed the “hold in your left hand, smack with your right” trick on my 4th Gen 20GB and it worked! I’m stoked. I was about to spend an hour waiting for the tech support at the Apple Store to tell me i needed to repair/replace it.
My advice: get the 2-yr warrenty. After 1 year Apple called me to ask if i wanted to extend mine for $59.95 and I said, “no thanks, i haven’t had any problems so far”. Since then I’ve had TWO malfunctions. Apple replaced my iPod the first time b/c it was so close to the warrenty expiration, and I just “fixed” the second issue.
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Stuart Cliff June 9th, 2006 at 10:50
firsty big thanks to this blog, saved my sanity and gave me confidence to repair mine.
I initially tried the slap on a unhappy pod, whilst it stop the icon showing I could no longer sync with the pc, and certain popular tracks would skip..
sourced a 60gb new drive, and followed the steps above and now have a refurb ipod with shed more storage!!! so me and the pod are now ecstatic!!
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giggleloop June 9th, 2006 at 22:23
holy crap, the smack-it method worked for me too! thank god, i was about to scream if i’d have to replace my iPod, or have to pay $250 to get it fixed (it’s a 40gb click-wheel jobbie) when i could spend $50 more and get a new one. thanks!!!
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steve June 10th, 2006 at 16:14
Well I smacked the my bad apple around and it felt great,YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!U #$^%&**( but it did more damage than anything I think.
Didn’t even regi anymore after the beating I layed on it.
Maybe I went over board.hahahahahaha….I got real worried and decided to go into the diagnostics part of iPod and check the disc.
Left click and hold down the center button.
Run the HDD R/W and then scan disc after this I checked the ram on the last test.
Hell run it all!It took most of the day on a 40 gigger.
Anyhow came back after the ram test and it said Somethng about reset.
Pushed the play/pause
Well It WORKZ!Soooooooo maybe a beating and the diagnostics test fix it. Who Knows?????
Not very nice and a waist of hours of BS.
I am just happy I am not out all this cake on a bad apple.I tried everything before this and think I just lucked out in the end.
I am thinking it was the diagnostics cleaning out the drive and ram????
Someone will get it down pat and maybe dirt bags at Apple will update the grand F-up they have on their hands.
From what I gather, it is a software issue and this corrupts the hard drive. Making for conflicts.
Don’t give up.
As for the diagnostics I am no expert.
Just found out about it online & started messing around with it.
Some geek said it isn’t a good idea.
I figured the Pod was NFG. so what the hell.
I am sure if you take the time you can find out more info on this internal system check.I buggered it up huge and mine wouldn’t even show up on my PC anymore next to turn on off etc…
Give it a try. All ya can do is mess up your hard drive more than it already is OR maybe you will get lucky.
Pura Bira
Steve In Costa Rica
Were we have no Hard drives for sale in this place. -
meintur June 11th, 2006 at 08:22
I had the same excat problem and i tried the smacking approach before going o buy a new hard drive and now the ipod works great
nice article
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Rod Stiffington June 12th, 2006 at 08:00
I was once a slapper, before I read it here; but consider it the first stages of hard drive failure. I had a 40 GB Ipod and after many slaps, it finally died. I sent to Apple, trying to claim battery failure. They quoted me $255 for a refurb model. I found your blog, and with an old ipod with a broken screen, I replaced my broken 40 GB drive with a 20 GB drive. Everything works fine. Thank you for the example. I probably wouldn’t have even tried if it wasn’t for this.
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Thanks to your detailed instructions and fast shipping from E-wiz.com, I had my new Ipod hard drive installed in under 15 minutes! Now I’m back in business! My warranty just expired a couple of months ago so THANK YOU!
The whole “slapping” and “throwing” thing may work if your drive is stuck or something, but mine was dead – as in the test in diagnostic mode wouldn’t even run and I kept getting the whir-click-click of a dying hard drive. If you’ve heard a computer hard drive start dying, then you know what I’m talking about.
If you’re Ipod hard drive is dying and maybe you’re a little apprehensive about replacing it – don’t be – just follow the instructions and you’ll be fine. Back to Peter Gabriel I go!
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AxsDeny June 14th, 2006 at 07:13
#428: Good to know. I recently had a 4G die on me. Thankfully I still had 3 months left on my 2 year extended warranty. My 3G has been going strong since I got it, but it’s nice to know that I can simply replace the drive if need be.
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I also recently had a 4G die on me. Mine is 1.5 years old. I had all the symptoms of a bad hard drive –> folder with exclamation point, constant clicking sounds, and the sad iPod icon. For a while the slapping trick worked, but then it stopped. I ended up getting a 30GB drive to upgrade my 20GB. Followed the steps in Josh’s guide and was soon back in business. Details of my experience are listed here: http://rodspod.blogspot.com
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Jennifer June 15th, 2006 at 19:53
This worked! All I did was open it up, and it hummed to life! Thank you so much.
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Andarel June 16th, 2006 at 15:36
Well, I tried bashing it for a while, worked for a bit and then my cousin got his hands on it…darned cousins.
Two “Doubles Wild” chips, ninety-seven dollars, a tiny scissor, a gluestick, and five days later…working great! Thanks so much!
~Andarel
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Ruskygirl June 16th, 2006 at 21:23
I replaced my hardrive just as I was shown and it works like magic and I bought it at ewiz. I had tried to smack it etc., but to no avail, I am not a techy at all, just love my ipod and couldn’t afford the 250 to fix it with apple. So, it works, if smacking does not, don’t waste time just buy a new hard drive.It is very easy to replace, and restore, then load and it is perfect. thank you for this blog !!!!!
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Jerod June 19th, 2006 at 19:48
Comment 16 about the sad face and flippin the hold 10 times durring boot up worked for me. I couldn’t believe it. Here are some symptoms for those who want to know what mine was doing in case they are having the same problem:
It would show the apple logo but not back lit, then it would show the sad face and turn off. If i plugged it in to charge it, it would do this repeatedly: apple, sad, apple, sad…. The computer never saw the iPod so I couldn’t update the firmware.Everyone praises apple for how perfect and bug free all their crap is but that’s a load. This forum proves that humans make macs, just like PCs and they both screw up.
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Collins June 20th, 2006 at 13:24
This tutorial was AWESOME. My 20 gig hard drive replacement got here no more than 20 minutes ago from nowdirect.com (w/ $20 overnight shipping) for just over $100. I plugged it into my 4th gen, restored the software, charged up, all like you showed, and iTunes is putting my songs back on as I submit this comment. This was truly a life saver of a tutorial; much better than going out and spending the $350+ for a new 5th gen. w/ a case and protection plan, thanks so much for putting this up!
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Myles June 21st, 2006 at 06:05
Found this place while looking for an answer to my beat up iPod…slapped it once and it works fine ;P awesome
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Norbert June 21st, 2006 at 07:05
Trying to fix my 4th Gen 20GB ipod. I got it apart and have been looking for a cheap new hard drive. Does anyone know if a Toshiba 10GB MK1504GAL can replace a MK2006GALC?
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Bones June 23rd, 2006 at 01:44
OMG!
4th Gen 40Gb, out of warranty with sad iPod/clicking whirring – 3 slaps later – works fine!!!
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Vansk June 26th, 2006 at 20:17
i was getting the same clicking noise and i slapped i twice and its perfect.
and to think i was going to go buy a new drive
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Jamie June 28th, 2006 at 15:41
Hi, I have the same ipod and was wondering if it’s possible of replacing the 20gb drive with the 40gb, 60gb??
thanks -
Big Old Andy July 1st, 2006 at 08:21
OK, I must really be unlucky. I had the sad face; slap didn’t work. Found Josh’s site and ordered a new drive – salvation! Installed new drive as instructed. It powered up and took me to my music and tried to play songs that aren’t there (menu in memory, I suspect). Locked up. Now I get sad face and slap does not work….
If I didn’t already have so many accessories, I’d buy a different brand. I may anyway.
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Right Everytime July 2nd, 2006 at 16:28
Ok, people (and whatever some others of you are), after reading multiple slap postings, it seems many suggesting this also must be slapping themselves.
IF YOU ARE READY TO THROW YOU IPOD IN THE TRASH CAN, WITH NO INTENTION OF ANY KIND OF REPAIR IN THE FUTURE, GO AHEAD AND HAVE A GOOD TIME SMACKING THE F*%K OUT OF IT. It will not work for long if it DOES shake something loose, so don’t think this is going to get you far. Anyone disagreeing with that is an ass, as well as anyone who listens to it. Make you’re choices accordingly.
Smacking it can cause further damage to the circuit board and display and now you’ve added to the problem (like you deserve). If you plan to look into a $100 do-it-yourself repair, use your brain. If you’re on your way to the trash can anyway, then go ahead and amuse yourself. Maybe you’ll hear a few more songs before actually throwing it in.
Don’t you people get it? Assholes are encouraging people to smack their iPods and saying it works to get you to also be an idiot. This is intelligent, rational thinking. If you choose to believe a strange f*%k you don’t even know to tell you something that moronic, you deserve everything you [don't] get. People float through here all the time and don’t even have to sign up. They’re often lonely teens in their rooms laughing at themselves fart and at you after they post this crapolla (go wash your faces you idiots, I see an inch of normal skin amongst the acne).
Ok, flame away morons, there’s more sheep that’ll likely cling to your bullshit. BTW, I suggest next time you have a headache, get a hammer (then post your feedback)
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wow, sounds like someone had some sand in their vagina!
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rohandavey July 2nd, 2006 at 22:40
Bought my iPod in November of 2004. Came across this page when I was encountering the EXACT same problem the author described. For anyone interested, shopping.com does have the Toshiba Hard Drive that was originally in the author’s broken iPod for $95 (no tax and free shipping for me in Washington).
But, prior to placing the order, and after reading some of the comments, I held it in my left palm, screen-side-down, metal-back-side-up, and gave it two hard smacks with my right hand. The screen came on just right and asked me to select a language, and then I looked and saw that it was playing music again (and properly to boot – something that hasn’t happened in weeks). Resetting it per the instructions on apple.com was a worthless endeavor earlier in the day.
For all you iPod spankers out there, have you found that this is actually a long-term solution to your problem? As in, has anyone been smacking it for, say, 6 months and found the technique is still as effective as the first time?
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OMG you guys aren’t gonna believe my ipod story!
i’d tried everything to fix my unhappy ipod, and after reading over 400 people above succesfully “slap” theres back into shape, i figured it must be worth a shot, so i did as most did, gave it a good hearty slap!! no dice though! i continued doing this for awhile, but still nothing!1 i threw it against the wall in my room and figured that had to do it, but no luck. THEN i went outside, tossed it about 30ft into the air and let it land smack on the sidewalk. you’d be surprised how durable ipods are LOL! anyways that still didn’t MAKE THE IPOD WORK!!! after that, i went into my basement and into my dad’s gun cabinet and loaded his pump action shotgun. i went into my backyared and placed the ipod against the fence and shot it twice with the shotgun. IT WORKED!!! i couldnt even believe it!!!!!! THIS METHOD REALY DOES WORK. thanks to everyone for posting there storys on here!
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I dropped my ipod on the pavement, had the clicking sounds, it died–all that. I tryed pounding the Shi* out of it with no luck. I replaced the hard drive–Josh you kick ass. ***pow, my ipod came back to life
reincarnation as an ipod
who knew? -
where can i find a 40gb hard drive that is cheap. my ipod is doing the same thing
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i got a cheap hard drive on ebay. it was like less than half of everywhere else i looked. the place was called previously owned electronics or something.
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Jamesh July 5th, 2006 at 18:44
I used an old dull oyster knife to open up my 4g ipod. It popped right open with narry a scratch. If you have one, this is a great tool to use to open up ipods.
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Linda Dunn July 9th, 2006 at 12:44
WOW!!! I just got my iPod on e-bay with a known bad HD – I’m going to get the replacement now and have at it.
I can’t thank you enough – now I know what to expect and the fear is GONE!
This is the most helpful information I’ve seen on the web FOREVER!
Thanks,
Linda -
Phillie Nelson July 11th, 2006 at 10:54
The slap did not work, it was the slam on the table that did the trick for two 4G 40 Gig iPod’s. I’m still going to buy a nano when the next gen. come out though – less moving parts!
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JunkMail July 11th, 2006 at 14:04
Thank you! I was devastated when my iPod crapped on me. Got myself a weekend project
Thanks
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recovering disgruntled ipod owner July 14th, 2006 at 15:33
My ipod crashed a month after my warranty expired. Apple was being a beaurocratic bitch and refused to do anything for me. They even tried charging me $50 for calling them for tech support. Thanks to these instructions I was able to buy a new hard drive (toshiba mk2006gal, $100 including shipping from ewiz.com) and replace the old one. I am suggesting all my friends who have experienced the same problem to do the same.
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Jeremy Davidson July 15th, 2006 at 20:11
Josh – you’re the best. My 4th gen ipod was in my messenger bag for a couple of weeks and the bag rolled around in my trunk. Had only dropped it once before, but the dropping didn’t have any immediate effect. Then, last week, I remembered I had the damned thing and turned it on only to get the unhappy face/folder.
Only 2 months out of my warranty, I went to Apple and got the song and dance from a pompous jerk at the Genius Bar. Like I was wasting his time. Dude, if you don’t like your job…
So, he tells me I can “recycle” it by giving it back to Apple towards 10% off a new one. Harumph.
I waited. Stewed. Began research. Found your blog.
I slapped. I regretted it. I slapped again. Regretted again.
Then I dug out an old credit card and got to work.
All I did was unplug the hard drive, gently shake it, and plug it back in.
Then I plugged the ipod back into my powerbook, turned it on, and viola! It works! Let’s hope for a long time.
Thanks to everyone for your votes of confidence, and esp to Josh.
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Cantbelieveit July 17th, 2006 at 10:45
No Way!
My first post but its got to be done.
My ipod has died countless times, always giving me the sad face, and one on the ipod too.Usually it comes back after a few hours playing in the diagnostics section, but this time I got nowhere for a whole week.
That is until I read the above and gave it a few flicks of the hold slider and a wack on my knee.
Good work people.
Was about to lob it and myself of the 31st floor.
Thanks
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julia July 17th, 2006 at 19:04
I’ve been trying EVERYTHING to make that stupid “folder-!”/whirring/clicking/restarting nightmare end.
Stan–may the world smile on you always. I smacked that sad broken ipod around like a thieving ho and it worked for the first time in a month!!
Josh– may the world bless you with all you want. I opened the ipod to poke around and it was thanx to your pictures that I mustered up the courage to do it myself.
Now, she works like a dream. Doesn’t even purr. -
Otacon July 18th, 2006 at 10:05
Excellent Tutorial mate! I got my iPod hard drive from http://www.memorylabs.com it came all wrapped in tons of protective crap and it works excellent! I put it in my iPod and it was giving me the folder because it had no firmware, so I plugged it in with the iPod disc in my computer and ran the installer from the disc and it configured the iPod to be read by the computer, so then I opened iPod update and used restore which took no time, and now it’s got all 3,100 of my songs on it
I can give you a full link to the hard drive for anyone that needs it http://www.memorylabs.net/tomk201ata42.html -
Frak the Automator July 18th, 2006 at 12:36
i checked out the websiteand wa wonderingif this model would work for a 4G 40gig ipod, thanks
http://www.memorylabs.net/to40842nohad.html
the model number is mk4006gah -
DAmn!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO joke IT WORKS!!!
I held the ipod face up and smacked it on its side!!! BROOKLYN STYLE and no soon after ipod updater took care of the rest. GREAT ARTICLETHANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!
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david July 21st, 2006 at 13:32
i love you!! you have saved my ipod and my money!
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Mohamed Elfar July 22nd, 2006 at 19:11
i love u man , i did ur way and it SUCCESS
my 20 GB iPod back again to life after 1 year Death . Thanks Man u deserev to be the KING -
I definitely brought my ipod into the store here in Amsterdam and they said it was useless…i gave it one slap and now it works perfectly! WOOOOHOOOO
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Wrong Everytime July 24th, 2006 at 23:13
Right everytime….like you don’t smell your own farts…and by the way…get a f#$%in life broseph.
slap away ya’ll….slap away
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Moose July 28th, 2006 at 01:10
My daughter’s ipod started to having the clicking problem and then died with the “bad file/check” icon. Apple service said it would cost $250 to have it repair and just buy a new one, they would give me $25 for the broken Ipod… “YOU SHOULD OF BOUGHT EX-WARR.” F… them. I was going thur listed fixes and decided to connected the dead ipod to my computer and reformatted the hard drive (it took a couple attempts) and would you know… the HD was working. Re-installed the program and the Ipod has been working like new.
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ConicsNet July 28th, 2006 at 06:54
shake it a little, works 4 me
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Tywebb July 28th, 2006 at 15:46
Worked like a charm. Thedrive failed and even after the smacking it finally completely died. I bought the hardrive on ewiz.com and had it the next day. After the quick install it was all back to normal. Thanks a bunch
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Mark
- When I would start the ipod, I would get an icon of a folder and a warning sign. The ipod would then make a bunch of clicking noises. That make me think that the hard drive was crapped out.
