replacing the hardrive of an ipod
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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.
Thank you for the advice. I took your advice and found that my problem wasn’t the hard drive at all. Once I took the cover off, I found that one of the cables had come unplugged when it was dropped. Thanks for the encouragement !!! By the way, we took it to the Apple Store and they told us the hard drive was broken and wanted $100 to fix it. Fixed for free and hard drive just fine.
Uh I’m Thinking to chage the I-pod classic 80G to 40G HDD.
Do you think this can be done??
I know the post is old but I wanted to comment and say thanks this helped me out alot in fixing my iPod
Dude, very helpful instructions. However, I was not able to use the iPod updater like you have. The error message was that it’s no longer supported and suggested that I use iTunes instead but how do I go about reloading the software from iTunes? I can’t see any updating option.
I have just had to use iTunes for this purpose and you will need to click the restore button. It will then copy essential files and reboot, at least thats what happened when I followed instructions for this. The process is well documented on the Apple website.
Fixed my 40gb iPod. it was a loose cable that connected to the hold button circuit board, and a loose screw on the hard drive it self. Thanks for the your web page.
hi josh,
Thanks for the notes. You were right, once i got the sucker opened it was smooth sailing from there. I bought a similar harddrive for just $20, I’m wondering though if there was some sort of base utility software that was installed on the hard drives themselves. I plugged mine in, and it’s not being recognized by itunes (which is the way that apple does the updater now.
Do you have any suggestions for that?
Thanks,
james
Hi Josh, Thank you for the excellent tutorial. I ordered hard drive from ebay and tried to replace as you show here. After replacing the hard drive it still shows me a sad icon. I can switch my ipod to disk mode but just for few seconds and than again it restarted and again the sad icon. Can you help me how to put Ipod updater software on the new hard drive?? or what should I do now?? Thanks for excellent repair instructions..
Shardul.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
your post was by far the most simple and helpful of all the posts I’ve read on fixing an old ipod. I’m glad I stumbled upon this page or else I would’ve gone to get my iPod serviced for $340 (NZ)
nice work.
You need to start the unit in disk mode while it is connected to a PC with Itunes running.
Thank you every so much. Bought a disk for $24 and the replacement worked like a charm on my 4th generation iPod.
I want to change the 80GB HDD of my iPod video to say 160GB or 240GB. Is it achievable with the same proceedure? I’d like to know.
Thanks…
Thanks for that, man. Very helpful indeed.
I also do have problems on my i pod. The same problem you do have. The experience you’ve shared really helped me a lot in repairing my i pod. Thanks a lot.
HAHAHAHA,
I just read the post and a bunch of others and they all said that it was my harddrive. My brother dropped his IPOD and it gave the support website and the harddrive was ticking. Not going to suggest it but I repetedly restarted it while it was plugged into the computer while beating it off my desk slightly and at different angles. It is restoring now rofl…
Hard drive still sounds like it has gravel in it though. What specs did you look at to decide which hard drive to buy? What would make it non compatible?
I just got a sad ipod just now and came across with
this blog. I dont have a pad but a had a rubber silicon
like waffer on my desk. After resting and charging
w no avail i gve it a shot. Hold my ipod photo charger face down
gave it two crunchy slam. Guess what it became ALIVE it,
turn on and it was charging. I hope many more ppl will
come acrois this blog. Sad ipod means loose connection
i have this ipid for 5 years now. And i want to squeeze every bit
of value to it!!!
This step-by-step guide was wonderful, thank you! This whole process took me about 15 minutes and my iPod is back up and currently syncing my library with iTunes!!
I have a 5th Gen iPod video so sverything in this guide was spot on except connecting the Ribbon IDE connector. That part caused me a little grief since those pieces are so small. It was tricky disconnecting the ribbon and then it took me about 5 minutes to delicately push it back into the new drive and reconnect to the motherboard.
Just wanted to say thanks for this page Josh.
My 6th Generation Ipod (120gb) had a H/disk failure. In the UK it is £120 ($180) for an Apple Dealer to replace a dead disk, while a new IPOD is £170 ($260).
After reading through what you did, I thought I’d give it a go myself.
6th Generation IPods are almost exactly the same inside as the one you worked on. I opened it up removed the H/Disk (Toshiba MK1231 GAL), ordered a new one from Hong Kong on Ebay and replaced it, pretty much following your instructions.
Very straight forward, but wouldnt have attempted it if I hadn’t read your page.
Good Work and Thanks again!
Thanks so much, I have over the last couple years, had to do the slap thing- it finally didn’t work. I’ve always contemplated opening the back, but was sure I would mar it all up. It worked great. I unplugged the battery and the HDD and put it all back together and now it is working. Let’s see for how long.
Thanks so much. I have had to do the “slap” thing for a couple years now (maybe three different times). But this weekend on a 12 hour road trip- it finally “died”. I have hesitated in the past, opening the back. I was afraid that I would cosmetically screw it up. I followed your instructions and unplugged and then replugged the battery and HDD and everything seems fine. I am going to try and find a replacement (and bigger) HDD. Thanks again.
Just followed your steps in replacing the hard drive of a 30 GB iPod photo from 2005. Worked like a charm. I’m so glad I could keep my old iPod without buying the newer touch models they sell these days.
Just want to add my thanks. I have just rescued my old 4G iPod because of you!
Superstar!!!