What is Digg?117 Comments
- sauron256, on 10/12/2007, -6/+50Actual link (not through a blog) is: http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/hardware/fix_your_dead_ipod_for_free
- nitsuj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+45My Grandma had a broken hip so I threw her out of her firth storey apartment window.
Lo' and behold! Her broken hip is the least of her problems now. - Ghanda, on 10/12/2007, -5/+40so i accidentaly "drop-kicked" my brother and he still worked
- SoulMaster2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34How do you accidentally drop-kick something?
- sauron256, on 10/12/2007, -4/+33... hard drive?
- ahknight, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Be running, have it slip out of your fingers and by chance land on your foot as it's coming up. drop. kick. fwoom. crash.
No, I've never done that... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20I tossed my dead ipod into an open flame. It's been working fine since.
- SoulMaster2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16Yeah people on the Mac forums recommended that I drop my ipod from 2-3 feet, I was skeptical but I was out of warrenty and had nothing to lose... it started working and still works to this day
- Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16No, I think that may be something unique to yourself.
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I wonder why it took someone driving a mid-range Dodge vehicle to figure this out...
- doce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I'm the author, actually.
I was buying a 5th Gen iPod right about the time that the iPod in question died, and I had all of my music backed up, so I wasn't really interested in in recovering any data off of it, nor was I interested in fixing it. I put it in a drawer with a note to myself to "figure this out" someday, but being busy running two family businesses and having another working iPod, it was quickly forgotten.
The throw off the balcony was not an attempt to fix it. I was reviewing a rubberized case from iFrogz (no link; google around if you care) when a co-admin at MacGeekery told me he felt the case could withstand quite a beating... but he wasn't stupid enough to chuck it out a window.
This is when I recalled that I had a dead iPod laying around, one that when I was honest with myself, I probably wasn't going to get around to fixing for quite some time... If ever. So, into the demo case it went, and off my balcony. More than anything, I was testing to see if the iPod would get bent or mangled, come apart, or crack the LCD; as a former Mac Genius, I've seen iPods dropped from such heights and, if not in a case, the results can be fairly ugly. With no fear of destroying something I cared about (it's dead, right?), it got chucked.
It was only after the iPod survived this and started working again that I cared about trying to fix it... - duke, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Excellent point, zybch! Dupes aren't even half as annoying as people who feel it's their public duty to point them out. It's sad, but some folks just gotta have those digg brownie points.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9wow... harddrive based ipods have no moving parts? That's amazing!
- Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That was an Apple-authorised solution to the same problem with the Apple ///
- gaijintendo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Sad ipod icon rocks!
How many other products mess up and look cool?
Certainly not microwaves. - tlfillingim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I ordered a refurbished 3G ipod last august. Shipping was delayed and I left on a business trip before it got delivered. I asked my neighbor to pick it up when it arrived. He didn't go check for it until the day after it had been delivered. In this time the box had been torn apart and the ipod chewed on by a dog. He literally got the ipod from out of the dog's mouth and brought it inside. When I returned, the ipod worked perfectly even with the teeth marks. I immediately noticed that I didn't have the docking cradle that I had ordered. I asked my neighbor if he'd seen it and he had not. The next day happened to be Hurricane Katrina (I live in MS). After the storm was over I went out to see how bad my roof was and I saw the docking cradle lying in the yard. I picked it up and brought it inside. It sat on the counter and dried out until the power came back on 8 days later and it works fine. The cradle has been chewed on by a dog and left outside through a hurricane and still works. Everything is still working fine 9 months later. That's pretty good quality.
- spanky619, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7i just threw mine off my bed and now it isn't just a $400 doorstop :D, good work
- Company_Man, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Back in the day, dropping your Atari ST thirty inches onto a flat surface was a perfectly acceptable way to reseat your RAM..
- LegendOfLink, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I modded all you bitches up! Sadly, this comment will be modded down.
Too bad you can't "accidentally drop-kick" Mac/*nix/Win zealots and have them "work" again (intellectually, that is). - chriszma666, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9It's pretty common knowledge that hard drives can sometimes be fixed by the same kind of physical shock that damages the.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7People had been doing this with the old Rio Karma for quite a while. Apparently the old Hitachi Travelstar hard drives they used in those MP3 players had platters that would sometimes "stick" and not spin correctly. I guess hitting it hard on a table would cause them to unstick and spin again. I've experienced this first-hand myself.
- jtbndy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So is this what Apple does when you return your iPod for fixing? Go up to their roof of the HQ and drop it off? :P
- Rounin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6My iPod should never die then. I drop the thing on my driveway at least once or twice a year.
- IMA_Sellout, on 10/12/2007, -13/+18I actually drop-kicked my iPod by accident once and it lived. That has sold me on Apple products in a HUGE way. If I can be running from my vehicle to my house and literally *drop-kick* it 10 feet or so and have it live, you know that despite the highly publicised flaws in the first genereation products, later generations are sturdy and less prone to trouble.
- ahknight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Actually, the point of the article, which has been missed by thousands of idiots, is that the cable is loose. Just open it, reset it, and close it.
No one said to throw it off anything. - pu-z, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My GF has an iPod mini and it has survived the «Fitness Catapult of Doom» three times. It works this way: She's on the treadmill and jogging away like there's no worry in the world. Suddenly, it slips down to the treadmill belt, she steps on it (one time) and the iPod is jetted along the belt and over the edge. After a short, but probably terribly exciting for the iPod, trip through the air it hits the concrete wall and falls down to the floor. Since it is a mini (metal chassis) it has lots of dents in it but is otherwise just fine. In fact, it's due for a battery repair soon since she has used it for 7 or so hours each day over two years. It The battery time is now severely reduced, but I'm nevertheless impressed.
- dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7this is the kind of absurdity that brings a smile to my face ;-)
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Walugi
I can arrange to have an ipod delivered to you, but i can also arrange to have a group of gay men show up at your door. Which to you prefer. Let me know if i should post a throw away address so that you can get me your details. - modernpixel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7NO NO NO!!! People, don't throw your iPod off of a building to get it to work. I have the same iPod, two of them actually, and both of them got the click of death. All you have to do is put a towel down on a hard surface (to protect the outside of the iPod), cup the iPod in your palm so that it runs the length of your hand, and being careful to align the iPod so the metal backing will hit evenly, bang it down onto the surface hard once or twice.
This fixes the problem. As I said, it worked for me on two iPods and they have never clicked again since. Amazing, but true.
No need to throw it off a building, against a wall or otherwise put it at risk for serious damage. - cyrix, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10estvir:
The nano uses flash memory as well. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8@Metabolife - "I tossed my dead ipod into an open flame. It's been working fine since."
Well since the mac book pro thing, its now proven FACT that Apple products need to be scorchingly hot to work properly. - kenadak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6did No one RTFA? He didn't recommend throwing the Ipod off a building it just happened to help "kickstart" the drive and get the writer thinking... he later opened the Ipod and reseated the ribbon cable... and now because of the wonderful headline writing of the digg community people everywhere are going to start chucking their Ipods all over the place.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6This is why a service plan is invaluable with ipods. I purchased a 3G and it died after only a few months of use. I brought it in to my local Best Buy for the service I paid for. I was later notified that it wasn't fixable and that I could pick up a new one. At this point the 4G model had been released. Not a bad upgrade. I then had another problem and needed that one serviced a few months later. iPods break often....so get a service plan with it.
- Ninjamonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I fixed a friends iPod photo like this. No need to drop it from a building. Just smack it against your palm. After that I did a full restore and it has worked fine ever since.
- megamahi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Slamed my 2nd Gen iPod in a car door by accident once(was in my coat pocket which was long ehough to get down there). Busted 2 pixels on the screen, which shockingly 'repaired themselves' after a month. Only thing still visible is a little dimple where there was pressure on the screen. Now my new iPod would NEVER survive that, but the old ones were built like tanks. It took a beating and still survived 4 years on the orginal battery. Though now it gives me a click-of-death, its way out of warrenty, time to give it a good punting it seems.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Would it surprise anyone?!
- WaldorfSalad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@murdats:
A falling object is under an accceleration of 1g while it is falling. However, the acceleration in the other direction when it hits the ground (ie deceleration) will be much more than 1g. - jbus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Hard drive gone bad... You could just hit it on the side with the palm of your hand to get the same effect same effect. I have a friend that has an old scratched and beaten up ipod that needs a good whack on the side about once a month to get the hard drive spinning again.
- estvir, on 10/12/2007, -30/+32sauron, yes, hard drive.. ipods have a mini hd while the shuffle is flash based i believe.
one of you mac zealots feel free to correct me. :) - doce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you people make baby JC cry...
- Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Reminded me of this:
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2529/11476256065192yl.jpg - john570, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dont them things spin or somethin?
/sarcasm - japer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2DUDE! We just did this (reseated the HD) to a co-worker's dead Ipod and it frickin' WORKS - this is awesome. Now... how much to charge him?... ;-)
- soaring, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This actually worked (not the dropping, but the resetting of the cable) I had the sad iPod icon, and was ready to give up. But, I opened it up, and reset the cable......... it's ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- justice7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3what does the intrepid have anything to do with this?
- popstalin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Had a friend give me his "dead" 40G iPod and read on the Apple discussion boards that someone suggested dropping it. I'm listening to it right now, worked like a charm.
- doce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2your google-fu is weak, grasshopper.
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/free-ipod-manual/ipod-4th-generation.pdf - ApplePenguin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My 3rd gen iPod had taken SOOO much *****, and it still runs great. dropped countless time (sometimes with the drive spinning), and I once accidentally left it on top of my van, and drove off, it hit the pavement at 30 MPH or so, and it still works fine (I'm just glad nobody stole it).
- duke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Umm, . . .no. Sounds kind of like Dodgeball for people who have no friends. :P
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whenever my ipoo stops working, I put it in a vice and hit it with a club hammer for a couple of minutes. Works every time and I suggest everyone else tries this.
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