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Should i drop my cold and unfriendly iPod?
If your iPod is frozen and nothing else works, will violence help? Pros and cons of Alternative Medicine for your iPod (and how to do it)
I love my iPod, my whole family has iPods; we don't use them all that much but when we want them we're counting on them working. I worry every time I see or hear about another Frozen iPod that goes on to iPod heaven. Yet recently I have been running into "Alternative Medicine" practice for iPods and I find myself wondering, what would I do?
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Frozen iPod.
 Stuck on Apple logo
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The frozen iPod is one of the most common complaints among those who have iPods that stop working. It manifests itself in several ways: stuck at the Apple logo, the "Sad Face" or Sad icon as Apple likes to call it, or restarting up to a certain point and freezing on some other screen. The Sad Face icon is supposed to represent a hardware problem and it turns out most of the time it's just some software problem that can be addressed by resetting or restoring the iPod. But, hard disks DO fail, and sometimes it really is hardware. As you might expect, once a hard disk really fails mechanically it's time to retire the iPod and thank it for a life well lived - or is it? Here is where Alternative Medicine kicks in, I've run into a few blogs and forums where the recommendation is essentially: hit your iPod to make it work. There is a blog from Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director at the Institute for the Future at Stanford, that has comments with testimonial after testimonial from people who dropped their iPod from about 3in. and presto, the Sad Face goes away and the iPod is back to happy. |
 iPod Reset
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There is another from Michael on his NotMike site that's a lot more drastic, and has the best Alternative Medicine disclaimer I've seen: "DISCLAIMER: In no way, whatsoever, do I advocate what I describe below as a legitimate repair method for any iPod or any other electronic device. Doing what I did is probably pretty stupid, and I still can’t believe it, myself, that it actually worked." |
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| On the Spilling Coffee site by Tom Coffee, Tom takes it to a new level and gives us a more formal (and funny) prescription for the cure: . The comments to his post have a more rigorous opinion on why this may work. The working theory is that the Hard Drive cable gets loose ("unseated" in techie talk) and, in fact, suggests it is wiser to open the iPod, plug the cable(s) back in properly and be on your merry way. (Directions for how to open, with pictures) |  |
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 Ok to Disconnect screen on iPod
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I could go on but clearly there are enough unsolicited success stories out there over the past two years that there must be something to this. BUT, as a pseudo techie I have to start with my disclaimer - this is not a good way to repair your iPod and you probably shouldn't do it. That said, if you're about to say its last rites as you throw it in the recycling bin then perhaps it is worth a try. Make sure you do all the software things first. |  iPod Updater software |
After that, if it were me, I would open it next - my family is always impressed with my repair skills on many mechanical devices and there is nothing to it. For the most part I take things apart a little bit, decide if I can realistically put it back together and as soon as I feel I'm reaching my limit I stop disassembling and reassemble. 9 times out of 10 that fixes the problem. Loose cables will definitely lead to intermittent and complete failure of the iPod and it's an easy fix. (This also seems to work, by the way, with unresponsive click wheels). |
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| And if all that fails, yes I think I'd try it -- fully expecting to bounce it into the green bin right after that. But I would try another suggestion first. Some of the comments and blogs talk about taking out the hard drive and giving it a shake. I figure if it’s the hard drive that’s stuck why bang around the whole thing? Plus, at this point I already figured out how to open it up and get to the drive so I might as well narrow down the attempted solution to the part in question. |
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| None of this banging and shaking is particularly good idea, but if you’re desperate and have nothing to lose, why not? So, if you do pursue this path of folly, I want to do a more scientific study (or at least collect a valid sample for success prediction) so please comment back, tell us all what led you to this point, what happened (success, failure, or temporary success) and come back a few weeks later and tell us if it's still working. I have a sneaking suspicion that while this may work once or twice, if it is your hard drive that’s starting to fail, you’re not far away from total failure but I’ll keep hoping for the best. |
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Comments
- Posted by: justme05739_2767 at 31 Dec 18:44 permalinkmy ipod says that is connected, and it is not. It is frozen. What to do?
- Posted by: demuthphoto_8820 at 26 Jan 03:37 permalinkA whack did it for me! I couldn't believe it but it worked! After reseting, going into diagnostic mode, running every test (connected & unconnected) I was still getting frozen ipod or unhappy ipod symbols. A couple of slaps and the lights came on and I was able to reset and reload everything... I suspect the hard drive is on its way out or it could be a loose connection somewhere and a jolt did the trick. Very pleased as this was an ebay buy and so not covered by apple warranty. If it's a choice between the bin or a slap you have got nothing to lose!
