My ipod stopped working today (as I was mowing the lawn listening to Lily Allen) - it's been playing up for a
few weeks now so I wasn't overly surprised. I tried all of the self fixit articles on the apple support site (which the ipod actually refers you to when it fails to boot).
My guess is that it's a bung hard drive - it's a 40gb 4th Gen iPod - so I started looking for howtos on replacing the hard drive in the ipod. I found this story.
Looks like a pretty straight forward process.
I then started reading the comments and found the following thread:
- Steve Says:
December 30th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
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
- Dave Says:
December 30th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
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
- Brian Says:
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.
- CoRay Says:
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!
- Raff Says:
Stan, you are the man! I can’t believe it worked!
- ciaran Says:
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.
and it goes on and on and on... Oh yeah, and the crazy thing is - it actually worked for me!!!