How will I face the commute again?

September 3, 2009 1:10 AM

Is my iPod touch dead?

It's a 1st gen iPod, 32GB. I've never done anything to it in terms of software or jailbreaking or whatever. Last night, I plugged it into my computer to recharge, and this morning, I unplugged it. The catch is, I unplugged it without doing the safely remove bit, but I'm not sure if that matters. I'd closed iTunes, and the touch never shows up as hardware to remove, and, well I've done this hundreds of times. Fast forward to the morning commute, and I got a totally black screen. No lighting up, no sad mac face, just, nothing.

I've tried holding down the home button, holding down the lock button, holding down both of them together. I plugged it back into my computer, and iTunes didn't auto start. When I did start iTunes, my iPod doesn't even show up. It's just sitting there, looking black, dead, and like a stupidly expensive paper weight. It was a birthday gift from my wife, and I'd like to hold onto it.

Any ideas? Any suggestions? Can you bring my portable sanity dispenser back to life?

posted by Ghidorah to computers & internet (12 answers total)

Hook it up to your computer to let it pick up a charge- wait 10-15 minutes. Then try holding down the home/lock buttons for a while and see if the apple logo shows up. It might have crashed and drained the battery completely.
posted by wongcorgi at 1:44 AM on September 3, 2009

Done, but no change. Not even a flicker on the screen.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:56 AM on September 3, 2009

Not a touch, but when my iPod did this they suggested leaving it plugged in for 24 hours (or at least, overnight.) Then the home/lock thing. I found Apple's support site to be useful in this case.
posted by titanium_geek at 3:13 AM on September 3, 2009

Your battery may be too low to accept charging via your computers USB port, try using a apple USB charger that plugs into a wall.

It happended to me with my iPhone, I was listening to some app, forgot to turn it off before bed. Woke up, wouldn't even show to low charge screen. Plugged it into computer - nothing. But the wall charger charged it just fine.
posted by glenno86 at 4:29 AM on September 3, 2009

found this via google
http://www.apple.com/support/ipodtouch/troubleshooting/

If you don't have a wall apple USB charger (Apple reversed one of the wires so it has to be iPod or iPhone branded.) - ask a friend if they got one. Or try using each of the USB ports on your computer - and in your house (Wii, PS2 or 3, cable box... if applicable to see if it accepts charging from there.
posted by glenno86 at 4:37 AM on September 3, 2009

Thanks glenno, I'm kind of trying that (at least the different usb ports, and the wall charger). I'll give the PS3 a try next.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:56 AM on September 3, 2009

Ghirodah -- I had something similar happen about 2-3 months ago. I to this day really have no idea why it happened, but my fix was more or less composed of the following:

(1) Holding the home button & power button to reset. Sometimes holding it for 20 seconds at a time out of the most extreme frustration.
(2) Going through 3 of the stages of grief [I used my iTouch ALL THE TIME]
(3) Coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't coming back.
(4) Plugging it in to the power cord just to be disappointed a few more times.
(5) After 7-8 weeks, (on my birthday no less) I decided to just give it another try. Plugged it in, the APPLE APPEARED. After 4 minutes or so of bootup, IT WAS BACK. Back to normal with everything in place. It was quite the birthday gift.

That wasn't a joke. Try whatever you can for now, but it feels like I did the power+home button reset at least 100 times, and that, over time, I'm pretty sure this kept draining the battery.

My theory, ultimately, is that your touch has to be completely drained of any charge it may have. Then you plug it in. Then it comes back alive. I'm sorry if I sound like a douchebag -- it really happened this way for me, and it's one of the most serendipitous/torturous episodes with technology I've ever had.
posted by Franklin76 at 6:54 AM on September 3, 2009

I hope that one of the suggestions work. Thus far my 1st Gen ipod touch is hanging on.

I just wanted to support to Franklin76 claim that sometimes apple products do seemingly miraculously come back to life. I had a 3 year old mac laptop (mid 90s one of the first incarnations), there was a lightening storm and I had my computer plugged. Not sure if the two were related but next day nothing, not even a sad mac although I think that I remember there was an enigmatic blinking question mark. Took it to the local apple repair people, they said that the motherboard was dead and that for what it would cost me to replace it, I should just get a new laptop; basically they told me I could either throw it away or keep it as an expensive paperweight. I couldn't bear to throw it away and a few weeks later on a lark I plugged it in and it turned on as if nothing had ever happened; everything, my thesis, all of my documents, software, etc were fine. The guys at the apple shop had no explanation, but warned me that I should never turn it off again as who knows if it would boot up again. I kept it plugged in and on for another 1 1/2 years or so before it finally died for good.

So don't lose hope!
posted by kaybdc at 8:26 AM on September 3, 2009

I have found that if I leave my touch plugged in to charge and the computer goes to sleep, in the morning the computer will have drained the touch's battery rather than charging it. So this may have happened to you when you left it in all night, and now it's just super-dead and in need of the tips people have added above.
posted by Pomo at 8:50 AM on September 3, 2009

If it turns out it is dead, do NOT buy a replacement just yet. Wait for the media event Apple is giving on sept 9.
posted by DreamerFi at 8:58 AM on September 3, 2009

The catch is, I unplugged it without doing the safely remove bit, but I'm not sure if that matters.

It doesn't. The iPod Touch doesn't have to be ejected before removing from the USB cable. The act of removing it from the cable is safely removing it.
posted by owtytrof at 11:05 AM on September 3, 2009

Hmmm. I've had this problem too. Thankfully, mine has always come back after a few minutes of fiddling (never been a low battery problem). I just screw around with the buttons till it comes back. Good luck!
posted by tdreyer at 8:16 AM on September 14, 2009