What can I do with a broken ipod?

February 10, 2010 12:58 PM

What is to be done with an ipod that has a crashed hard drive?

My ipod crashed, I tried to fix it, couldn't, took it to the mac store and they sadly informed me that the hard drive was broken and could not be repaired. This is a year old ipod classic. Won't sync, crashes disk repair.

Is repair worth it?
Are there any exciting or dangerous things I can make out of it?
Should I just throw it in the trash?

posted by kittensofthenight to Technology (7 answers total)

There are places that sell parts and have tutorials on how to do it.

I've never tried it. (well, I don't have an iPod) If you're handy, and the price makes sense...
posted by MtDewd at 1:10 PM on February 10, 2010

...and eBay has better prices.
posted by MtDewd at 1:15 PM on February 10, 2010

I got mine fixed at ipodjuice.com. You can ship it to them for free, and I think you pay around $20 for them to diagnose it and give you a repair quote. If you agree to the cost, they take the $20 off your bill, and they ship it back to either way.
posted by soelo at 1:48 PM on February 10, 2010

How old is it? If it's old enough, then the battery sucks too. In which case, you can make a pretty cool case for whathaveyous out of certain ipods.
posted by tmcw at 2:22 PM on February 10, 2010

Don't throw it in the trash, recycle it at Best Buy or Staples.
posted by kenliu at 4:47 PM on February 10, 2010

Just 2nding ipodjuice.com -- they are inexpensive and a great service. I used their battery replacement kit to replace the battery in my 3rd Gen iPod.
posted by stennieville at 5:22 PM on February 10, 2010

I've sold a few broken ones at eBay and good money for them so don't trash it. Especially not one that's a year old.

Be aware however that the new ones' cases are next to impossible to open without ruining the case so the online tutorials should be taken with a grain of salt.

On the plus side, you could use this as an excuse to go buy an iPhone?
posted by dmt at 4:37 AM on February 11, 2010