Please help me fix my iPod!

January 17, 2013 5:52 PM

My wonderful iPod, going on nine years now, seems to have finally gotten to the point where I can't fix it anymore. I've replaced the hard drive, battery, hard drive cable, and logic board, and yet all it does is turn on, show the Apple logo, and turn off, repeating over and over. What else could be wrong, and how can I fix it? This is a B&W 4th gen iPod, originally 40 GB.
posted by reductiondesign to technology (4 answers total)

Have you checked iFixIt? I know you don't know what the problem is, but they have an extensive userbase and it seems like a good place to start to find answers (they have a community function where you could seek advice based on your situation in addition to free manuals and tools).
posted by thesocietyfor at 6:53 PM on January 17

You've replaced everything except the case? This is functionally a new ipod. hard drive-based iPods don't last that long (i've had five since they came out).

Probably time for a new one.
posted by softlord at 9:20 PM on January 17

I don't know much about iPods, but if you replaced the HDD, is it essentially empty? Do you need to put it into recovery mode (as you would an iPhone) and restore the firmware from a PC? (The Googles say hold Menu & Select, perhaps for quite a while, until the Apple logo appears, connect to a computer, iTunes should detect an iPod in recovery mode, and you can restore from there.)
posted by xedrik at 10:20 PM on January 17

I've had iPods with that problem, and it's usually been power-related -- somehow it gets wedged into a cycle of thinking it doesn't have enough power, even when it's on AC. It's not real good for it to cycle like that, I don't think, but if you can leave it on AC power for an extended period of time, even if it's cycling in and out like that, it might get the battery topped off enough to stop shutting itself down during startup. Can you get it to charge while not turning itself on? That'd be ideal.
posted by jackbishop at 1:19 PM on January 19