DIGG IT! My wife received a 30GB IPOD for Christmas 2003. This month she complained that it crashed constantly and wouldn't sync. Here is how to defend yourself from IPOD defects, TEST, TEST, TEST.&
I encourage any IPOD owner to test their entire disks for bad sectors while your IPOD is still under warranty. In my wifes case, the bad sector was their the entire time, she just had not reached that capacity until recently. Here is how to test your IPOD:
1. Reboot your IPOD by holding down "MENU" and "PLAY/PAUSE".
2. When you see the APPLE LOGO, Hold down these keys until the logo disappears:
"|<<" - Back Button
">>|" - Next Button
"Wheel Button" - Center button on the Wheel
3. Suddenly you will hear a "Defender Fire" like sound and the APPLE will be backwards. You have entered the Apple Diagnostic Toolset
4. Using the Arrow keys scroll down to Option "O . HDD SCAN"
5. Press the "Wheel Button" to start the HDD SCAN and wait 4-10 hours for it to complete. The test will finish, it just takes time considering the size of the disk.
At the end if everything passed you will get a "DISK PASSED" or in our case you will get a "DISK READ FAIL - 0x00000007".
This will exhaustively test your disk for read and write capability. It will not affect the data on the disk, but it will assure you there are no bad sectors lurking on your IPOD ready for you to find when you have filled it up.
We are still waiting on a judgment from APPLE as to repair, if they judge it is out of warranty, we will be forced to buy a new IPOD. It is interesting how the investment in music in Itunes format will lock you into hardware. Standing in the Apple store I was focusing on the bite in the apple rather than the whole of their brand. It is such a cruel irony, you love using this gadgetry, yet when it dies you really feel a loss. Apple has a choice, they can recognize that the sector defect existed when we purchased the IPOD or say we are out of warranty, tough luck.
Do not let this happen to you. Run the diagnostics on your IPOD to check for bad sectors. If you get a failure and your IPOD is under 1 year old, take it into APPLE, you will get a free IPOD on the house as they do not repair them, they replace them.
Cheers,
Ted ;)
How about just don't buy an ipod :) There are too many issues with them including you can't replace hte battery but people keep forking over the money because its cool...I was so proud of my parents when they told me they wanted one, all I said was do your research. They actually came to the same conclusion as me and decided to buy something else for now, while the ipod is cool there are too many issues.
That is true Greg but once you have one, you wonder what you were doing without it. I thought they were a waste of money when I didn't have one. When I was given one, all of a sudden I found myself enjoying music like I hadn't before. If my Ipod were to explode tomorrow, I would get another one regardless. It isn't cool, it just makes music great again. Although as you can clearly tell, I have been brainwashed into the cult of IPOD.
Ted ;)
I've had a 51MB IRiver player for a couple of years and it rocks. I recently got the arm band to strap it to my arm while pumping iron...it's quite versatile.
The IPods are nice if you need the huge disk space, but even now, there are tons of big HDD model alternatives.
As for allowing you to "enjoy music like you hadn't before", I would imagine that you'd have the same experience on any portable player, as long as the music quality was the same!
I just got a phone call from Apple and they have agreed to provide us a new IPOD, WOOHOO. Since the hardware was potentially faulty from the start, they are providing Rebecca with a new one.
Remeber to test your IPOD disk, good things can happen.
So much for bashing Apple customer service. A Perfect A++.
Cheers,
Ted ;)
I bought a shuffle for my trip to MXDU and my shuffle has been doing very odd things. It doesnt seem to rewind audio books properly and weirdly it simply pauses at moments. It's all very strange. I am considerng taking it back to apple for a swap.
- mediadiva.net/mt
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Great post. A little late to the ipod show myself, but my pod, after an auto-synch with iTunes, never shows any songs, but the space has gone. I've restored many times, and talked to apple, but they don't want to help. As it was a gift, I do not have warrenty details, but its a little over 6 weeks old. Doing a HDD scan now; 4hrs into it. Will let it run for 20hours, if its not finished by then, ill stop and, um, have to try something else :(
Scan complete.
Text of completed scan:
"End scan. 112 RD fail Scan ng"
Bad news I presume. I've googled around a bit, but can't find any info on this error really. Any ideas anyone?
Mattheuw,
Take the ipod with that screen showing to an APPLE STORE. If you are within 1yr of ownership, they will replace it, if not beg and they might do the same.
Sorry but HDs fails like everything else.
Cheers,
ted ;)
Queued at the Regent St. store on sunday, midday, was at the genius bar within 2 mins, had it looked at for about 1 minute, then they just replaced it :) Awesome. I didnt have my warrenty as it was a gift, but said it was always like this, noise and speed wise.
Excellent service!
This same thing has happened to my iPod and I am not in the 1 year warranty. How would you recommend I get in touch with apple to request a replacement? Is there an e-mail? Or should I just visit the store?
if it's over a year you'll just have to junk it and buy a new one
Great 'secret' little feature. It doesn't seem to work on fourth generation iPod, though (e.g. 40GB with click wheel). I've done web search, but no luck. Any ideas for how to get to the diagnostic tool on those?
I found this method at http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/index.shtml
for a 4G iPod, do a reset by holding down the Select and Menu buttons until you see the apple logo on the screen. Then hold the Select and Back buttons until you hear a chirp and the iPod boots into diagnostic mode.
I would love to test my iPod the way you suggested Ted, but I'm terrified to mess with it! I got the 400 hundred dollar one, and even though I just got it during Christmas of 2005, and the warranty is pretty much brand new, the thought of doing anything to it (When I don't know what I'm doing) freaks me out. I mean a few weeks back it froze up on me, and I flipped. I was like "What the hell!?" ... then I realized all I had to do was reset it. I think I'll go ahead and test it though, just incase. I'm not sure anything is wrong with it, but sometimes it doesn't turn off when I hold down Puase/Play. I have to do it a second time, but that's the only problem I've really found so far, and it doesn't seem to be a big one. Thanks for the post you made though, it's very useuful!
Hi have 5th gen Ipod click wheel (I think). Anyway, as per Apple's instructions on-line, you have to slide the hold switch NOHOLD->HOLD->NOHOLD then the reset etc. trick works. - Antony.
Hard Drives in these go for a number of reasons. Normally a hard shock will cause them to fault. They are a very fragile mechanical device.
You can replace these yourself if you're careful, and good with small tools. Hard drives can be purchased for about 100 dollars, a lot less than a new 30 or 60 gig video would cost. Batteries are available too. And most other MP3 players use the same technology. It's worth the 59.99 for 2 Year ipod Applecare.
My 2 cents
if you are interested in what the diagnostic menu is/does, vist this site. i found it quite helpful, even though i have yet to fix my problems.
http://www.tongfamily.com/apple/ipod/ipod_diagnostics_and.php
Thanks Ted for the info on HDD scans - very useful. I have a 3G ipod that crashes when syncing and now, more alarmingly, seems to be permanently resetting when switched on (i.e. apple logo keeps re-appearing). Managed to get it into diagnostic mode and running HDD scan. The screen just reads "HDD Scan Start ..." Does this mean the scan is running ok?
If it registers a fail what is my best bet - presumably buying a new hard drive or a new ipod, right?
Thanks
Ben
Hey people, regarding the comment over continous resets. Mine was the same.
How I fixed it:
(First I must note that I believe that Technology and Brute Force are the worst enemies because you can dislocate any screws inside or bruise anything)
That said, I gave it a couple of good blows with a Dostoyevsky Book at the back and afterwards, seeing that the reset option was not making problems I restored it with iTunes. The first 2 restores showed that my 40 Gb ipod had only 5Gb available. With the 3rd restore it was okay as new. I also gave it a good error scancheck from windows and I think it helped.
You may try it before going to buy a replacement hard-Disk off ebay or so. It is very easy to open the ipod. I did it with the cap of a highlighter - the part where it is supposed to stick out. Still search for video tuturials off youtube to know about the ribbon existing on the corner inside the ipod.
keep us posted on your results!
Somethings wrong with my ipod nano. For no reason the apple logo will just flash from black to faded to bright constantly and will NOT turn off. I've tryed to restart all the setting and everything else but nothing worked. finally I gave up and gave it to my uncle who is a major computer wiz and owns some company. He took it apart and said I must have droped it alot because something was broken. I was in disbleife because I took GREAT care in it and even bought a screen cover and a rubber edge protector.Long story short the ipods waranty ran out(not because my uncle took it apart).
I have three questions:
I just programmed my ipod to do the HDD scan, now all the screen says is HDD SCAN at the top, is this normal? Secondly, should i have it hooked to the charger while it does this? And finally, If it comes back failed, or negative, is it dead?