help key: how-to fix an ipod that won’t boot

help key: how-to fix an ipod that won’t boot contact about jobs help key: how-to fix an ipod that won’t boot march 5 matt hickey there’s a conspiracy theory that steve jobs wants you to buy a new ipod every 12 months. that may or may not be the case, but if your ipod is hosed, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to put it out to pasture. most ipods are user-fixable and you don’t need to be a total geek to make it work. an ipod, no matter which version you have, is basically a self-contained, battery-operated, pocket-sized computer. all the components that a regular laptop has are represented: display, battery, storage, ram, and logic board. this is what makes the ipod something easily fixable: the pieces are just scaled-down versions of their pc analogues, and are put together in the same basic way. this means if you can isolate your ipod’s problem, you can fix it. there are a number of things that can go wrong with an ipod, but, like any other computer, the majority of the ailments are hard-drive based, usually taking the form of a boot error: either a sad ipod face, constant apple logo, or folder-with-exclamation-mark icon when it’s turned on. fortunately, these problems are easier to fix than people realize, and we’ve come up with a five-point plan for getting your little friend back on its feet. some of our advice is straight from apple, but some of it is a little more guerrilla. take heed, though, as the farther into our plan you delve, the greater the chances you’ll kill your warranty or permanently damage your ipod. but, then, if you’re desperate enough to go that far, chances are your warranty is up anyway, so what have you to lose, adventurer? apple’s superb design of the ipod isn’t just what you see on the outside, the inside is organized into easily recognizable parts that can be manipulated and removed with very few tools. indeed, a very thin, flat-head screwdriver is all most repairs require. if you’re fixing a mini, you might also consider a hair dryer to melt the industrial adhesive that holds the tops on. for our illustrations, we’ve used a 5g ipod with video, but the steps for any disk-based ipod are more or less the same. step 1: doing things the apple way most crashed ipods can be fixed by simply resetting the device. because they’re computers, ipods can crash. by initiating the ipod version of a reboot, you reload the ipods software, hopefully writing over the troublesome spots in memory. on the majority of ipods, holding the menu and select buttons (select being the middle button of the clickwheel) for 6 to 10 seconds will force the ipod to reboot, clearing the memory and bringing it back to life. the first couple generations of ipod have their own button sequences, but they’re just as easy to actuate. apple recommends a few other steps if this doesn’t remedy your problem, including plugging the ipod into a different port or computer, restarting your pc or mac, and reinstalling the ipod desktop software. if these actions don’t restore your ipod to full functionality, then the problem lies deeper and more drastic steps are needed. step 2: restoring to factory conditions if your ipod worked fine the day you got it, but is now acting possessed, then it’s possible it has a problem with its file structure or software. this cannot be remedied by resets, as the problem is static between boots. this means that the problem has to be manually deleted from the ipod, which, sadly, means it will take all of your content with it. fortunately it’s a painless process, and if you keep your itunes updated, then re-syncing after a restore brings you up to speed quickly. to really make this go well, you should make sure you’ve got the most recent version of itunes installed. plug your ipod into a usb port, just as you would to sync with itunes. when it shows up in the left-hand pane of itunes, you’ll see a button in the main content window that says restore. click it. you’ll be warned that you’re going to erase everything, but you know that already. select restore and update to kill the troublesome code in storage and bring it up to the latest factory settings. this works. after it’s updated, it’s simply a matter of syncing with itunes, and you’re hopefully good to go. step 3: minor surgery if your ipod is still giving you trouble at this point, then it means you’ve got a hardware problem. that folder icon means your hard drive is having a physical problem that’s stopping the ipod’s processor from getting to the data it needs. this problem is common, and contrary to what you might think, it doesn’t always mean that your hard disk is hosed. in fact, it’s our experience that this easy trick will fix most advanced issues for free and in about 15 minutes. you’ll have to open up your ipod for this trick, so if you’re squeamish, you might want to default to a gear-minded friend. even if you’re not, you should have a look through the detailed step-by-step guides at ifixit to get an idea of what’s ahead. a wrong move could render your ipod dead for good. while the guides recommend a special plastic ipod opening tool, you can easily substitute a flat-head screwdriver, though you risk gouging your ipod’s trim. one tool we’ve used that worked out nicely was a sturdy plastic guitar pick, but anything firm and fairly thin should work. the ipod is basically held together with industrial glue. starting at the side, work your shim around the exterior of the ipod where the metal meets the plastic. the two main halves should then separate with little more than gentle wiggling. remove the metal back of the ipod to expose the innards, but not too much: there may be a very important ribbon cable that connects the audio jack and hold switch to the main body that is a complete pain in the ass to reattach if it becomes detached. don’t do that. the foam-covered metal unit at the very top is the hard drive, and probably your problem. first make sure all the cables to and from each component are secure. if so, then we go to the magic. these hard drives get warm as they spin, and the metal casings warp outwards. some hard drives won’t work correctly when the casing isn’t secure. the solution is to put the pressure back on the disks. find a business card or similar small piece of paper (here i used a bar coaster), and fold it to be about 1/16th of an inch or so, and rip it to be about a 1-inch-by-1-inch square. place it carefully on the hard drive (watch out for those ribbon cables), and replace the backing. using the reset steps above, reboot the ipod. chances are, it’ll boot up nicely and work just as it did before without any problems. you may have to restore it again, though, as the former problem may have prohibited that fix. if you’re skeptical, and you should be, try it out. i tried it first on my girlfriend’s busted-ass ipod has really worked on six of the seven broken ipods we’ve tried it on, with the only hold-out sadly requiring the next step. step 4: major surgery if nothing else works, and the hard drive is still not working correctly, then it’s probably toast. the achilles’ heel of the ipod is the hard disk; they’re smaller than the hd in your laptop or desktop, and with mini-drives come maxi-problems. the good news is that now that you know how to get into your ipod, it’s pretty easy to replace this component. you will need, however, a donor disk drive. you can find them used on ebay, but we recommend getting a new disk from ifixit, as they’re guaranteed to be compatible and they come with a warranty. if you’re doing this kind of work on your ipod, you’re going to want to make sure your new drive works, right? to start, open the ipod back up, remove the coaster (you wanted that number, anyway), and lift the hard disk from the top end of the ipod. remove the blue rubber bumpers and white plastic top (shock absorbers) and carefully pull the drive a quarter-inch to the top of the ipod. you’ll note a thin ribbon cable at the “bottom” end of the drive. using your screwdriver, carefully work the ribbon out of the drive. this ribbon carries the data and power to and from the disk, once it’s detached, the disk should slide out easily. remove the foam and find your donor disk. put the rubber bumpers and foam onto the new disk and put it right where the old one was. carefully replace the ribbon to the drive and close the ipod up. at this point, you’ll need to do another factory restore in itunes to write the ipod operating system and software onto the new drive. once it’s done, sync it up and you’re good to go. step 5: prayer if a new hard drive isn’t helping, then the problem is probably with the logic board itself. while the board is replaceable, it’s beyond the scope of this article and not nearly as easy to execute as a hard disk replacement. at this point, you must decide if you want to attempt to fix it yourself (not a task for the weak-hearted), have it professionally repaired (not cheap, but better than buying new), or sell it for parts, using the income towards a new ipod. yes, it sucks, but nothing is guaranteed. but look at it this way: a new ipod means a new chance for something to go wrong, which means you can try these steps again, this time knowing exactly what you’re doing. don’t try these repairs on your new ipod; these are for “bricked” units that nobody will care about should you muck it up. but if you do have success, let us know here, it makes us feel warm and fuzzy knowing that we’ve helped. this entry was posted on monday, march 5th, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under . you can follow comments to this entry through the rss 2.0 feed. you can skip to the end and leave a comment. read 20783 times related posts: how to fix an ipod that won't boot, revisited crunchtheft: selling links to crunchgear on ebay is no good boot the ipod into diagnostic mode boot camp: free for leopards, $30 for tigers boot camp beta 1.4 expiring soon trackbacks/pings comments michael arrington march 5th, 2007 at 7:57 pm nice job matt. jarett march 5th, 2007 at 8:36 pm whoa….that worked. i was getting a sad ipod icon on my 4th gen and it wouldn’t sync anything no matter how many times i reset the ipod. but a business card inserted between the hd and the processor did the trick. thanks. nick march 5th, 2007 at 9:07 pm holy shit. i can’t believe it. the “business card” fix worked! ryan w march 5th, 2007 at 9:19 pm very nice. ryan march 5th, 2007 at 9:36 pm i do however have one question, i’m wondering if you can help me out here, i was updating my ipods firmware on itunes the other day, and as you probably know the first step in updating firmware is erasing the old. unfortunately i unplugged the cable right after the firmware was deleted my ipods firmware is now a resemblance of nothingness and my computer doesnt recognize it anymore, not even in “my computer” or “comand promt” here is a direct link of a video i posted showing what it’s doing now- http://www.metacafe.com/watch/458699/ipod_hacking_can_be_fatal/ any help will be much appreciated and probably save my life my email adress is xslatex@sbcglobal.net dave d. march 5th, 2007 at 10:27 pm my 4th gen was just giving a clicking noise from the hard drive with the sad ipod icon. i tried all the resetting, etc. i eventually discovered that if i operate it standing (near) vertially in the ipod doc it works fine. lay it down and the clicking starts. not sure if this fix would work in this case. if i get desperate i might give it a try. sal march 5th, 2007 at 10:40 pm holy! crap! it worked!!!!!!!! thanx!!!! so much i just put a thin piece of cardboard and it started working again! i though i had lost it forever! ax march 6th, 2007 at 1:32 am omg, not to sound like a broken record, but it worked perfectly. thank youthank youthank youthank youthank youthank youthank youthank youthank youthank you! xspark march 6th, 2007 at 2:38 am i had the exact same problem before and all i did was just taking it apart and putting it back together and eventually it just started working again. so my ipod works just fine now but if it messes up again i’ll know how to fix it for good now. =d thanks for the info! wet jimmy march 6th, 2007 at 3:43 am fantastic! i was very scepticall, but as i figured my ipod was hosed anyway, i had nothing to fear - and sure enough, it worked! don’t know if it was the piece of cardboard, or just the reseating of the cables, but i know have a working ipod photo! thanks for inspiring me to take a knife (leatherman wave, in fact) to the ol’ fella. kamy march 6th, 2007 at 4:20 am thanks for an informative how-to. i hope i will never have to digg it out of my bookmarks :)) erik baca march 6th, 2007 at 4:31 am i actually did a trick like this with my brothers ipod photo about a month ago exept i used foam from one of my ipod shipping boxes… lol jj march 6th, 2007 at 7:38 am cannot believe this has worked, i’d tried everything and nothing worked until now. well done! bob holness march 6th, 2007 at 7:59 am looks like kamy may have visited from digg. salva march 6th, 2007 at 8:10 am now that cardboard trick is a great tip to hide some emergency portably money…. just 20€ or so would do the trick… pop stalin design march 6th, 2007 at 8:27 am a friend of mine had given me his “broken” ipod. it appeared as though the hard drive had stuck in mid spin. after much research and reading, nothing worked until i came across a post on the apple discussion boards that i thought i’d pass on here. drop it. that’s right, drop the ipod from a short distance. i dropped mine at work from my desk to the carpeted floor. lo and behold, i’ve had a free, working ipod for over a year now. i just want to say use the tip at your own risk but it worked for me. vicmacs march 6th, 2007 at 8:28 am i just used www.ipodmechanic.com and had it done in a couple of days… audio dubbing march 6th, 2007 at 8:49 am there is obviously a real design/production fault with the hd……..apple should sort it out……..stop ripping us off!! if more people were prepared to complain to apple and publicly (via the lovely internet) apple would have to fix the problem. i’m sure they would deny it but i’m also sure they are fully aware of this problem salva: if you are robbed chances are they will take your ipod…..along with your ‘hidden’ money….. ; ) toemoss march 6th, 2007 at 8:52 am i’m going to try the cardboard trick when i get home, but i was wondering if you have to reglue the backing once you take it off, or if it will just fit back into place and stay there. luis march 6th, 2007 at 9:11 am try loosing all your hope and throing it against a wall, worked for me. ford march 6th, 2007 at 9:31 am nice write up. after going through 2 ipods in 2 years, i’ll try anything. if this doesn’t work, i’m going with luis’ method. skot march 6th, 2007 at 9:31 am seems to have fixed my ipod’s sporadic problems as well. thanks for the tutorial. drwho march 6th, 2007 at 9:47 am digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! digg suxx!! chris march 6th, 2007 at 9:47 am looks like bob holness may have visited from the dumbass academy jim march 6th, 2007 at 9:49 am i have a 6gig mini. any fixes for that? andreas march 6th, 2007 at 10:04 am ha! this happens to my ipod quite often, not sure if i cause it but it seems to crash whenever i try to skip songs (maybe i press the next track button too fast-dont know). i can’t even reset it, no matter how much i try, i have to leave it until the battery runs out. ohhh the frustration! i wouldn’t hack it, i suppose warranty is void after the whole operation? brent march 6th, 2007 at 10:11 am once you’ve tried all of the above doesn’t apple give you $50 off a new ipod if you trade in a broken one? ben march 6th, 2007 at 10:15 am they forgot the step that i use. this should be done before cracking the bad boy open. gently drop your ipod onto a carpet surface from a few inches up, this is especially useful if you ipod’s hd seems frozen, which is the problem i experience most. rick-o march 6th, 2007 at 10:19 am i opened my young conehead’s ipod and had a look around. i noticed corrosion around the battery port, sprung for a new battery ($12 on flea-bay) and tried it. no joy. i read your article and was excited by the “wedge” explanation you listed as a possible solution for the hdd going bad. i cleaned the connector again and pushed a non-metallic wedge into the ribbon connector, along with the new battery connector, and… joy !!!!! thanks for the well-reasoned and informative blog. cheesehead dave march 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am i think it’s a 10% discount. adam march 6th, 2007 at 10:29 am wow i love my 1st gen… still going strong even though it’s thick and heavy as hell… guess it was built to last - i’ve even dropped it a couple times! adam gott march 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am for fourth gen ipods i suggest checking the hard drive cable where it mounts to the board. most hd problems (short of actual hd problems) seem to be related to this. there is a little black bar that holds the cable in and this bar should be swung down and nearly flush with the board. there is a piece of tape covering this connection which is under the hard drive. nathan march 6th, 2007 at 11:02 am the business card idea is the worst idea i have ever heard of. your shimming a hard drive dude. that is stupid. it might temporarily work but will cause the the drive casing to put pressure on the drive heads and platters. this will lead the drive to fail in the near future. if you are having problems with your drive, you should be able to pick up the replacement hard drive’s off of froogle.com pretty cheap or you could always try and disconnect the battery cord in the bottom right corner, for 3-5 seconds. art march 6th, 2007 at 11:15 am does thie work with a water damaged ipod? gid march 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am if you are having a hard time getting your computer to talk to your ipod, try putting it into disk mode: press and hold menu - select like a reset, then, as soon as the screen goes off, switch it so that you are holding select - play/pause. there are times when restoring an ipod will fail. but don’t start dropping your ipods until you have tried one more software fix. on macs there is an app called disk utility, and pcs have something similar but i’m not all that familiar with the windows platform (besides, windows tends to have the hardest time recognizing an ipod with any isssue at all), you want to erase the ipod. after erasing, if successful, itunes will pop up and ask you to restore, do it, it probably worked. if, however, the little guy still won’t breathe, continue on with the dropping, sometimes a swift strike to the butt of the unit on a mouse pad works well. other than my bloated $.002 this was a very good article. well done! kingoftheroad march 6th, 2007 at 11:46 am matt, i know apple needs to sell more ipods, but this info will probably mean a few less replacement sales. great info. i dugg this story, so i hope you don’t mind the extra traffic. bunty march 6th, 2007 at 11:50 am worked like a charm on a 4th gen video ipod. to be honest, when my gf’s cat knocked it off the table, i think the hdd got knocked loose. when i opened it up, the ribbon connecting it to the logic board (with some sort of plastic piece of ‘tape’ over it), was not firmly attached. i pressed it down and sorta re-adhered it. i threw in some folded paper over the top to make sure it didn’t have room to jostle loose in the future though. rebooted just fine! if anything, your guide helped me realize that taking the thing apart would work at all. kudos! stizz march 6th, 2007 at 11:52 am the ipod my wife bought me a 2 years ago with the loving inscription, the one that has been sitting dead in a ziplock storage bag for the last 16 months; is now happily recharging in its dock. thank you! the folded business card did the trick. go figure. as for shimming a hard disk…if the drive fails again in a few months, am i any worse off than i was prior? josh highland march 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pm wow, this post is very similar to the one i wrote a year and a half ago… http://www.notpopular.com/blog/post/63 louis march 6th, 2007 at 12:03 pm oh my god. i just tried that crap, didn’t work. however, following the recommendations of several of the psychos on this thread i bashed it very very hard and it worked!!!!! bloody ‘ell. megan march 6th, 2007 at 12:32 pm my problem is that i had to get a new charger for my car and my ipod hates it! whenever it’s plugged in, the thing freezes up, no buttons will work, it will finish playing the song but nothing else. if i disconnect it, i have to reboot it and it will work fine. matt hickey march 6th, 2007 at 12:51 pm @ josh highland : yah, nice! i like yours better, more detailed photos. if you all wanna really the guts, check out josh’s link above. @ ipod dropping psychos: i should have added “if dropping it or banging the side doesn’t work, try this,” you’re right. when my gf’s 4th gen ipod first started acting up, hitting it on the side would make it work, but only temporarily. i’m guessing it shook the skipping platters back into a usable place. the business card thing kept them there, as far as i can tell. but thanks for the feedback. @ everyone who’s made this work: congrats! i know it sounds cheesy, but i really am loving hearing that you’re all having success with this. it sounds like a stupid idea, but it really does work. next week: how to run windows mobile 6 on your apple tv via bluetooth. ok, not really. jason march 6th, 2007 at 12:51 pm i was curious i have the 5th gen ipod nano, the one that basically looks liked a flattened tube. my question is how do i get it open? christopher lobie march 6th, 2007 at 12:56 pm my ipod is having a problem, where it won’t load on itunes. i figured out how to do a system check and found out that the usb is the problem, it is the port on my ipod that is corrupted/damaged what ever you want to call it. how would i go about fixing this on my own rather than paying $140+ to have it done professionally. thanks jack march 6th, 2007 at 1:27 pm on ifixit they show you how to open a mini, but it doesn’t look like the business card trick will work on it. anyone have a fix? scarletm march 6th, 2007 at 1:34 pm i followed the advice in josh highland’s article’s comments section and slapped my 4g ipod silly, after giving up on it over a year ago. lo and behold, it works again, so now i have an ipod to experiment with (i got a 5g video ipod to replace it last year). now if i could just get it to stop sucking battery while attached to a computer (which happened with the original battery as well as the new battery i put in it just before it died)… axsdeny march 6th, 2007 at 2:05 pm wow. this worked. i got a broken ipod from craigslist and put a new hard drive in it. it worked for a few months and then i got the sad ipod icon. putting the folded up business card in there worked like a charm. we’ll see how long that lasts though. seth porges march 6th, 2007 at 2:08 pm mh to the rescue! who needs warranties when you have hickey? dan march 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm it worked! finally after a year of having a dead ipod. problem now is that my screen went completely black. any help there?? djericho march 6th, 2007 at 2:22 pm the business card trick works… i don’t believe it… i just replaced my hard drive too… worked for 3 mos… then crapped out… wow… i bought a new one too… guess i have the 4th gen and the new video… does this work with ipod mini’s too? gasiv march 6th, 2007 at 2:49 pm is there anyway to fix error 69 nutting worked spambadger march 6th, 2007 at 3:18 pm holy cow! fixed 2 of my 3rd gens and on 4th gen with your pressure on the hd fix. you rock soo much! andi march 6th, 2007 at 4:11 pm i’ve use the business card trick a few weeks ago and it saved my ipod. i nearly bought a new one… methegeek march 6th, 2007 at 4:24 pm great howto! i hope i never need to get to step 4 though! good job matt. imajoebob march 6th, 2007 at 4:28 pm the best tool i own for fixing an ipod is my amex card. my first (3g) ipod came down with a case of the “clicks” after about 20 months. i called amex, they told me to go buy a new one and they’d credit my account under the buyer protection plan (extended the warranty one year). my ipod photo is now starting to suffer narcolepsy - it suddenly stops playing, then comes alive after about 3 minutes, and you can hear the disk spin up, stop, spin up. i’m waiting to see if a new version is released before the extended warranty runs out in june before calling amex again (it’s covered!). one thing i prefer about my photo is that it still uses firewire. my american express two-year trade up is a great deal! if you don’t have a card, find a friend with one, and have them give an ipod to you as a gift (and you can give them a $279 gift). ben march 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm you’re amazing. e.t. march 6th, 2007 at 5:21 pm awesome, i just opened my ailing ipod up to try and do the card thing. lo and behold, i found a small dent not visible from the outside that must have been rubbing the hd in just the right way. i knocked it out, and now have a working ipod. sweet. matt hickey march 6th, 2007 at 5:45 pm rad! keep the success stories coming in, kids. you’re all making my day! steve gano march 6th, 2007 at 5:46 pm ohhh i want to rush home and see if this will fix my poor poor ipod after it being out of commission for so so long it’s a good thing i had an ihome to leave it sitting pretty on, otherwise i may have gotten rid of it.. toemoss march 6th, 2007 at 6:09 pm well i finally got home and tried it… i folded up a sheet of paper to be about the size of the hard drive, squeezed the cover back on, and plugged it into the computer. after a couple minutes of nothing.. i guess the battery finally charged enough for it to start talking to the computer. my computer recognized it, and automatically opened itunes to load songs on it. i fully expected to be the one guy on here to say “oh well.. didn’t work for me” but it couldn’t have been easier. i’m so happy to have my ipod back ironman2188 march 6th, 2007 at 6:13 pm thank you so much. it worked. i’ve been on cds for months. you saved my life (and my ipod) vida march 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm my ipod died on me on a deadline, with all my magazine’s files in it (i used to be an editor, my imac had just crashed, and the ipod was my backup at the time), then revived after dropping it on the floor (salvation by whacking!), just on time for my european vacation. then it died again, and came back to life after an accidental immersion in a bucket full of water (salvation by baptism!) followed by a three-day drying period. it worked for precisely three months, giving me time to recover all the files i had stored there on its second revival. and then it died again, all clickety-clickey. you (and one of my old business cards) have just inspired the third revival. i didn’t even need to restore the software, it just started working as if nothing happened. (salvation by blog!) ryan march 6th, 2007 at 6:44 pm last week i awoke to find that my ipod was blinking a white flash every 5 seconds or so. at the same time a click sound could be heard. i plugged it in to charge it for 2 hours and the problem wouldn’t go away. i tried all the suggestions on the apple web site, i even called tech support. they said that it toast and i shoud just buy a new ipod as apple does not repair the ipods, they just replace them and if its not under warranty you basically buy a brand new one. with this news i decided to take the ipod apart to disconnect the battery from the system to see if a power interruption would make the problem go away. after removing the power and re-connecting the problem did not go away. for the rest of the day the ipod would continue to blink ever 5 seconds or so. that evening i noticed the blinking had stopped. i decided to disconnect the battery again and re-connect. when i re-connected the battery nothing happend. my guess is that the battery was completely drained. for the heck of it i tried charging the ipod again, and after about 5 minutes the ipod came back to life. i dont’ know what the cause was but i’m glad my ipod is back. i hope this info helps others. fyi it was a 5th gen ipod video. bill toole march 6th, 2007 at 8:28 pm my 4th generation ipod died so i left it outside [ canadian winter ] and froze it solid. brought it back in and it worked fine. seal it in a plastic bag to prevent condensation though if you try this. tom coffee march 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm ya know… if you have the sad ipod icon and you don’t want to take your ipod apart you could always try banging your ipod to retighten the hard drive cable. i’ve done it plenty of times and had nothing but good luck. never had to open my ipod up yet… -tom coffee allen march 6th, 2007 at 8:55 pm hey thanks a ton! i just fixed my 30gb ipod photo with your help! only needed the paper stuffed in the back to make it work again. i hope it holds out. dave march 6th, 2007 at 9:18 pm wow! thanks, this really works! brought my sad mac ipod back to life, thanks so much for posting this sweet tip. i can’t believe it. craig w. march 6th, 2007 at 9:19 pm you rock!!! my busted ipod had been sitting in my drawer since last may. i tried your advice and now it’s working again. thank you! joey march 6th, 2007 at 9:20 pm holy poop! your business card trick worked! i can’t effing believe it! you also figured out the steve-jobs-new-ipod-every-12-months thing and i thought i was the only one! apple still sucks ballz and will never get another dime from me, but at least the $300 i gave them will last a little longer. juju march 6th, 2007 at 9:32 pm wow…i was about to sell it for 40 dollars on ebay…but this worked! can not believe it!!! thanks!!!! dustin shannon march 6th, 2007 at 10:12 pm hi my ipod works fine until it gets about half full (4g nano) then there is an unknown error and its fried after a while i can get it restored but then the same thing happens agains digital42 march 6th, 2007 at 10:54 pm very well done! nicely written and illustrated. however, “the ipod is basically held together with industrial glue” is untrue. the only glue used is on the original mini, second-generation mini, and the second-generation nano. and that was only for the top and bottom plastics as you mentioned. no other units used glue. myth march 6th, 2007 at 10:57 pm just found this article on digg, my ipod crapped out a while ago and all i did was pop the case and do a nintendo 64 style fix. i blew on the hd and then plugged it back in and put a little electrical tape on it. works great. imran karim march 6th, 2007 at 11:56 pm wow. i should have tried this. i took it apart and everything. just wouldn’t even turn on. sold it on ebay though so not too sad. imran karim ryan s. march 7th, 2007 at 1:06 am like the rest of those who own a photo ipod and posted, i too am grateful that - in my case - a folded index card completely fixed it and is running just like normal. now, i don’t know how to feel: happy, that i don’t have to shell out 200 bills for a nano/video, or upset that i’m stuck with a ghetto-rigged photo ipod that *crosses fingers* might crap out on me again. in any case, i’m grateful. thanks for the info! rnzr march 7th, 2007 at 2:34 am hey, i’ve got a quite different problem with my ipod: it boots up fine, but i can’t use the buttons or the clickwheel anymore, its not responding. i also can’t select something. the only thing that is working, is a reset via menu+select. maybe anyone has some advices for me? i would be quite thankful nestor march 7th, 2007 at 3:53 am i didn’t believe it would work - but i tried it last night and my 4th gen click wheel ipod came back to life after six months of gathering dust on the shelf. thank you!! getting the case apart was more difficult than i had imagined - glued very tight. i ended up using a blunt pen knife. small scratches along one side but no obvious damage. very, very good advice. have passed it on to friends in similar straits…. vickup march 7th, 2007 at 6:24 am my ipod had died on me a year and a half ago. until i read this article last night and tried it out. now it works like a charm. millions of thanks from vickup, holland… wayne march 7th, 2007 at 8:34 am i tried this on my 5th gen 20 gb mac/pc and it worked brilliantly on the first try. my ipod would boot up and load the menu but i was unable to copy any songs to it even after a factory restore/reset. thanks guys!!! matt hickey march 7th, 2007 at 8:50 am @ digital42: you’re correct about the glue. when i started this guide, i was using a 2nd gen ipod mini, which has the top and bottom attached with glue. later on, though, i switched to my 5g standard ipod, as it made the illustrations easier. thanks for reminding me, i should have fixed it. oh, well. miguel march 7th, 2007 at 10:38 am i just want to say thank you. the “geniuses” at the apple store gave me no hope. your business card hack really seems to do the trick. no more whirring and clicking! you are awesome. kevin cannon march 7th, 2007 at 10:44 am if you can’t fix it, but it seems like the harddrive still works, i’d suggest buying an enclosure for it so you can use it as a usb drive. i got a cheap enclosure fo €5 from ebay and even though my ipod broke, all is not lost. christi march 7th, 2007 at 12:15 pm 2 questions not related to crashing ipod but crashing itunes! 1) my harddrive crashed last week and i lost my itunes, any idea on how to transfer the songs from mini ipod to itunes? 2) my battery needs to be replaced (it’s dead), any way of doing it besides sending it in?? thanks!! lola march 7th, 2007 at 12:44 pm i love taking my gadgets apart and putting them back together. especially when you get to use random tools like business cards. thanks for sharing. joe gartrell march 7th, 2007 at 1:04 pm christi, i used copypod to transfer songs from my ipod to itunes twice (after a hard drive crash and a synchronization malfunction). works like a charm. http://www.copypod.net/ matt hickey march 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm @ lola: any time, yo. i like to help. help march 7th, 2007 at 1:22 pm any idea how to prevent podcasts from ending up in music folder in nano? keno7 march 7th, 2007 at 1:28 pm i can’t believe this worked!!!!! i have had a ipod photo that has been out of service for over 4 months now. i got home and tried this and it worked!!!!!!!!!! i just hope the ink on the business card i used doesn’t come off and mess more shit up. i gotta try this with my mini since that one stopped working about a month and a half ago. thank you so much!!! if this hadn’t been dugg 2474(2474 now :-)) i never would have found it. doug march 7th, 2007 at 2:45 pm worked! now every time it stops working, i don’t have to throw it against the wall anymore. also, before cracking it open, when it freezes, try to squeeze the ipod from the back really hard. mine would immediately start playing whenever i applied the pressure, leading me to believe that i did need to put that folded bar coaster inside. good work!!! jeah! knockout march 7th, 2007 at 3:12 pm wow, it really worked! thanks so much, i was really sad when my ipod “died”. i used some paper folded up 3 times. ari, kosova march 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm thanx mate. your instructions worked for my ipod. i showed the link of your blog to my wife and she fixed it following your instructions. i bought ipod from second hand. last year i lived in belsize park, london and used to work in a take away 24h sandwich bar in camden town located on the rig ht of underworld and as all you that live or spent some-time in london, know that camden has become kind of “drug users centre” therefore many of them used to come and offer us staff that they let`s say collected around. usually they were offering mobile phones but one of them sold me ipod 40gb that if i remember correct i bought it for 30-40 pounds. it was full with music and everything was cool for couple of days. then one morning, after spending all night charging, songs disappeared. since then till last night (tuesday 6 march) i could not use it at all. simply it didn`t even start, all what appeared in the window it was the warning sign !!! exactly as u show in picture under step 1. so one more time thanx for the help and i want to assure others that your instructions are useful and might help solving the problems. it worked for my ipod. hell march 7th, 2007 at 6:22 pm thanks alot man, i did this with my girlfriends 4th gen, 40 gig, and it worked. nice tut. hell march 7th, 2007 at 6:26 pm thanks alot man, i did this on my girlfriends 4th gen. 40 gig and it worked. nice tut. heather march 7th, 2007 at 8:45 pm i cannot believe this worked. genius. thank you! kez march 7th, 2007 at 8:59 pm ari, you bought an obviously stolen ipod to fund a drug addict, well done mate, lets hope you dont get mugged for it matt hickey march 7th, 2007 at 10:06 pm @ keno, hell, knockou, doug: huzzah! glad i could help. next week we’ll show you how to make a homemade tattoo gun prison style out of a guitar string, plum juice, a shoestring, and a cracked-screen zune. ok, not really. nigel march 7th, 2007 at 10:26 pm you brought back my ‘bricked’ 60gb 5th gen - thanks! the flying dutchman march 7th, 2007 at 11:12 pm worked on my old crusty ipod. nice tip! thanks! holy shit! march 7th, 2007 at 11:42 pm fuck yessss!!!!!!!!! i can’t believe a business card fixed it. un-fucking-believable! thanks!!!!! jens march 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am hi, love the advice. but got a question on my ipod photo 60gb. on some podcasts, which i update daily, i will get a pause in the playback and it will start exactly where it stopped - like th is ( note the space!) any idea of what is happening? thanks and keep up the great work!! tracy march 8th, 2007 at 1:34 pm i loved my 2nd gen ipod and never cared that it was old or not in color till it started giving me little shocks through the earbuds, and yes i tried getting new earphones. so i got a new one a month ago and that is no completely dead - no icons or anything and it will not respond to a re-boot, charging from other computers and the computer will not even recognize it. so, while i send this pos away to be fixed, do you know how to fix my old one? i’d be happy if i could get that one working again. i think the early ones were just made better. matt march 8th, 2007 at 3:25 pm it worked! ajm march 8th, 2007 at 3:31 pm djericho, check out macmod.com, they had an article posted earlier this week to fix ipod mini’s on the cheap!, for like 20 bucks, just get a cf card (i think…) and it fits into the place of the mini’s original hd! shaun march 8th, 2007 at 3:49 pm i tryed that a year ago when i saw some one from the apple store do it. and i got mine to work, you could also force it to disk mode and right click the drive under my computer, and go to properties and repair errors. jimbo march 8th, 2007 at 6:41 pm this really does work. i’m updating my songs and charging it right now. thanks! i had given up on this for dead. bobcat march 8th, 2007 at 11:30 pm my son’s ipod quit. he was ready to trash it and save for a new one. i found your page, tried a business card, following your directions, and now ‘ol dad looks like a genius! thanks! you taught an old dog a new trick. bigdenium march 9th, 2007 at 9:45 am another good report from france : it worked again on a click-wheel b&w ipod. (4th gen). thanks a lot ! i thought that the hard drive was broken, i was wrong. thanks again alexis march 9th, 2007 at 2:23 pm thank you so much! i have had a broken ipod for about nine months and was desolate at the idea of buying a new hard drive. hmm, this tastes like depeche mode…: ipod woes—>ipod glows! chris back march 10th, 2007 at 12:14 am thanks so much. this fixed my 4th gen black and white ipod as well. i love you? march 10th, 2007 at 2:59 am just bought an untested ipod off ebay for 5 bucks. 10 for shipping, and you actually helped my wallet by freeing some business expenses. now i have room for the important things in life, like that pill that keeps my heart from failing in a heartattack…+ anonymous march 10th, 2007 at 4:37 pm ok…..i’m an idiot when it comes to technical electronic problems, so i have a question about this. will the ipod overheat and burn the paper card inside? my ipod has been dead for about 3 weeks now. i’m terrified to take it apart fearing i’ll damage the only chance i had left to fix it, but i’ve been hearing nothing but good things about these instructions. i’m also scared to bang it or drop, because i’m debating if i should just sell the parts back. can’t expect to get much money with an ipod with dents. lol. decisions, decisions. *sigh* the business card thing is still temporary, right? anyway……my warranty is up. i have an hp ipod which apple or hp no longer services, so what have i got to lose. wish me luck. angie march 11th, 2007 at 4:24 pm my ipod is stuck on the main menu and it seems like the operational wheel is not even connected to the ipod itself. it will say do not disconnect when i hook it up to my computer, but wont “unlock” the wheel so i can go through the menu or anything for that matter…..got any suggestions?????? very grateful girl! march 12th, 2007 at 7:21 am i was just about to list my ipod (which i paid $650 for under 2 years ago) on ebay for some lucky person to snap up for a bargain price since i was going to list it as ‘not working’. but after reading your article i decided to try your suggestion as a last attempt at salvaging the hard earned money i figured i had basically flushed down the toilet when i decided to buy this faulty piece of cr*p. i couldn’t find an ‘instrument’ suitable for prying the little bastard apart so i decided to just press the back in as hard as i could while my ipod made the ‘clicking and whirling sound of death’ it has been making for about 8 months now - and hey presto - the menu came up and there were all my songs! now i just need to find something sharp to perform some surgery with for a more permanent solution… can’t wait to pry the little overpriced faulty little piece of cr*p open! thanks a million - you’re s superstar! justin march 12th, 2007 at 4:08 pm wow, amazing. i mean fucking amazing i didnt think it would work. i used it on my 3rd gen wardy march 12th, 2007 at 5:32 pm ur fukin amazin pal i was devastated wen ma ipod broke just ordered a new 1 bwt 5 mns ago was lukin frew sites bowt ipods n this cme up shame i just ordered a new 1 bwt half an hur b4 i fnd this owell gta spare mint thnx pal paul welty march 12th, 2007 at 7:17 pm you da man! i finally today got around to my minor surgery on my 4th gen. after nothing but sad ipods and no luck with any of the software fixes. a folded biz card did the trick! rich march 12th, 2007 at 7:23 pm yo !!! it works !!! awesome.. i thought i lost soooo much rare and hard to “find” music !!!! hahaha. holls march 12th, 2007 at 8:15 pm okay - one more post of praise for this. i, like others, thought my ipod was gone for good. i was ready to complete the burial but one of my friend pointed out this post. i thought, what the heck? it is dead anyway. it wouldn’t load any songs from itunes, was making weird clicking noises *and* what i refer to as strange warhead launching noises. seriously - it sounded as though it were shooting missiles out of the sky. anyway…trying surgery sounded like a good “last” option. i’ll admit, getting it open was a real bugger. it took at least 10 minutes for me to pry it open, using one of my paring knives. but…once i got it opened, i folded a business card as described, closed it back up and ta da! it works perfectly. thank you, thank you! very grateful girl! (update) march 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm just a tip for people to try before surgery - place your ipod face down while it’s making that wierd ‘clicking and whirling’ noise and press really hard on the back of the ipod in the centre - keep trying until it stops making that sound (a little like ipod cpr) since doing this my ipod is fine - no surgery required. dashbo march 13th, 2007 at 12:08 pm left my nano 2nd gen in my jeans in the friggin wash. what do i do only had it a few months aaarrrrggg harveena march 13th, 2007 at 1:22 pm that is no good my ipod is a mini what should i do about my ipod mini chrashing? frank march 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pm i took my 5th gen video camping last week, and it got really cold. i woke up at 3:00am freezing and decided to watch a video. i noticed that the metal back was a little loose from the faceplate. i don’t know what cold will do to the rest of your ipod innards, but it might make the back a little easier to get off. by morning the metal back was nice and snug again. yuri march 13th, 2007 at 4:10 pm my ipod was working fine, but then the battery died because i didnt have time ti charge it, and now it wont turn on at all. the wires inside are connected, whats wrong? mr. lapatrick march 13th, 2007 at 5:40 pm you guys are the best. i thought i lost my 4 gig nano (found it 10 minutes ago) so i turned my attention to fixing my 20 gig that hasn’t worked for months. i was googling about to find replacement parts, i was sure it was the hard drive. then i found this amazing article and i tried the business card in the back. it worked like a charm. sliced my finger pretty good with my gerber pocket knife (be careful) but i don’t care because this morning i had zero ipods and now i have two. nice one!!! vanessa carranza march 13th, 2007 at 8:26 pm i love this website!!!! you saved my life jonathan jiang march 13th, 2007 at 9:22 pm if i read one more “zoh mah gawd it worked **suprisesuprise gratitudegratitude**” comment… uhiuhi march 13th, 2007 at 9:39 pm somethings is loose and rattling inside of mine…i would open it up to investigate but mine is still under warranty so i think ill just let apple handle it… daniel march 14th, 2007 at 8:27 am very very cool. saved a 4gen, hopefully a mini later today. indira march 14th, 2007 at 2:04 pm i had a 20 gb ipod which was a limited edition and was given as a present on my birthday. i was soooo disappointed when it broke after a year. i took it to apple shop and i was told by the assistant that the hard drive is busted so its not worth fixing, that was back in may 2006. i never got rid of it but i surely missed it on my gym sessions. last night i was reading your info how to fix it i thought i had nothing to loose to try and open it so, first thing after back from work today i borrowed my sons guitar pick and the second i opened it it started working!!!! i couldnt believe it!!! i feel like going to apple store and tell them they know nothing! iam so happy its working!!! nothing lost, all my playlist and songs still there! you rule…thank you soo much for the hint. wow…..and wow again, i have my cool ipod back. thank you. anonymous march 14th, 2007 at 7:54 pm i have an ipod w. click wheel and the screen just froze. i tried all the apple suggestions but none of them worked. i went online and i found this site. as of now its working and i am very relieved!!! with this version it doesn’t look exactly the same but the little trick worked just as well. thanks. ohmygawd so happy march 15th, 2007 at 3:06 pm this advice totally worked for me! it must have been a loose connection! u people are brilliant! thank u so much. i am going to write into steve jobs and tell him how stupid his ppl are! thank you so much!! i cant tell u how happy i am! very grateful girl! (update) march 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm just a tip for people to try before surgery - place your ipod face down while it’s making that wierd ‘clicking and whirling’ noise and press really hard on the back of the ipod in the centre - keep trying until it stops making that sound (a little like ipod cpr) since doing this my ipod is fine - no surgery required. walter march 17th, 2007 at 12:33 pm have a 6 gb mini 2nd gen. dropped it on concrete and have the !and folder symbol. i have it apart and dont know what to do now. i had already tried all the reset methods and nothing worked. help!!! missy march 17th, 2007 at 3:28 pm holy crap…. the business card thing worked… my ipod has been actng up for over a week with the sad face and nothing worked. i opened up the ipod… put in a piece of paper.. and sure as shit… it works again… thank you sooo much!!! i was going crazy… nick march 17th, 2007 at 4:08 pm my wife’s ipod worked fine for 2 + years. then a couple of weeks ago, it stopped updating through itunes. we tried rebooting and restoring and all the apple-recommended fixes to no avail. in the process, we lost all the music on the ipod and could not re-sync it. unhappiness prevailed. then i found this website and tried inserting paper behind the hard drive as described above. the ipod is now working and is as good as new again! thank you so much!! mitchell march 17th, 2007 at 9:50 pm i just opened my 4th gen ipod up and then reseted it and it came on i didnt have do nething else now it works great martin march 18th, 2007 at 9:51 am yeeeeeeeeeha! - yet another succesfull businesscard fix! had to try 2 times because the anatomy of a 4th generation ipod (clickwheel/20 gb) is a bit different than the pics on this site. but hey! - it worked when placed my folded businesscard in the corner hole of the blue foam. thanks! vickie march 18th, 2007 at 12:08 pm holy shit! i tried everything. everything!!! one day it just started skipping songs and then it wouldn’t sync. i reset, i restored, i reinstalled itunes, i smacked it, i sent it out for repair, i stood on one leg and held my breath, i cursed and i cried and i spent hours and hours and nothing worked. i was ready to chuck it so i figured what the hell, i’ve got a screwdriver and a business card. and it worked! my ipod works! for the first time in a month, my ipod actually plays music. i was so happy i cried. thank you!!!! richard march 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm worked for me on 4th gen u2 ipod ! thx guys dug north march 18th, 2007 at 6:38 pm this trick worked for me too on my 4th gen 20gb. it took a lot of trial-and-error for me. i think i loosened some connectors the first few times and then i needed to find the perfect size “wedge”. based on my experience, i advise the following: 1 - be very careful to keep all electrical connections secured 2 - used a deck of the small post-it notes and cut them down to about 3/4″ x 3/4″. put in a stack about 1/16″ high. if that is too high (as it was in my case), peel off post-its until you achieved the *magic* height. 3- try different placements for the post-its. my sweet-spot was over the drive spin center great fix, thank you so much. dug north andrew march 18th, 2007 at 7:14 pm that business card thing works really well! thanks angel march 18th, 2007 at 10:21 pm having gone through ipods like water, my family and i have been disgusted with all the problems. we saw your fix and thought, “what the heck, let’s try it.” i must say that when you do this, it is important to try and not pull the display-dial section apart from the board, or it’s a real b—- to get back together (held by really small screws, but we somehow managed). anyhow, we got it completely back together with a wad of paper in the thing and the ipod worked! we were totally blown away. thanks so much, and shame on apple for ripping people off with something that could be corrected by them - no doubt. rheglin march 19th, 2007 at 2:47 am my ipod is a 3rd gen. and everytime i try to update it, it gets to a certain number of songs a freezes what do you suggest brian sauve march 20th, 2007 at 11:17 am my gf was given a 40 gig gen 3 ipod.we were very excited.we went to hook it up and we were only given the firewire cables…so off i go to future shop to get a usb 2.0 cable.great right!wrong!after installing the newest version of itunes and attaching the ipod via thye new $40 usb 2.0 cable.itunes recognizes it and says i must restore and update.i go through the prompts ackonwledging the loss of all data…………………………………………………………………..and thats it the screen reads do not disconnect until the battery in the ipod drains…. help please. brian and sara brian sauve march 20th, 2007 at 11:19 am the screen reads do not disconnect.it says this until the ipod battery dies. becca march 20th, 2007 at 11:42 am i think its really good you’ew giving these people such easy and helpful advice… fortunatly i dont have to resort damaging my beautiful brand new pink ipod nano 8gb ipod by throwing it against a wall or prying it open… shame annabel knowles march 20th, 2007 at 11:43 am i am a bitch and a hooker add me if you want john smith march 20th, 2007 at 11:45 am hi i was just wondering.. my ipod snapped in half a couple of days ago, about a center metre benath the screen ( 30gb ipod video) and i simple placed it together and put it in a clear protective cover.. worked like a charm ben dover march 20th, 2007 at 11:45 am i have loadsa gay porn on my ipod dave grainger march 20th, 2007 at 12:44 pm i’d given up on my 20gb photo ipod, but the insertion of a business card has fixed it! thankyou soooo much! patrick march 21st, 2007 at 3:30 pm hi i was wondering is it possible to fix or replace the ribbon i broke it at the bottom end of my ipod mini dont want to bin it yet thanks for any tips in advance gregg k. march 21st, 2007 at 3:34 pm this is amazing. i had too many doubts that it seems too “crude” to work. right now reloading my 3000 sum-odd songs back on. i first use a piece of thin cardboard, but it was too thick, but then i taped two pieces of a coke box together that was cut to the hard drive’s shape. i’m so glad i didn’t go out and buy another one. you saved me too much money. jason coleman march 21st, 2007 at 11:40 pm no shit! i put a business card inside my ipod and it’s working again. it’s been broken since last summer. i was about to by a new (non-apple) mp3 player, and saw this article and thought i’d give it a try. best part is all the music i thought i had lost (and backed up comp files) are on there. will_bc march 22nd, 2007 at 12:17 am patrick, did you maybe break the solder on the ribbon connector from the logic board to the clickwheel? unless you are really careful, too many times pulling on it to disconnect it can break it as i found out when trying several compactflash cards to upgrade my mini. so i put a little piece of paper about the size of the connector on between the connector and the metal bracket that keeps everything inside. i makes enough pressure to keep the broken solder maintain a circuit. re-soldering the tiny connections would have been a pain. my mini works again so i have no intention of ever opening it up again. will_bc march 22nd, 2007 at 12:44 am i tried doing a hardrive upgrade with a broken ipod mini i bought off craigslist. i had problems to no end. turns out, the original microdrive was never broken and the various cf cards should’ve worked. and the last cf card i tried did work! for everyone experiencing ipod min harddrive problems, see if the problem is a bad ide molex connector !!! $5 replacement cable from http://www.dmdepot.ca fixed my 2nd generation 6gb ipod mini !!! patrick march 22nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm hi thanks for the advice i think its too late for the piece of paper trick ive broken it right off thimk i will have to leave it in to get repaired too many good songs to let it go thanks for the advice will_bc paula march 22nd, 2007 at 8:26 pm please help!!!! 3yr old second hand 40gb ipod w/click screen not working at all no apple symbol, have tried reboot method million times, charging, restore factory settings, update ipod software just no life, it plays when attached to speakers but can’t use c/wheel - is my only chance to open up???????? please explain thanks sanjeev sethi march 22nd, 2007 at 9:23 pm how do i fix my ipod if it is been in water ryan march 23rd, 2007 at 9:34 am hey my ipod was in my pocket turned off and i fell into a pool and know it doesnt work i left it fro liek 1 month or 2 and have now tried charging it again but it still dusnt work i was wonder if there anything else i can do before ppulling it apart as i dont particualry wont to do dat matthew c. march 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 pm i have a nano & it’s frozen…it won’t do anything. how do i fix this problem? michael rubio march 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am yo ! i have tried everything and it all failed i didn’t really read the post lol cause it was to long so i just saw the picture and i tried it and damn !!! brother it worked thanks my ipod 4th gen its all good now thanks man and i just put rock box in so i would be using this ipod for a long time thanks to you im sooo happy =) tears …. thanks again ! michael rubio march 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am yo ! just do the paper thing ok guys its so frikken simple kelvin march 25th, 2007 at 11:20 am hei,, does any one know wat was going on with my ipod..when i press the menu and the center button…for resetting it only shows apple icon…and then apple icon again…it doesn’t boot up..but it is charging correctly… sarah march 25th, 2007 at 1:12 pm this is great to know. i was wondering if you could help me - my nano has started refusing to tun off when i hold the play/pause button. the screen goes black for a split second then the ‘charged’ battery icon comes on the screen, full size. i can still play stuff but obviously this gives me a battery life of a few hours only. i’ve reset it, reinstalled itunes, restored it, everything - any tips? please? john march 26th, 2007 at 10:31 am any one out there have business cards they’re willinng to send to me ?? i collect them. puckett10@hotmail.com erik march 26th, 2007 at 11:16 am my dumbass tried installin linux and it didnt work it kept saying “…bug in sector….” so i tried to uninstalling it ans it didnt work so yea i formatted it and still it shows a folder with an ! and what do i do?> scott march 26th, 2007 at 10:09 pm i am not really sure if i am doing this right. i just recived this ipod form my friend. he gave it to me because it was broken and he did not know what to do with it. so i took it off his hands hopeing that i would be able to fix it for my self and to have a free ipod. that was three weeks ago and i bought a new 15 gig harddrive for the dang thing because i thought that would fix this issue. and it didn’t so i found this thread and have spent the last few hours trying to fix it and i don’t know if i am doing it right. if any one can help me fix it i would be very thankful. i have a 4th gen ipod with a click wheel. because everyone on here is stateing the same troubles as i am and they fix it with these steps. so please e-mail me or reply to this post for help. e-mail _ pickles4me_91@hotmail.com asim march 26th, 2007 at 10:50 pm wow! i didn’t even have to open it and put the business card in. first i just applied pressure to the back of the ipod thinking if a business card works, then surly outside pressure is worth a try. first time did the trick! thanks! clancey march 27th, 2007 at 4:04 pm well, i have a 20gb hp version and i had been wanting to get a new video ipod, but i had been putting it off. then i started getting that sad-face icon with the apple support url. of course, they tell me i have to deal with hp… anyway, i happened on this page and tried prying the thing open, but couldn’t get it to budge (i was being too gentle). so - i ordered a new 30gb video ipod. it still bugged me about the old one, and i finally took out a screwdriver instead of my guitar pick and got the thing open. i folded the card, put it back together and whatta you know - it worked! don’t know for how long, but it just needs to work until i get the new one. lucky for me i have all of the music and can transfer it to the new one. thanks for the tip - if it keeps working ok, i’ll take all of my music off of it and give it to my wife. alyssa march 28th, 2007 at 3:32 pm my god!my ipod will not do anything unless i put in my frikin code!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jennjenn march 29th, 2007 at 10:08 am wow! just read all the comments and plucked up the courage to press my ipod as hard as i could and hey presto it’s working again! i’m going to keep doing this till it stops working before i prise it open (i’m still scared!) thank you so much, i nearly had it banished to ebay and was about to pay £200 for a new one… much love! x kellyn march 29th, 2007 at 9:29 pm i have a 4th generation and i couldn’t get it to restore…many pop ups saying that it was corrupt. i tried the business card and it’s working fine! this site saved my many $$. gizzemor march 30th, 2007 at 12:37 pm ooh yeah….i’m a believer! i have been having problems for weeks; couldn’t get my ipod to play. i was seeing the dreaded folder with the exclamation mark…. i tried the soft reset…that did not work i tried giving the device a good wack…that didn’t work i was sceptic, but i open up the device and tried the business card….presto! i’ve got music! dan march 31st, 2007 at 2:18 pm zoh mah gawd it worked **suprisesuprise gratitudegratitude**” brad march 31st, 2007 at 4:47 pm hey, it worked! for 4th gen ipod. i’d read this page repeatedly but was unable to open the case until today. couldn’t imagine how a screwdriver or guitar pick could get between those tight sides. the breakthrough for me was to try a thin-bladed sharp penknife. this worked like a charm and left nary a scratch. don’t try to slide it though, which would cut the fasteners that holds it together. just start at the top, twist the knife a bit, remove it, and insert further along. by the time you reach the bottom, it’ll pop right apart. don’t slip! don’t cut your arm off! other than that its a snap. as for the bizcard, just fold one in half, then again in the other direction. put it on the drive and close her back up. damn, i wish i’d figured this out months ago! lee april 1st, 2007 at 4:18 pm wow! it worked like a charm on my 4th generation click wheel ipod. the hardest part was opening the case until i bought a thinner stiff guitar pick. i used a .58mm dunlop to get between the plastic tabs and metal back casing and was able to pop it right off in less than a minute. then placed the folded biz card on the hard drive, snapped the casing back on and it works again just as before. thanks so much! cristina april 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm business card trick worked for me too! thank you so much. gricha april 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm my ipod started to go bizurk just 1 month after the warranty expired never had a problem with it before never droped it on any surface like new how ever the simptoms are dashing i can use it i can lsten to music i can recharge it (from computer conection or wall outlet) but i cant mount it on my computer (or ny computer amc or pc) i cant see the hd i cant change the songs i cant see it on itunes i cant format it or restore it what can i do ??? frank april 3rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm to nathan, dude! if your ipod has given up it’s ghost, what harm is it gonna be to add the card to get some more use out of it? if you’re already going to have to buy another hd in the near future to replace it, anything you can do to make the current one work is gravy! linda april 3rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm we had a 5th-gen ipod that would not start, mount, or charge after being discharged for serveral days. i hooked it to the firewire cable from my 4th-gen and it came back from the dead. it even remembered the song it was playing. 5th-gens don’t mount using firewire, but after 10 minutes of firewire charging it mounts using the usb cable. roode april 3rd, 2007 at 7:22 pm wow. my 4th gen has given me more problems than play time, but i carefully popped it open, folded an old business card in half, put it over the circle of the hard drive, and now it’s working!!! albert phu april 3rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm i opened up my ipod video my wire to the battery broke, so i bought another battery wen i got the new battery n connected it, it shows the sad face n after the sad face it shows a battery with a explanation mark, how can u fix the battery? scott april 3rd, 2007 at 10:50 pm my select (center) button is “stuck”. it won’t click like the menu and the other buttons. anything you know of that will work? kurt april 4th, 2007 at 3:17 am wow. i figured no way could the card trick work. after trying various downloads and software reseting i decided to “go in”. i was getting the folder icon with the explanation point, and a clicking sound of the hard drive. i opened it up with a member ship card (like a credit card), and reset the cable as well as inserted a credit card. worked like a charm. holy crap, it took me about 10 minutes once i decided to “go in”, but spent about 3 hours researching on the web. this site was awesome and so helpful. saved me some big bucks. israel4ever april 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm clever you wanker son of a bitch it works again - how the hell you figure such thing out??? bargain hunter april 6th, 2007 at 6:42 pm whoa, found a 40 gb 4gen ipod at a rummage sale for 50 cents was broken until i opened it up and found no foam, put some paper in and voila thanks! vrinda april 7th, 2007 at 3:07 am hey…i use my ipod as a hard disc..have all my school work on it..it does not read on any laptop..a file error shows everytime i plug it on d computer…recovery of the files would cost $480…how do i recover all my files..please help christopher april 7th, 2007 at 11:28 am unbelievable! 60 gb of music rescued from the landfill! it worked like a charm. lynn april 7th, 2007 at 6:04 pm i have a 5th generation ipod video that seems to be working fine but suddenly when i dock it, itunes says it is in recovery mode and i have to restore it. i can’t figure out what could be wrong and before i restore, can you help me understand what could have happened to put it into recovery mode? babe in toyland april 7th, 2007 at 6:22 pm okay im not sure that we are all in the same subject,but my ipodvideo did the sad iconface with exclamation and then i “restored”it so it erased everything,but then it keeps telling me that itunes has detected that my ipod is in recovery mode,and it erased my ipods name …so now its just “ipod” i have mt music in my itunes but not ipod i keep clicking on “restore”but it keeps telling me the same thing! and i already updated the new itunes:[ please help,i love my ipod,i want to make it live again. should i try the business card thing? jammer april 7th, 2007 at 10:13 pm i dont know what it is with my ipod….its 5g i havent had it for even a year yet but i left it in the charger one night the next morning i woke up and it was flaming hot. i tried to turn it on and it wouldnt respond to a thing no reseting or anything. so i left it thinking it needed to be charged. but it didnt respond to the charger either. and it had been sitting dead since then for about 3 months after or so. till i decided to pucker up the courage and go inside the ipod to see whats up. i’ve taken everything apart and reconnected it as one suggestion said. i’ve done this numerous time. still nothing. it had 3 months to let the battery drain so i know it isnt that. i’m pretty sure its not the hold switch lol. i even spent money on a new replacement battery hoping that was the problem. no luck… then i found this sight and tried the buisness card trick that seemed like the end to all my dismay and nothing. my ipod has made no improvements what so ever since it first died. and i’m completley desperate to have it back. i’m resorting to smacking it countlessly and that still wont work! it wont reset, or charge, and the computer doesnt respond to it either. its…just dead. i know its not my usb cord because i checked it with my sisters ipod nano. it worked absolutley perfectly. any suggestions at all??? nora april 9th, 2007 at 10:09 pm please i have a problem with my ipod nano! it’s frozen! and it won’t work i tried almost eveything…and how could i open it? please help! i all ready lost alot in my life. is there anyone out there that can help me please. if any knows how to fix an ipod nano, the new ones, please i will really be greatful. contact me ~nrida1@yahoo.com or aim idealxthinker! thanks isra april 9th, 2007 at 10:26 pm you guys are the best when read it as soon as i finish i open my pod 30gb color wich it did have the sad face and took to apple store and they told me oh if no insurance we need like 200 to repair it (hey are wonderful products but those anwers suck) so as i was saying i open it and did what you guys show in the pics and it workkkkkkkkkkk i am so happy to find you guys thank you so much i did found a small screw wich have no idea where it from mmmhhhh thak you guys jj april 9th, 2007 at 10:54 pm thank you gid!you saved my ipod!!i was gunna try some major surgurey on my 3 day old ipod because i put rockbox on my ipod and it screwed it up and could figure out how to put it in disk mode to delete the program!thanx again! jj bob april 10th, 2007 at 12:52 am my ipod wont turn on and i dont know what to do!!!!!!!!!!! unknown april 10th, 2007 at 8:14 am my ipod hasnt work for ages, tryed everything, have one of those specialist screwdrivers, changed battery, wont charge, connect to anything, any suggestions? dp april 10th, 2007 at 4:24 pm omg. i just spent 10 minutes during lunch opening up the back of my long-non-operational 40g ipod and inserting a folded business card. it works. jesse april 10th, 2007 at 6:21 pm wow… i was considering going out and buying a new ipod considering the cost of shipping mine off to repair would likely be nearly as much as a new one … then i stumbled across this glorious resource so instead of throwing my credit card at the problem.. i put a chunk of my credit card in the back of the ipod .. bammo! it works tyvm. mike april 10th, 2007 at 9:26 pm it worked, awesome! thank you so much! chris april 12th, 2007 at 8:59 am could not believe it thanks a million for this macgyver would be proud.i used a piece of cardboard and it worked my ipod was in a drawer for a nearly 2 years thanks again. annie april 12th, 2007 at 11:37 pm did you know there is someone selling your article on e bay for $10… or maybe that is you…just wanted to let you know…its exact even the pics rich april 13th, 2007 at 12:50 am my ipod wont charge or play any music its basically a lemon right now and it just shows the battery filling icon but the animation doesnt fill up all the way (like the battery is frozen) and then goes to the apple screen over and over. have not opened it yet, for those who fixed it by pressing on the back exactly what location did you press it in and is it supposed to just start charging? please email me any help u can at richjones@gmail.com chas april 13th, 2007 at 6:37 am my ipod’s been having a nightmare. it was dead as a dodo. i’d tried dropping, hitting, leaving for a couple of weeks, everything. as a last resort i followed your advice, took it apart, disconnected & reconnected the hard drive & battery (which for a recovering technophobe i was quite pleased with), popped in a folded business card, and much to my amazement, the whole thing booted up like it had never been away! and just as i was about to book it in at the apple store. it’s made my day. ash april 13th, 2007 at 7:16 pm just opened up my 3g, 20gig ipod, the first time i tried the above process i folded the business card so it was too thick and a sad face showed up where a folder was showing before. the second time i tried it however, it worked like a dream, cheers, much easier than buying a new one like the apple shop told me to do clarisa reese april 13th, 2007 at 11:29 pm i have a problem with my ipod nano. there is a lock sign on it and everytime i try to press any button, it never works. it’s just on lockdown. i need serious help! jun k april 14th, 2007 at 12:32 am holy… my neighbor asked me to try to this his 4th gen ipod and since i’m a gadget freak i thought i’d give it a go. thank god i ran across this site for the fix… i was running out of ideas! thanks guys or gals! dat april 14th, 2007 at 1:46 am note for 4g ipod: i think the fix for it is to disconnect the hd cable and plug it back in again. at least for me it works (thanks to another site). it seems like the paper technique applies to the 5g ipod and the cable replug applies for 4g. jen april 14th, 2007 at 10:20 am thanks guys! putting a peice of my breakfast cereal box in the back of my 20gb 4th gen has done the trick . . . for now . . . saves some cash for a while! cheers! ptr april 14th, 2007 at 2:16 pm for those who are having unknown error 69 problems, i recomend to push the middle of the metal side real hard. it seemed to have stopped this problem, but after a while they can come back. (than push again) the real solution might be the credit card one, but im just too afraid to open my ipod. thanks for the tip! mike april 14th, 2007 at 2:20 pm thanks for the info, didn’t work on my son’s ipod, his logic seems to be messed up. it only powers on in the “locked” position and won’t accept any input. it was worth a try so i appreciate the forum. be careful taking apart the ipod, i put a crack in the screen…although it doesn’t matter, it won’t work any way. georgy antoine april 14th, 2007 at 2:24 pm ho man ! that was very helpful to the max.my 30g just froze with the screen on i just did the process,,,,booooom things got back to normal str8 up.thanks.i’m happy mariska april 15th, 2007 at 1:22 pm hey, it kinda worked….ipod does recognise the harddisk again, but now my clickwheel doesn’t work anymore, and when i move the hold button it switches off…..:( mariska april 15th, 2007 at 2:02 pm @ mike yeah same thing happened here….. does anyone else have this problem? or a fix for it? jg april 15th, 2007 at 4:18 pm i did the thing with the business card on my 4 gen ipod it turned on the i tried to sync it but it wouldn’t sync so then i unplugged the hd cable and plugged it back in. it works great now. julian april 15th, 2007 at 4:54 pm wow!!! the business card trick worked. my sister had a completely unresponsive ipod video. i thought it was probably the battery but i used the card trick and got the ipod to work great. thanks!!! wild wolfe gw april 16th, 2007 at 10:43 am yea dude it fixed it thank you alot nottt it didnt work wild wolfe gw april 16th, 2007 at 10:43 am yea dude it fixeed it thank you alot nottt it didnt work wild wolfe gw april 16th, 2007 at 10:44 am abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz yay i can say my abcs lol glennboy april 16th, 2007 at 2:23 pm you, my friend, are a genius! good skills. worked first time. and prevented me from having to choose, and fork our for, another mp3 player. thank you very much. voodoo april 16th, 2007 at 3:22 pm adding my thanks. my 4th gen died two days after the warranty ended. wanted to kill somebody, especially because i couldn’t afford to have a third party fix it. is is too much to expect that an expensive tech item actually work for a few years? anyway, did the business card fix (used one of those fake credit cards you get in the mail to encourage you to get the real one) and its running for the first time in six months. don’t know if i’m doing long term damage to the hard drive (shimming? anyone have any problems with this?) but i’ll cross that bridge later. for now i can actually use my ipod. which as i understand it is why i got it in the first place. drewzzle april 16th, 2007 at 5:49 pm i dropped my i pod today and the sound went out on the right side of every headphone that i tried to plug into it. i noticed if i held the corner where the headphone jack is that the sound came back so i used this trick on the headphone port and voila! sound is back in both ears and drew is happy again dallas april 16th, 2007 at 7:07 pm thanks for the impetus not to give up. after trawling for answers to why my friends 3rd gen wasn’t working, even after installing a new battery, (which apparently was all that was needed), i discovered that the pin connector between the harddrive seperator pad, (not the actual harddrive pin connector on the end of the harddrive itself, but the slim piece of material that lies between the harddrive and the motherboard), required some extra pressure to make sue the connection to the motherboard was secure. first option is to apply some pressure to the connection area and then plug the machine in. you won’t get a shock, just don’t do it whilst in the bath or shower. you may have to troubleshoot with the amount of pressure required and then work it so as it will remain constant once the ipod is reassembled by using the same sliver of cardboard trick. two small peices about 1/2 inch square on top of each other will do. place the the ‘packer’ on top of the motherboard to harddrive connection area and then replace the hardrive on top of the ‘packer’. this is to make sure the necessary pressure remains so when the machine is reassembled. it maybe necesssary to take the connection apart. to do so, gently prise the pin connector apart without too much pressure and making sure not to distort the connection area. re-align the connection and press together gently, then do the cardboard-pressure exercise. it may be necessary to remove the battery connection also. thus as to allow the machine to be free of power input. this helps if the machine requires a reboot because it can start fresh without any corrupt messages in the system. i recommend to use this step in conjunction with this websites remedies. it’s a troubleshooting thing and all problems will most likely turn out to be somewhat unique. good luck. d. techster mcmayhem april 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm try putting it in the freezer for 12-63 hours. deep freezing sometimes works all the time. make sure u wrap the ipod up so that its air tight or else ull might freezer burn! if that doesnt work them try impacting it: place a mouse pad on a hard flat surface and smak the ipod or any stalled hd on to the pad. there is also a site with a unique business card that works better than most. it cost 79cents including shipping. google it worked for me totaly worth it. if all of those didnt work try to microwave it. first do it for 4 minutes and boot it up. if it still doesnt work microwave for an aditional 20 seconds and check again. repeat untill it works or untill ur ipod starts spewing out plasma. hope it works out for you and good luck and all that good stuff… untill next time this is techster mcmayhem signing out… i lost my ipod charger. email me if u found it… okay bye for real this time// josh c april 16th, 2007 at 7:21 pm wow freezer method worked good but it only lasted till the ipod heated up!!! thanks alot i got all my files off the ipod and they are safe at lease. after i got the files off i was gonna try to smack it but i think ill hold off on that for now. i them microwaved it for 4 minutes and that did the trick. even thought it worked i microwaved it again and just to be safe and it worked even better after it cooled it function normal again so i microwaved it again and the sound was incredable after a total of 42 minutes of microwave time the sound quality was great and everything functioned faster and the scratches on the plastic was easily poslished away because of the heat! great job on recomendation maybe ill try that business card thing next time my ipod breaks(which should be in 4-6 weeks) but 79cents is kinda pricey! why does the ipod break so much? oh well i hope my microwave doesnt break down on me or im out of luck. josh c april 16th, 2007 at 7:22 pm yes i did jwee april 17th, 2007 at 3:43 pm holy shit!!!!!!! this thing really worked on my ipod…………cant believe it..thanks guys!!!!!!!!!!! jon april 17th, 2007 at 10:57 pm you just saved me $100+ thinking i needed a new hdd. 1 office pirates coaster later, i’m listening to tunes all over again omfg it worked april 18th, 2007 at 1:31 am wow omfg ti work tell me your paypal i will send money!!!! boydapa april 18th, 2007 at 1:34 am cool.. having the same princple as far as fixing ipod tapping, shaking even with out opening it does work hehehe … was able to save pesos 3500.00 or equevalent to $70 hehehe thanks guys … boydapa from ( philippines ) mani april 18th, 2007 at 5:10 am i want learn this ipod ur teach me tom april 18th, 2007 at 8:51 am thank you very much! the business card trick worked on my gf’s 4gen ipod! she’s going to be stoked. dean siemens april 18th, 2007 at 12:10 pm i bought a ipod nano from the internet store for returns. i got it and it it just dead. i am wondering if it could just be the battery. it wont charge up when plugged in no display. i have ordered a new battery and am going to try that first. sound logical? pat april 19th, 2007 at 11:06 am please help !!! ————————————————————- sad face before i put in card board… put in cardboard, then plugged in… sad face then no response from computer to tell if it recognises the ipod… then settles with charging symbol. ————————————————————- wat do i do?…. jane april 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am i have a 3rd gen 20gb ipod and using a business card worked. that’s amazing. nick april 19th, 2007 at 8:13 pm nice one bro - my brothers i pod has been out for almost 2 years and the card board trick worked a treat apple told him it would be 120 quid to fix????!!! cut up a crunchy nut corn flake box n folded it into shape didnt even take me 15 mins recon it was up and running transfering tunes back on within about 6 thanks for this info much appreciated so stoked sha april 20th, 2007 at 11:43 am i dropped my ipod on the floor and it wont work now what do i do the screen is just plain black!!! shelly april 20th, 2007 at 11:12 pm holy crappers! it actually worked! that was amazing! i cannot believe this actually worked. i was very skeptical at first but when the little screen on my ipod nano actually turned on again and wasn’t a dark blank anymore, it felt like i had just done something great. i can’t thank you enough for this info! i thought my ipod was a goner for sure and was already looking online for a new one but after fixing my lil baby, i’ve saved myself a month’s pay… haha… thanks! jussi april 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 am thanx for the business card idea, it worked. my trash can ready ipod is back melissa april 22nd, 2007 at 12:38 pm ummmmm……..my ipod still isn’t working so what should i do i mean i tried everything!!!!!!!! bob april 22nd, 2007 at 9:18 pm just don`t belive this… it worked… larry april 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm i have question for you if my ipod dosent want to turn on and its charched wath do you think i shuld do? my ipod is a ipod nano liza april 23rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm hey!!!! another success. 4th gen ipod photo, 2 years old. been acting up for months. husband always fixed it miraculously, handing it back with a grin. not so easy this time. i found this article. pushed on the back. thought i would break it, husband says whoa there atlas — something whirred, the apple logo got bright and what do you know - it worked. next step is to get that shim in there. husbands says “come to think of it, i always did push really hard on the reset buttons, right in the middle there…” thankyou. john april 24th, 2007 at 6:10 am pat, here is what you should do … first leave the ipod connected to your computer and download the newest itunes + apple from their website put your ipod in disc mode (if you dont know how to do that look it up on youtube) from here itunes will detect your ipod and you will have the ability to reformat your ipod (it will say you should reform and you just choose yea) if you have something on their already (songs or data) you want to save you can use a program called ephpod once your computer detects the ipod and sync your ipod w the program and then enject it and presto its back to new… i just fix my ipod like this ——- problems : constant apple logo occassionally going to frozen charge icon or apple sadface ueli april 24th, 2007 at 11:34 am hey guys. i opened my ipdo as well, and now found this page. i have the problem that the click wheel doesn’t work anymore. i am quite sure that no other problem exists since it worked every once in a while but now the click wheel is dead for a while. in the store they had nothing to suggest. any suggestions??? scout april 24th, 2007 at 12:58 pm sad ipod icon of death plus clicking sound plus battery dead icon = unhappy me. thank you, thank you, thank you. and if anyone is wondering what to do with those mcat flashcards post-test, i highly recommend fixing your sick little ipod with them. there’s something poetic/ironic/so wrong it’s right? about a physics flashcard being shoved in my ipod and my ipod starting up again. and right before the drive to coachella!?! you saved me. thanks again… beth april 24th, 2007 at 2:04 pm thanx it worked 4 me! antwonski april 24th, 2007 at 7:19 pm oh shit! three weeks with freeze ups, sad ipod icon, missile firing noises coming out the damn thing and ultra clicks and bang zoom. bust that fucker open, put the card in and bam!!!! thank you thank you thank you! addie april 25th, 2007 at 8:23 pm i love you with all my heart. i love you! no more clicks and whirrings of death. sad icon replaced with smiling owner! jose antinio april 26th, 2007 at 12:07 am thanks thanks thanks and yes, i love with all my heart nigel april 26th, 2007 at 8:38 am thanks so much. originally a gift to my wife, her 40gb ipod had to be returned twice, the second time out of warranty and with a hefty bill. now some 14 months later it started clicking again and thanks to your help it is up and running again. fantastic and how silly that it could be so simple.!! nigel liam april 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm wow, thought my ipod had died, seems like the business card trick works…thanks for that. now to fix my macbook with no battery available… ebo april 26th, 2007 at 7:02 pm ummmm my ipod only works when it is on the charger and then whenever i unplug it it just shuts off and i cant reset it. i have tried and it wont work ray april 27th, 2007 at 12:22 pm omg you are a genius!! i thought i was a goner! im so freaking glad i did not throw it away. anonymous april 27th, 2007 at 5:05 pm can any body help me ive got a broken i pod video and the screen is broken should my ipod still boot up and play music the same as a fully funtional ipod video:s ? pat april 27th, 2007 at 11:46 pm what if i fell in a pool with my ipod in my pocket n like all it tells me to do is reboot it but it doesnt let it reboot and when i take it out of the plug it just stays on “ok to disconnect” what should i do ? is my ipod totaly down the drain now cuz it went in water ? help plz ippolito april 28th, 2007 at 5:32 am fantastic! my ipod (click wheel 20gb 2004) is still alive with a simple pressure on the back of the hard drive. thank you very very much, matt. col c april 28th, 2007 at 9:11 am i tried plugging in car charger to charge ipod, didnt like it and stopped working would not turn on, did the cardboard trick on inside of the metal case worked a treat. got the case open using tinyist watch make screwdrive in corner of case to pop it open then bigger crewdriver to prise rest of case off jmc april 28th, 2007 at 8:40 pm the business card trick worked on my 4th gen! i can’t believe it! thank you! brian april 29th, 2007 at 2:50 pm hi, i installed a new hardrive in a 2nd gen 20gb and when i restore it i get “the ipod could not be restored. an unknown error occurred (1429)” message. anyone know what’s wrong? ham april 29th, 2007 at 8:10 pm yes, it worked!! just stuck in a business card and off it goes. very interesting and a terrific insight. kayde april 30th, 2007 at 5:19 am wow you rock!!!! thank you mate well done! i fixed a long lost 4gb ipod mini. thanx again. erke april 30th, 2007 at 6:14 pm omg x 1,000,000 i think it worked. my ipod photo hasnt even turned on since like august. right now its charging. hooray !! dealeo april 30th, 2007 at 9:22 pm my ipod nano is on but it has a blank black screen. how can i fix this? yves may 1st, 2007 at 6:15 am well, can’t tell how happy! it worked and i couldn’t believe it. thx a lot, michael may 1st, 2007 at 7:26 am thank you so much for this trick. i recently fixed both my broken 30 gig ipod photo and my fater-in-laws broken 60 gig ipod photo. thank you so much. agent daimon may 1st, 2007 at 11:08 pm business card worked. great success, hi five!! takiva may 2nd, 2007 at 6:46 pm i just bought a used 3rd gen. ipod, and when i got home i connected it to my stereo dock. it would charge for a bit, then stop, then start charging again. i tried to move it around a bit on the dock to get a ocnstant charge, but now it won’t charge at all. when i take it off of the dock, the battery power is completely depleated. and when i sync it with my pc, it picks it up, but says on the tool bar, bottom right hand corner, that there is a malfunction with it and it can not be detected properly. how can i fix this? karmina may 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm i got an ipod mini that i got from my sis last year, and was working in tip-top shape when i got it from her. now it’s all jammed and can’t seem to find out what’s up with it. my big bro was fixing it months ago and i thought he’d fix it so i can listen to it and not have the static-in-earphones problem. but guess what? i got it back, and is still sounding staticky when it got jammed and also freezes temporarily…:( it’s getting worse and worse. help me out here!!! do i need to restart or give it another surgery from my bro?!?!? jamie may 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm another happy story… business card fixed my 4th gen ipod! ipod repair & ipod battery guy may 3rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm this is definitely a really cool trick. i hope that everyone tries this before they sending it to us for ipod hard drive replacement. it’s just too bad there isn’t a business card that would save you from getting an ipod battery replacement! liam may 4th, 2007 at 9:12 am wow, my photo ipod is working again - and now if its lost its got my business card inside…. can’t believe such a simple fix worked! thanks for the help guys! nathan may 4th, 2007 at 11:57 pm just wanted to chime in and say thanks. my 60gb ipod photo is back up ‘n’ runnin’! og money staxxx may 5th, 2007 at 12:46 am i’m at my last straw…..the ipod is 5th gen, 30gb, the color is black if that matters at all. was my sisters but it stopped working and she gave it to me. it is in recovery mode, when i turn it on it says use itunes to restore so i try to do that and it says the ipod could not be restored, unknown error occured. i tried the business card… didn’t work, i tried the wack method (about 7 times)…didn’t work, so i finally said the hard drives dead, but i don’t wanna buy a new one. i did diagnostics mode and hd scan and it said something about 2 bad sectors, so i said yep it must be the hard drive. i want to get the goodies off the hard drive if i could so i try to go into removable drive and search the files and get them….except…when i click on “removable drive f” it just sits there…..until the ipod freezes….and then lets me in….but theres nothing no calendar,no notes, nothing. i search hidden files and nothing. also if i plug it in it won’t open itunes until the ipod freezes and then it will tell me that theres a ipod in recovery mode and it needs to be restored. but it fails to restore every time. it wont even let me open itunes unless i unplug the ipod, and then itunes pops up. the hard drive does do the clicking and whirring thing, i have tried everything short of throwing it on the ground and stomping the hell out of it. please….help me. thomas (macuser) may 5th, 2007 at 4:59 pm hey guys, i just wanted to chime in and confirm that the business card trick worked for me. thank you so much. my ipod was clicking and whining and showing a sad ipod icon, so my dad opened it (twice) and after the second time, plugging it into the computer and restoring it did the trick. it’s now syncing, i pray that all goes well, but this looks like it’s going well. again, thanks so much for publicizing this trick, i would’ve needed a new ipod without it. external thanks, really. onion may 6th, 2007 at 8:00 pm thank you so much man. luis davila may 6th, 2007 at 10:43 pm hey man…i havent tried your fix yet, because see i was once updating and then the ipod froze. i left it on for like 3 hours and nothing. so i just pulled it out. i managed to be able to connect again. i put restore, and it was going until like 95% and then bam it froze again. i left it a while, and nothing. i turned it on and sad icon. battery ran out after like a month and i plugged to wall electricity it turned on empty, it worked fine but when i plug into a computer it messes up again and it wont show. black and white ipod 20g with touch wheel. think this will work? rhiannon may 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm wowwwwwwww! you are my hero my ipod 4th gen click wheel hadnt been working for soo long and i was getting desperate - and what do you know? it worked!!!!! thank you so much luis davila may 9th, 2007 at 12:01 am i gotta say you got to be a genius man!…. omfg this actually worked on my 2 year old 4th gen! you got to be the man, wisest man alive! i rechecked all the cables, sprayed with compressed air and then i refreshed the tapes, and i put the bussiness card. i got to say man… genius! i would have never dared to open my ipod before this. russ may 9th, 2007 at 2:04 am thanks! great instructions. the “restore” instructions for downloading new software fixed it. nopey may 10th, 2007 at 10:07 am my ipod wont even turn on!! what do i do?!! kristy may 10th, 2007 at 2:22 pm i dropped my ipod nano and now the screens just white and no buttons wrong it just frozen there. what can i do?? please help!!! kristy may 10th, 2007 at 3:04 pm okay i pushed the menu and select button and now the screen is black like it just turned off. and now nothing is happening. my computer does not even reconize the ipod at all. what can i do?? anonymous may 11th, 2007 at 7:40 am hittler jake may 11th, 2007 at 10:41 am do you no how to do it on ipod minis? jon may 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm thank god for your life!!my ipod works!!!!!!!! eddie b may 11th, 2007 at 3:50 pm nice 1 boys did the trick with the business card on me ipod and hey presto up and running again eva p. may 12th, 2007 at 1:44 pm my wheel didn’t work. i reset the ipod (by holding menu @ selects keys for a few seconds, as you suggested), and … yes, it works again. thank you so much. you saved me a trip to the apple store. sushi may 12th, 2007 at 11:18 pm thanks! it worked!! i thought i had to buy one one. it tooks only few minutes to reset. thank you so much!! bill may 12th, 2007 at 11:47 pm i have a question. my music/photo ipod has been sitting for few months in my room, now i tried to charge it, nothing lit up on the screen, i charged it through the outlet plug and through the computer usb. nothing!!! any help? danielle may 13th, 2007 at 12:11 pm so, i have had my ipod for over a year and it has been working fine until one day it just erased all of the music off itself. when i plug it into my computer to put more music on, it’ll show up on the computer and i am able to put music on it. but the music will only stay on my ipod while it is hooked up to the computer, once i unplug it, there is nothing. is there a way i can fix it or is it time i got a new one? anthony may 13th, 2007 at 2:53 pm whoever made this, and the buisness card trick, i love you mine’s finally workin now kunal may 13th, 2007 at 7:53 pm holy crap…..omg…..thank you!!!! sooooo much…..the card idea wored like a charm……thank you thankyou thank you thankyou cyzaine may 14th, 2007 at 2:26 am i don’t understand quite how this worked… but it did. i assumed i was gonna be a couple 100 in the hole replacing this thing, but it worked flawlessly. thanks. sinisa bronic may 14th, 2007 at 10:03 am many tnx for posting this fix. it worked on my 4th gen 20gb ipod. recently i was fixing my ipod by taping on the back side, just as my old drive that died on me 5 month ago. this new hd toshiba mk2006gal 60$ new on ebay, started to make same symptoms after 4-6 weeks. (ticking sound from hd, spining then stoping, then spinning again). young gullie may 14th, 2007 at 11:45 am that shit works sic wit it yeee yeee. miriam may 15th, 2007 at 1:13 pm this thingdidnt help me at all mr oh may 15th, 2007 at 3:26 pm so glad i did not see this article earlier. as i used a broken colour ipod as my excuse to buy a nice new shiny 80gb video ipod and pass on the old broken one on to my wife -what a guy-. anyway now i have the new 80gb and my wife has been shocked by the official apple repair price for an ipod 60gb = £166! i decide to put on the shining suit of it geek armour and come to the wifes portable music playing rescue. it took minutes to find your article on the web and only a little longer to try the beer mat trick. thinking that my mini harddisk was damaged due to the clicking noise it made i almost ignored the beer mat trick and was about to go direct to step 2 ordering a new disk - but curiosity got the better of me. what do you know, the clicking noise is no longer and my ipod is working fine, no need for a reset or restore just a resync to get the new music and photo’s on it and all is fine. thank you very much indeed. jake may 15th, 2007 at 3:58 pm wow! i cant believe that worked-thanks for writing this article, it saved me from buying a new ipod! jegan may 15th, 2007 at 4:01 pm my 30gb ipod stops playing the songs after 30 minutes roughly. none of the controls and keys would work after that; i cant even power it off. the battery has to drain fully. then, it needs to be recharged resync’ed and played, to see it freeze in 30 minutes again. any idea what the problem with it could be? maze may 15th, 2007 at 10:05 pm for me, when i press select my ipod shows the apple in black then it lights up then shuts, and right before it shutsit makes like a shutting down noise. idk wat to do plz help me maze may 15th, 2007 at 10:44 pm yay i opened it up and took the hd out cleaned it and put it bak in and i worked ^____^ ahmad may 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am my ipod 1st gen having a serious problem, that it doesnt even boot neither my computer recognize it, so i kindly need ur help in this regard scott may 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am hi i am really struggling to get my ipod nano to work, when i have downloaded itunes to the computer it wont let me go to the itunes store it says that there is a connection problem, i am using windows xp and i am using microsoft internet explorer, i would be grateful for any help received cheers scott katherine may 16th, 2007 at 1:49 pm ok. well my dumb ass did the one thing that you told me not to do. see when i got to this site my ipod was already tooken apart. you know those two ribbons that i wasn’t suppose to touch, well i did and know i have no idea where they go now. i got one back to where it needed to be, but the other one i have no idea. please help! rose may 16th, 2007 at 7:43 pm everything is working on my ipod except the music wont work! i dont know what to do! please help! hermietheelf may 17th, 2007 at 12:13 am duuuuude. my 4-year-old ipod had been slowly but surely dying. strange beeps coming out of it. stalling out regularly after 10+ minutes of use. i was sure — just sure — it was the end of the road for my beloved 3rd gen 20 gigger. but, in the desperate hopes of one last google search (”ipod dies,” if you must know), i stumbled across your site and decided to operate. i hadn’t even closed the damn thing up before it was working again. in one sense, i kinda feel like i owe you money. but i hope sincere and true gratitude will suffice… at least until i can get some money saved up… thank you! *angel* may 17th, 2007 at 8:27 am omg- you are a genuis. all i had to do was hit the menu/select buttons and voilla! problem sovled! thanks again. i feel really lame that i didn’t know that. dave may 17th, 2007 at 12:04 pm cheers reli helped me stoped workin afta i did a flip wiv it in ma pocket n landed on it lol n it came up wiv the lil sad ipod face butit sorted it out wen i added some folded paper to the back of the hard drive so cheers. p.s. watch out wen you open the ipod up not to damage the screen coz i caught it with a screwdriver n its leaked in the top left corner now not alot tho. josephat may 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pm you just saved me about $300! thank you! i have never written a comment or blogged in my life, but i felt compelled to give you some huge kudos for helping me fix my ipod photo. the business card trick worked like a charm, but while i was in there i went ahead and unplugged the battery cable too, just for good measure and to reset the hard drive. worked like a charm. thanks again! carie may 17th, 2007 at 7:22 pm i can’t belive it…my ipod works again!! i tried absolutely everything suggested on the apple website and nothing worked. as a last resort, i googled “ipod problem” only to find this post. i did as the directions suggested and i opened my ipod and simply inserted a folded piece of paper and now it works…better yet, all my music is still there! thanks so much! aj may 17th, 2007 at 9:02 pm thanks matt. your information helped me get my ipod back! tai may 17th, 2007 at 10:56 pm my 4th generation ipod was down and out for the count with the sad face icon and everything. i tried apple’s 5 r’s: reset, retry, reinstall, restore. none of that worked so i accepted the fact that i would have to send it into apple to get it proffessionally fixed. i went through the steps online to get my ipod ready for pickup to get fixed until i got to the screen that said i would have to pay over $250 before it was even fixed. so then i googled “how to fix your ipod without sending it to apple” and your page came up. the biz card worked. thank you! now i can listen to my jay z again! -white girl from iowa. nostalgic may 18th, 2007 at 2:02 am great job it helped me alot chris may 18th, 2007 at 8:22 pm hey man. i dont have neven one year with my ipod; and is busted. when i connect the usb cable to my ipod it wont work. my ipod’s battery is lower. so i said: when i go to my house i will yust connected to the computer and the battery will charge. negativo! when i connected the ipod it didnt do nothing. my ipod is a nano 1 gb. please help me man. i dont want to waste 150 more bucks. o and………… by the way; i’m from p.r. and here no one fix ipods! anonymous may 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm this isnt a comment but it is a question.. i was just wondering if u knew how u to fix an ipod nano… if u know how please e-mail me at reegis_sanche17@hotmail.com tom may 19th, 2007 at 12:40 am wow, thanks, i couldn’t believe it worked right away, you said it would take about 15 minutes, it took me 14 to get the cover off and 1 to do the rest lj may 19th, 2007 at 3:00 am its took me less then 5mins to do everything! lol trever may 19th, 2007 at 11:35 am yeah i read all of your comments and it looks like your technique works and i tried it but i fucked mine up because i was too spastic lol but thx for the method timinata may 20th, 2007 at 12:35 am i had a problems with my 4th gen ipod, sad face, exclamation piont folder etc., and i did research about how may i fix it on my own. i got here. i read it couple days ago, but actually have just done it, business card trick, and finally i synced my ipod with itunes first time since i got those probles that i mentioned at the beginning. so, i must admit, something has to be in it, way of fixing ipod’s described above. i don’t know how is going to be when i close ipod’s case, but so far so good. one more thing, can anyone tel me should i leave this business card inside, or remove it after successful rebooting my player? thanks to people who wrote those tips how to cure apple players one advice for someone who try this on its player, keep specifically the steps which they gave you, so you won’t damage player, and do this all carefully. thanks again, and please let me know should i leave this business card inside ashwin may 20th, 2007 at 11:30 pm i had plugged my ipod shuffle in the usb port of my friends pc , but unfortunately there was some problem with the usb , the ipod got very hot and stopped working. what could be the problem? is there any way to fix it? todd may 21st, 2007 at 10:30 am ….this worked perfectly, thank you. i think apple should publish this as a technical bulletin. mr. jobbs, you should be proud. i’m not sure of any pc product you can fix like this! lil may 21st, 2007 at 4:45 pm unbelieveable! at first i thought this is all a big joke, and i was really sceptical opening the little thing and inserting a piece of paper…. but holy shit! it works! thanks a lot for this page! ben may 22nd, 2007 at 3:24 am fuck apple!!! how can they keep producing products that barely outlive their warenty periods! the man in the big chair should seriously think about his customers if he wants to keep them! theres no way im going to buy another one of those pieces of shit! leela may 22nd, 2007 at 6:08 am i recently got a new macbook and forgot that everything was new in it, that i had to sync my ipod to the newly installed itunes… so i plugged it in. and then, i panicked when i saw restore with the fear of losing all my songs in my 5th gen ipod, so i took it out. then i had the white screen of death, that i left on all night cause i thought i could just drain the battery and then reset, but after trying to reset the next day, it made a weird sound — some sort of warning sound everytime i press any button. im thinking it shouldnt be so bad at least my ipod’s still reacting to me, which may mean she’s still okay. im so lonely all i hear is that warning sound. should i call its time of death? please say no stefan may 22nd, 2007 at 7:46 am u r my hero!!! thank you soo much, my ipod works great now :o) jonathan may 23rd, 2007 at 5:42 am thank you so much i finally found a super tiny screw driver like yours and was able to fix my ipod. i was looking at #3 in a year though i bought the second one because it was twice as big as my original. thank you so much. jonathan sb may 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 am hi. my 3 week old shuffle is driving me mad, when trying to charge it and change songs for the second time, it refuses and itunes loops again and again through the process of formatting it without succsess. do you have any magic solutions for me? ipod click wheel problems may 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 pm great solution! gamer man than i! darko may 24th, 2007 at 4:32 am i love you……………………..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you are the best ever…. with your post i saved my ipod from death putting a peace of paper into it…. thanks thanks………. i didn’t use my little white love for 5 months dori may 24th, 2007 at 7:57 am i saw this article ages ago, i think on digg(?), bookmarked it for future use and forgot about it. a couple months ago, literally 2 weeks after the extended warranty ended, my ipod died. i had forgotten about this site and was resigned to paying several hundred dollars for a new model. then, lo and behold, i rediscovered this page! it took me ages to get the ipod apart, but once i did, it worked perfectly! this is amazing, how did you think of it? thank you, thank you. and a tip - the guitar pic was too think for me to get between the plastic and metal, and my tiniest screwdriver was just scratching the case. since i have long nails, i tried using them to open the case, with much success. if you want to try this, i suggest using your thumb nail because it’s usually stronger. just get it in between at any one point, then use the guitar pic around all the edges. the hard part is getting it started. thanks again! mark may 24th, 2007 at 9:26 am simply great! job done! joel may 24th, 2007 at 5:13 pm i can’t believe the business card fold worked! thanks for saving me some $$’s. the apple store “genius” didn’t tell me about this little fix-it. ev may 24th, 2007 at 5:51 pm it works! thanks so much! sara may 24th, 2007 at 11:21 pm wow! i had been seeing that sad face for quite some time now. i was really afraid to take my ipod apart (although i was getting really close to trying it) so tried doug’s idea of squeezing the back of the ipod really hard and it worked! thanks so much! sinh bui may 24th, 2007 at 11:31 pm thanks a million. my daughter’s ipod just died. she was ready to trash it and get a new one. the apple store even told me to trash it. but thanks! you taught an old dog a new trick. sinh bui quinton may 25th, 2007 at 12:07 am argh!. i messed it up .. pulled to hard on the damn ipod. =[ … ahh well i do have a 1g nano .. but the video one would have been nice to still have. =d .. oh well … im laughing straight to the bank like this .. ha, ha ha-ah-ha-ah.. thanx for the advice anyways.. im sure it really did work quinton may 25th, 2007 at 12:09 am hey everyone check out my myspace also. www.myspace.com/te_quero_spicy_love@yahoo.com =d zoe may 25th, 2007 at 7:06 pm oh my word, thank you so much! i almost freaked when my dads ipod (which i borrowed without asking….) blanked out on me! thank god you helped me. thank you thank you thank you! awesome advice. (i’d better go put it back where i found it now…) shanaclembo may 26th, 2007 at 6:07 am thanks so much, i’m such a saddo i’d be lost without it 6810 may 26th, 2007 at 9:16 am ok, i was at wit’s end with my pod, some time ago, it sort of half died. i thought for sure i was due for a new hard disk. i got sad faces, syncing errors like mad… you name it… tracks kept “skipping” from one to another without playing. no matter how many times i restored or whatever. then, like magic, i folded a business card in quarters, stuck in the ipod and it worked. well done! raiderhader may 26th, 2007 at 1:08 pm i second that…”holy shit it worked. i found an old plastic bottle cap opener and shaved it down to look like the ipod opener, opened the ipod without a hitch, placed my business card, folded in half, in the ipod. reboot. whammmo,she booted up. first time. thanks margaret may 27th, 2007 at 9:52 am hi. i’m margaret. umm i’m having loads of trouble with my ipod and i ‘m at a lost. i clicked restore like you said but now its showing this picture of a plug doing inot and outlet?? i got this ipod from my friend who only gave me this and the head phones. so i have no clue what to do what so ever. i’m not really expeirenced with computers. if it helps, this is the oldest version of the ipod. please help me!!!!! btw. i checked out the zune site at the top. if you ask me, it seems like a better deal than an ipod. alan may 27th, 2007 at 12:08 pm thanks! my son’s 4th generation ipod was ruled out of commission. every website/ipod repair place we contacted insisted the hard drive was broken and a replacement would cost $140. i stumbled upon your website and tried the business card trick. it worked right away. i appreciate your creative ideas and tenaciousness! regards, al kathleen may 27th, 2007 at 3:33 pm oh my god! i think that finally did it! the buisness card fix–it works! that and i also took a tip from ilounge that said to take out the hd and give it a little shake (resaoning is the the head can get stuck [sound of repeated clicking]). but the buisness card finally got the ipod recognized by not only my computer but itunes as wel. the computer recognized it instantly, didn’t freeze and all the music shows up in music rescue. i had tried so many things before to bring the ipod back up because my hd crashed and i was sent another one from ibm, so the only copy of the music that i have now is on the ipod. i couldn’t bear to “restore” it before i moved everything over. this tip is excellent. you probably will have to try it to believe it. alex may 28th, 2007 at 5:11 am i had to do a mix of things to get my 4g working, changed the size of the card and also even squeezed the drive ever so slightly in the middle while it was spinning up (right after i plugged it in i could hear it having problems). i knew this could damage the hd and in all probability did but it’s been working smooth for the past few months. i was desperate though. but then i put it back inside the casing with a business card, charged it up fully overnight and voila. back to normal. just need it to last until the next version of the ipod comes out. anyways thanks for the great advice! i’m back to using the ipod every day.. roddi may 28th, 2007 at 2:11 pm figuring if the “card trick” was squeezing the drive case, why not just squeeze the ipod case, thus the drive inside? after several days of “dead” ipod, i read this blog and did a monster pinch on the silver back of the ipod. huzzahh!! the drive spun up and the ipod booted. “it’s alive!!!” and… i saved the hassle of breaking open the case. robin may 28th, 2007 at 8:28 pm i’m so happy that i found this article. i fixed both of my ipods! i tried the “card trick” on my daughter’s because it was showing the sad ipod and it worked. then for mine, which was showing the exclamation point, i just smacked it really hard. now the computer recognized both of them. i restored mine and we’re in business. thank you so much! michael ruurds may 29th, 2007 at 4:27 am my 3rd gen ipod was stuck in mid-spinup. i tried the “drop it from 1.5m onto carpet” thing and it worked bump it outta that spin! klaus may 29th, 2007 at 4:50 am check this: my ipod 3g is unbootable with its firmware, but it does boot up in “disk mode” and is then even accepted by my g5 2×2 and itunes, which of course does nothing for me, as the ipod can not be used as a standalone music player. so it is basically down to a super-expensive 30gb harddrive. i thought this might be a software problem, but no - tried everything, no success. now i tried the “card trick” - again, with no success. so i recon my hard drive is not toast… does anyone have an idea where the problem might be lying? alskir may 29th, 2007 at 10:18 pm 4th gen ipod. was getting the goto www.apple.com/support/ipod message on boot. tried the card trick and it’s all fixed. many thanks! brian may 30th, 2007 at 2:57 am hey, i was getting ready to try taking my ipod apart when something interesting happened. i thought i would try holding down the play button and the center button at the same time, might as well try something else. well i got my ipod to respond. it is currently reading : disc mode. it shows everything but in a simple almost dos format. i can access all my files which is all i really care about. so i will keep you updated to what else happens. so to anyone else before opening the ipod; try holding the play button and the center button at the same time. - good luck!! john may 30th, 2007 at 8:07 pm cheers geeza! your card trick really worked. 5min and my ipod photo was working again. joey g may 30th, 2007 at 8:22 pm you’re a fucking genious matt. my “theory” is that the hard drive’s actual stylus’ that scrape against the hard drive start to wear over time. by adding a suttle amount of pressure, you are now compensating for wear and tear on the hard drive. these ipod’s probably get more wear and tear than a lot of pc’s out there. mine is used in the car, at work, at home, business travel, and personal vacations. i’ve had it for 3 years and its got road miles, air miles, walking miles, and bicycling km’s. my 3rd gen ipod (the one with the 4 touch buttons), has recently received a battery upgrade via 4th gen battery slapped on the backside of my 3rd gen ipod. ran great during my trip to mexico & a foolowing business trip. in the last couple months i would get the corrupted folder icon and a few annoying re-boots would fix the problem. yesterday my 3rd gen ipod died. i could not get it to re-boot and once i got the main menu to work, i connected it to my pc (not an apple ugh!!) and it wasn’t being recognized via firewire. i folded a business card as per your instructions, ripped open my ipod (gets easier as the years go by :-), and squished it between the hard drive and the backside of the ipod. viola, its working and hopefully apple comes out with a 40gb flash memory version by the time my hard drive permanently dies. there you go apple engineer’s, free idea on the house from me (my commision will be a free 40gb flash based ipod). thanks matt elizabeth may 30th, 2007 at 11:34 pm i had the same problem as ashwin on 5/20/07. i plugged my ipod video in the usb port of my pc, the ipod got very hot and stopped working. then i find out something is wrong with the usb. i may still be under warranty. what could be the problem? is there any way to fix it? janine may 30th, 2007 at 11:46 pm my 4th generation ipod looks different inside from your pics. was not sure where to position the card. but, just opening up and fiddling with the connections did the trick. you’ve helped a lot of people! thanks!! marco june 1st, 2007 at 6:34 am thanks alot…. my ipod 1stgen 40gig still doesnt work, even with the card trick, but it made me dismantle my ipod mini 6gig, and all i did was disconnect the hd from the logic board, and now it works! im gonna try the dropping from a height trick for the 40gig. m polo june 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 am thanks dude the business card trick worked perfectly, the hardest part was the opening you have saved me alot of money thanks a lot!! raven june 2nd, 2007 at 9:19 am superb … simply superb i have no words to thank you matt_tas june 3rd, 2007 at 9:41 am just tried it after months of it doing exactly what matt described. i have a few tips for ppl about to take the plunge. 1.thick guitar pics works fine, but getting it started is the hard part. use the blade of a sharp penknife to prise it open just a little. 2.keep the point of the penknife inserted and push the guitar pick/ small screwdriver/ weapon of choice into the small gap created on either side of the penknife. 3. make sure the hold button is on and that you have a soft spongy surface (like a mousepad) to work on. 4. a matt said there is likely a piece of electronic ribbon attached to the metal back. be careful as it is very short. place an object such as a mobile phone next to the ipod and use it lean the metal backing up against as the ribbon is too short to allow the metal backing to lie flat on your desk. 5. the paper you use should be folded as it still should have just a little bit of give in it to sllow the natural expansoin and contraction of the hard drive at a particular temperature. give it a go. my photo 60gb ipod has been tempremental for months and banging it does seem to fix it for a period of time. however there’s a lot of delicate stuff in it…..opening it up is the safe option. i have noticed straight away that it is not only working, but working faster. also, this problem can occur when rapidly changing songs/ skipping songs etc. make playlists as they will give the hd a lot less work to do (plus will save your battery) thanks matt…you’re a genius! michael june 3rd, 2007 at 4:58 pm wow the card worked, it was corrupted and didn’t want to restore and now it’s restoring. but i do have one question, the earphone jack in the ipod video 30gb isn’t working well, i have to push it to the left side for it to work and i was wondering if you knew how to fix the earphone jack, if you do send me and email at towliefan@hotmail.com and send me the solution if you can. heidi june 4th, 2007 at 9:39 am worked for me!!! (well, 1 day in, but success none the less!) willian june 4th, 2007 at 3:38 pm fantastic!!! last friday my ipod (4th generation) died suddenly after two years of (almost) continuous use, making whirring and clicking noises. buying a new one would be costly, having the old one repaired probably too. then i stumbled on your site and tried the “face down and push the back really hard”-trick (i didn’t dare to open it yet…). i had to endure a few seconds of terrible scratching noises from somewhere inside my ipod. and then the noise stopped….the apple logo appeared again ….. followed by the menu. it’s working again!!! many thanks! dew june 4th, 2007 at 8:25 pm i pulled it all apart and broke the cables. after serious search on the net. i discovered that i could buy any parts for any model for ipod. if you have the same problem try www.podtech.com.au you can get parts or they can fix your ipod for you. hope this helps. jp june 4th, 2007 at 9:44 pm ya i came across this while ponderin what to do to my ipod after i was trying to boot into linux and got the feared sad ipod crap on my 4th gen photo. after seeing the drop it part i just hit my ipod on a window sill and bam! it loads linux and im good to go… now its time to put the card in it. thnx fer reminding me to abuse apple physically =) abc3 june 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pm wow, tried all bumping, jarring, restore tricks on my 4th gen ipod. i had given up. now, months later i tried your business card trip and its up and running like nothing happened. thanks pablo b june 6th, 2007 at 3:11 am my 4th gen ipod,without any physical trauma has all of a sudden stopped accepting a charge. i have tried 4 other charging ways…i.e. other computer and several different usb and docking chargers but to no avail….i am ready to perform surgery but need help…… amanda june 6th, 2007 at 8:44 pm i have a problem. i tried to restore my ipod and that went well but when i went to sync it, an error message came up which stated that its can’t sync because a file is missing. please help diane june 7th, 2007 at 3:05 pm thank you so much! i had long given up on my ipod ever working again after it bricked when i tried to replace a cracked screen. your business card trick saved it, though. i still have to put it in disk mode to mount it, but that’s fine with me. jordan june 8th, 2007 at 9:10 am helo when i put my ipod shuffle in the usb nothing happens at all:( and comp dosent reconigze it so i cant restore it or anything? (its old version of ipod shuffle) i dont know wot 2 do could u help me petty pleasee! thank u alex june 8th, 2007 at 11:20 am o.k. i have a 4th generation ipod 40 gig. the hard drive was clicking and i was getting the sad face and utility message on my screen. i admit i was upset. i was getting ready to open mine up. then i read on here about dropping it and the ipod working again. rather then drop it. i held it vertically and rapped the bottom left edge firmly against my desk. firmly, not violently. like a swift “pap” from about 1 inch up and voila!!!!!!!! she is back in action good as new…at least it seems to be fine. i’m going to be checking my files and backing things up now for sure! thanks everyone!!! i’m so happy now. lisa june 8th, 2007 at 12:08 pm can i try your method to fix my ipod if my ipod is completely dead? or will it only work when the ipod is displaying a sad icon or whatever? leah june 8th, 2007 at 3:34 pm hi matt, i tried ur method and retried and retried but its still not working. i was having the clicking problem but it stopped after i inserted some card into it. it’s still not booting up … help! anonymous june 8th, 2007 at 4:31 pm absolutely brilliant. been trying to fix that for six months (rather half-heartedly) i am totally amazed that i could fix it with a guitar pick and a bit of cardboard. shame about the 160 quid on a new one but it will go to a good home:) kudos dude. melnotes june 8th, 2007 at 10:09 pm i just dropped my 20gb iod accidentally while looking for a screwdriver to pry it apart and presto it started working again!!! whats with that? christy june 9th, 2007 at 10:22 am hi, i was wondering if you can help me out. my ipod’s main screen shows up but the main menu doesnt. so i was i was wondering do you have any suggestions? cody june 9th, 2007 at 4:09 pm woo it fricken worked!! thank god, i have a 14 hour flight coming up. last thing i want is no ipod. lol. thanks for this man. rachel june 9th, 2007 at 9:11 pm my ipod video is not working. how to fix it? the screen displayed do not disconnect? . christian june 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am heyy, ii just found out about yoor guide. its really great.. but like.. will you make a tutorial of the same thing for the ipod nano. instead…make it like..to put back in the battery ribbons so ii can get my nano working again. todd st.germain june 11th, 2007 at 3:55 pm i love you…. i tried everything, it was a simple reboot - you’ve changed my life. nearlymanx june 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm i tried the card trick in various thicknesses without much luck, then had a brainwave, i used a piece of rubber matting like this -> http://www.cdrinfo.com/sections/articles/sources/evermore%20bt-r900/images/img_2622.jpg …it’s working now, not perfect, but it’s working :o) kimia fardfini june 11th, 2007 at 5:59 pm my ipod is working the songs i put on it aren’t there and other stuff too.i’m gonna return my ipod video and get an ipod nano (green) nour june 11th, 2007 at 7:20 pm my ipod fell by mistake and now its giving me a blank screen and the light is still on and it cant be turned of so i was just wandering if you can find a way to fix it… mattd june 11th, 2007 at 7:43 pm this is like freakin’ voodoo (though not as voodoo as supply-side economics). it works! i’ve been using macs since they came out, and i’ve had this broken ipod sitting here for a year. i’ve not had the money to fix it. but now it’s fixed, and this is totally amazing. thank you!!! shawn june 11th, 2007 at 11:47 pm oh my gosh!!!! okay let me explain my story to you all. i have a 5th gen 30gig that the logic board got fried but my hard drive was still good. so i bought a used one from a friend that had a bad hard drive and i did a hard drive swap but low and behold it didn’t work! i started panicking cause i thought i had just wasted $100 so i started searching the web trying to see what could be done. i tried this card board trick being skeptic as ever! i littery saying to myself yeah right this is the dumbest thing ever! how could this work!!! i hooked it up to my laptop, said a quick prayer, and what do you know the freakin’ thing boots up… i am so happy!!! i would donate some money to the author if i can…please you need to setup a paypal donation thinginy right quick!! seriously i was ready to spend $150 for a new logic board!!!! jerry haettenschweiler june 12th, 2007 at 1:40 am insane! used a guitar pick (71 mm) and it worked exactly like you said it would. apple needs to… oh fuck it, whatever. it worked. robinho june 12th, 2007 at 4:39 am i have apple ipod its screen is damaged so it can be repair or not timinata june 12th, 2007 at 10:26 pm i posted here in may that business card trick might have helped me to fix my 4th gen ipod, but now i don’t think so my ipod works again why? because if this is about to make literately pressure on hard drive by putting inside ipod a business card, i did not put to leave it there it and it still works i thought it would maybe separate had drive from the metal cover to neutral some magnetics or something, but not to physically makes pressure brad june 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm aww just found this site now..before i found it i think i just messed up the ipod and now its not turning on anymore.. brian june 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm it worked!!!! wow my ipod had both the frowning face and the folder. and every time i tried to restore it it would say something about a source file not being found and i thought i would never fix it. then i found this website and tried all it said like opened it and put some file card paper in it and now it works!!! im so happy right now khmer_elf june 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am totally amazing! it really worked! had 2 ipod that showed sad faces. this little trick worked immediately on one. still diagnosing the other. but i still can’t get over this! woooooooooooo dan june 14th, 2007 at 2:22 am that worked perfectly, i was sure that it was something serious, but i can’t believe it really worked. thanks so much, you just saved me from buying a new ipod! ian june 14th, 2007 at 5:56 pm you’re awesome! thank you!!!!! i just fixed my friends ipod, and this worked perfectly!!! steve tilling june 16th, 2007 at 2:55 pm since updating my computer’s operating platform from windows xp to windows vista, i have had problems synchronising my 80gb video ipod. in most cases, the ipod just freezes and does nothing while asking me not to disconnect it. such was my despair this afternoon that i considered beating the ipod to a pulp with a hammer…! however, your excellent tip on how to reset the ipod worked immediately so i retuned the hammer to the garage. suffice to say, i just wanted to convey my thanks to you for compiling such a results orientated and user friendly ipod website. keep up the good work. shannon june 16th, 2007 at 10:22 pm i banged my ipod really hard on its side and restored it and it started working like magic! amazing. tammy june 17th, 2007 at 8:59 am who’s my new best friend?! you are! thank you, thank you, thank you. matt june 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm thanks for the tip. i was having problems on and off with my 20gb ipod for the last month or two, and had been able to solve it with a reset in the past. this weekend, it wouldn’t synch no matter what. so i managed to get it apart with a combination of a guitar pick and a wood chisel (!!!), and with a 3×5 card torn in half and folded 3 times, it has been working solid for a few days now. hopefully that does it. brian june 18th, 2007 at 1:17 am you are the schnizzle!! you fixed my ipod. mustafa june 18th, 2007 at 3:34 am can someone please tell me… if i give my ipod to apple for them to replace the battery…will they have to delete all the info on my ipod???? please reply!! ryan june 18th, 2007 at 4:31 am hi there, my 30g ipod wont start when i plug it out from the charger. what can be the problem. also does not charge or connect with itune on the comp. have a way to solve it , or its paper weight now. hope to get it fixed, ryan. jabez williams june 18th, 2007 at 9:14 pm the do not diconnect sign comes up on my ipod i did not see it and i took it off and know it is froze on that what the flying fuck do i do mora june 19th, 2007 at 12:07 pm the same shit that happend with jabez williams screwed up my ipod, what should i do? eduardo j. june 19th, 2007 at 3:34 pm i have no words… it works!!! my 60 gb ipod photo became absolutely frozen one month ago and now… it works again. mr. biggs, i can only say thanks, thanks, thanks. and my wife sends a very big kiss to you (she bought the ipod for me during our honeymoon in nyc, so it is a very liked item for us). please, forgive to me for my english. once more: thank you. from málaga (spain), eduardo j. gary r june 19th, 2007 at 10:31 pm i have a 20 gig second generation ipod and i am using a mac with os 10.4 and i get the folder exclamation point and alternatively the sad face with the exclamation point. it all started when i connected my ipod to lala.com, then unconnected it. i tired all the apple restarts, i opened the ipod and disconected the battery plug it in again, also disconnected the hard drive and attached it again, tried the card trick, and tried to reboot and nothing. the ipod does not show up on the desktop of my mac with osx. i tried my lap top mac with osx as well. nothing. i will let it sit for a week or so then try plugging it in again. glad i have a back up of all the tunes. sad that i can’t use it for a while. cari june 21st, 2007 at 8:27 am my son fell in the pool with his brand new ipod video in his pocket. can anyone help????????????????????????? john biggs june 21st, 2007 at 12:06 pm first, fish him out of the pool… jruggs june 21st, 2007 at 3:05 pm oh my f*ckin’ god! i can’t beleive it! i saw this artical and decided what the hell why not try it and now my 40gb ipod is working again. i can’t thank you enough! damian webb june 21st, 2007 at 4:48 pm i just did this trick about 1 minute ago. like a charm. thanks for saving me some expense and hassle, my friends! daniel gunness june 22nd, 2007 at 3:16 pm wow i tried to do the business card fix on my friends ipod, which she had sent to apple a total of 4 times, only to get broken ones in return. frustrating eh? anyways. i dropped it on the floor after trying to open it…(note “trying”) and it started up again. i was like.. whoa lucky! next problem, the battery didn’t hold a charge. so i decided to do something i read somewhere else. i restored it, and then it held a charge again! so hats off to you and your method. even if i failed the first step, and somehow was able to forego everything. and apple’s service guys can just bite me. ar june 22nd, 2007 at 7:09 pm i tried the business card suggestion and it worked wonderfully. thanks so much for sharing your expertise… jruggs june 23rd, 2007 at 5:25 am repy to ryan…try running your ipod updater software bass june 23rd, 2007 at 7:59 pm wow i had given up on my 4gen ipod, couldn’t get it to work no matter what i did. but this worked perfectly. how can something so simple be the answer! apple have some serious customer service problems to sort out if they know about this issue and choose to do nothing about it. thanks heaps guys , saved me quite a few dollars rachael june 24th, 2007 at 1:31 am my brother left my ipod in his pants and my washed them is there any way to fix it???? lucie june 24th, 2007 at 4:48 pm omg. i was so skeptical, and i hate to sound like a broken record too, but i just had to express my utter happiness over having this work!!! ahhhhh!!!! soooooo amazing!!!!! thanks =) rob june 25th, 2007 at 10:18 am my ipod shuffle plays fine but does not appear in my computer or itunes. have reinstalled everything and tried to run the ipod reset utility but in order for it to work it has to communicate with the ipod via usb which it can’t. all my usb ports work with my other usb devices except the shuffle. what can i do now except listen to my ipod until the current battery power is finished and then throw it away? monica june 25th, 2007 at 2:57 pm i recently purchased a 5th generation video ipod and after one week i could not get rid of the do not disconnect screen. pressing the menu and select buttons worked so thanks for the tip. pissed june 25th, 2007 at 6:03 pm my ipod simply wont turn on, my brother probably dropped it in his toilet, but jeez, if i can fix it that would be great, its a nano btw. tom eagling june 26th, 2007 at 10:27 am i just tried the business card trick on my 20gb ipod and it worked like a charm. thanks, i will be doing the procedure on my 40gb tooo. excellent pics and description man. thanks gdog june 27th, 2007 at 1:26 pm f**k yeah!! thanks for this, i almost had to format my 4g ipod, but then it just stopped working altogether. i just tried to press the back of the ipod as hard as i could and voila…it works! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! matt june 28th, 2007 at 12:40 pm yep, amazed, my 4g died just before a 1200 mile road trip. you guys rock. paige june 28th, 2007 at 3:38 pm i had tried formatting, resetting and even downloading the itunes software again. then i just tried dropping from around a one metre height and it works now!!!! muz june 29th, 2007 at 12:12 pm thankyou. so glad i didn’t smash it on the apple shop floor after all. my warranty had only been up 3 weeks. c##ts. uba & ubi june 30th, 2007 at 2:53 am we saw the apple sign it finally works after one year in the drawer!!! thank you so much this is gold!!! erik june 30th, 2007 at 6:05 pm so, my ipod says it has a low battery. 10-15 seconds later, it pops to the apple loading screen, followed shortly by a sad computer. am i right in assuming this is a battery replacement problem? john july 1st, 2007 at 2:12 am hello: i don’t think this is a hard drive issue. i think there are short circuits in the motherboard. i have this same issue, if i press on the motherboard right in the center with a pencil eraser, the hard drive starts spinning. what do you think? sarah july 1st, 2007 at 4:54 am mmmkay i have a 20g 4th gen, its been dead for possibly a year and ahalf now, when i turn it on the apple sign comes up for about 20 seconds, makes a clicking noise and then the evil file of death appears and it turns off. sooooo after hours of trying to open it i finally try the business card trick aaaaaand all that comes up is a black screen.( i guess some improvment to the evil file) whats the deal? any ideas? cheers. sam july 1st, 2007 at 5:26 pm who’d have thought a piece of cardboard could fix an ipod - the apple store said i could fix it for £180 but it was worth throwing away john july 1st, 2007 at 10:28 pm sarah: apple set up the ipod so that when the battery is very low, the hard drive does not have enough power to spin up. when the battery is too low, the unit will not accept a charge. its a catch 22. you have to buy a new battery, install it try to trick it to charge. to trick an ipod to charge, push menu and select buttons simutaneously until apple appears. then immediately push back button and select. hopefully you get a menu list. if there is a “charge” in the list select it. if you can get the hard drive to spin up, attach to your computer usb. and try to restore it. when you open the ipod, remove and reinstall the hard drive, it could be a bad connection. john alberto july 2nd, 2007 at 4:35 am my ipod charges n everything but when i taked of the charger it turns of n does want to turn back on????so yeah what can i do?? sarah july 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 am hey john okay some weird things have happened… so i charged my ipod up over night hoping it would charge, then i uninstalled itunes off my computer and connected my ipod to the computer and got windows to think it was a normal hard drive and reformatted it that way and bingo …. its alive and kicking. crazy little machines… sarah july 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 am hey john thanks for the tips i tired some things out and heres what went down i attempted to charge the ipod up over night…. i then uninstalled itunes off my laptop and connected the ipod in. windows then recongnised it as a normal hard drive so i got it to reformat it. then i restarted the ipod and did the press back and then select button and now it works! thanks heaps. sarah july 2nd, 2007 at 6:25 am dammit i knew this would happen… sorry about the double posts. andrew july 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am matt - thanks for the great guide. my ipod is back from the dead with only minor surgery! alison july 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm i cannot believe that worked. i have been so frustrated. this is amazing! i am giddy. thank you. i never would have thought to open up my ipod and put paper in it. genius john july 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 am sarah, very good idea! remember: never leave an ipod sitting for a long time without charging it occasionally. if battery voltage gets too low, it will not restart. john erik july 3rd, 2007 at 8:21 am any ideas on my problem? haha. i tried what you told sara to do, but i don’t get a menu. the screen just goes blank when i do the back + select. i have a 60gb video, if that changes anything. mike july 3rd, 2007 at 8:24 pm help! i only get sound from one side of my headphones. i have several pair, they all work in my other devices pefectly. if i don’t insert them all the way into the jack, i get sound from both sides until it moves a bit. but only one side when fully inserted. help, please…its annoying. erik july 4th, 2007 at 7:31 am okay, i got it to let me into the debug menu. i do not know how to get it to charge from there though. there is a chargea2d option, but it only shows me how much of a charge i have. i try running the auto-test, but when it gets to the “accessories test” it freezes up with the message “please plug fw” i assume it means my firewire cable, but when i plug it in, it just stays there. i know my firewire port isn’t malfunctioning, as i’ve run the test to check if it is. any thoughts or ideas? anyone? erik july 4th, 2007 at 8:24 am err, nevermind. i managed to convince it to take a charge. now it works again. paul july 7th, 2007 at 8:58 pm these instructions rock! sid july 8th, 2007 at 3:55 am guys, just remove the battery ribbon and plug it in again (after 10 secs) and your ipod will work fine. you just have to restore it. this ofcourse works with regards to software related issue, where even a restore can’t fix the problem. the board needs to be power cycled to flush its memory. manish july 8th, 2007 at 4:05 am shitt !! … ur business card trick really works .. thanksss reaallly … i am very greatfull ……. my i got a sad screen and was really upset tht i wud lose my collection … chekced everywhere how to fix it but didn’t find anything helpful, after months found ur article … i just cut a small piece of credit card and put it in … n just click on the centre button …… and lo !! my ipod booted up :): ) i am so glad …. thank you very much !!! anonymous july 8th, 2007 at 4:47 am how bout the hold button?? sico july 8th, 2007 at 5:54 pm thank you! i was taking off the cover (well trying) and never even got a tab open and the apple light up and i heard the hard drive spinning again. i’m guessing my friend dropped it and didn’t tell me. thank you so much again. tim shepard july 9th, 2007 at 7:29 pm unbelievable, i was ready to toss my ipod when i googled “clicking ipod” and found this site. one folded up business card later, i’m good. i used a kitchen knife to open the case, the instructions didn’t make it clear to me that i had to go down the metal case to open it, so i scratched my plastic case a little. thanks digg. apple, your engineers suck! soto july 9th, 2007 at 10:55 pm i have an ipod 3rd gen 10gb when u turn it on it appear a folder icon i was tinking that it was the hard drive i buy a hard drive but it did not work it appear the same folder icon someone please help meeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! e-mail meeeeee wilbert-s@hotmail.com tom july 10th, 2007 at 12:27 am it works. it started working after i pressed on the hard drive. i still inserted the piece of cardboard. it’s working now.. thanks! dan july 10th, 2007 at 2:29 am worked great. thanks a lot. i used the cardboard method between the backing and hard drive. nice one. corey july 10th, 2007 at 8:43 am bitch you made me crack my srceen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! brian july 10th, 2007 at 10:44 am dude u r a god i was so f…. pissed off i do believe in that every 12 months conspiracy theory 2nd time in a year she would not reboot but your lil trick worked amazingly thank u sooooooooo much 10 mins of work saved me $400 i live in the caribbean so sending my pod off to the u.s. is $$$$$$ i love u dude thanx george july 10th, 2007 at 4:24 pm thanks so much just followed your advice with the folded card. worked brilliantly - took me ten minutes using that well known tool, the kitchen knife. keep up the good work - you’re bringing pleasure to millions. agoraphone july 10th, 2007 at 10:02 pm thanks to pop stalin design’s comment above! my ipod’s hard drive was clicking and not doing anything, but dropping my ipod from about 3 feet onto a carpeted floor was enough to jolt it back to life. you might want to give it a try before you crack it open. dell bios july 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm thanks a whole lot for this. work flawlessly. ed july 11th, 2007 at 8:41 pm hey, i already knew how to do this stuff before i read your site, but what i don’t know how to do is reseat the headphone jack cable. i disconnected it from where it was because it was only connected by a little bit of adhesive. i have a 4th gen by the way. anyway, i tried adhesive but it doesn’t work unless i pinch the connection between my thumb and forefinger. i tried electrical tape and a bunch of other stuff but nothing works. please help me. jocaby july 11th, 2007 at 10:19 pm man, that was, that was, awsome awsome, it, ti worke,workd, well, sorry, inglish sucks real bad. carolyn july 11th, 2007 at 11:28 pm uhh…my ipod video is frozen on the the screen that sayz ” ok to disconnect ” and at the top it sayz ” disk mode ” and its completley frozen and the screen is kinda grey. but when i connect my ipod video to my computer, everythings the same on the screen of my ipod video except it sayz ” do not disconnect “. so what do i do to change it back to normal and it doesnt freeze ?? carolyn july 11th, 2007 at 11:29 pm oh umm..after u read my comment/message, please help me !! gerard july 12th, 2007 at 5:06 pm i did not even open it. i just pushed firmly on the back and … it worked again. thanks ! nathan july 12th, 2007 at 8:27 pm thanks matt! my old ipod died over a year ago, and had since bought a nano so pretty much forgot about it. the problem was the logo would show when booting, a ‘click’, and then it would turn itself off. just opened it up and stuck some business cards in the back, worked like a charm! now i can finally access all my old songs and files i thought i had lost! one bit of advice i’d give to others trying this. follow the pictures! i spent so long prying it open that i had the ipod face up when i finally got it. the mainboard is in the face, but the weight of the hard drive meant it stayed in the base and one of the cables disconnected. took a bit of mucking about to get it back on. also be wary of the hold switch when reassmebling. that thing moves around freely on the case once it’s seperated from the actual control, you want to ensure it’s aligned correctly when snapping back in place clayton july 13th, 2007 at 12:02 am my 4th generation ipod broke last year. i pick it up every now and then to see if i can get it it to work. i did the card trick and dropped it a couple of times but i still cant get it to work. when i plug it into the adapter it goes through a cycle, apple icon, sad face, turn off, apple icon, sad face turn off. when ever i plug it into my computer i get a big icon of the battery and a lightning bolt and my computer never reads it. i did manage to get it into disk drive once by magic and got it plugged into my computer. the computer actually read it but 2 minutes later my ipod turned it self off. if anyone knows what to do to or has an idea they should deffently post it up or e-mail me at chaossk8ter@cs.com thanks john gurske july 13th, 2007 at 1:22 am i was just about to send my ipod out for repair when i saw this sight, i tried it and it worked ! i normally can’t fix anything. thanks ! big al july 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am i have a white 30gb video ipod. the problem is that when i try to upload songs it saids that its corrupted and itunes suggests that i should restore. but even after i restored a dozen times it ends up saying the same thing which is your ipod is corrupted. hope you can help me with this. thanks please help desperate mom july 14th, 2007 at 9:56 am please help!! i accidently washed my son’s ipod video 60gb 5th gen yesterday. it went through the whole wash cycle and i discovered it in the dryer just after it was turned on. i had checked his pockets, but somehow missed it. i cried and cried, then decided to web surf to see if there was any hope for it. i found instructions and opened it up yesterday and gently blow dried. nothing last night, wouldn’t come on when plugged into computer. this morning, i was going to attempt to unplug the battery to see if it would reset itself. when i was trying to lift up the little brown clip, the battery ribbon came loose from inside the socket. it’s not damaged opr broken, but is there anyway to get it back in there? i am just sick about this, he just bought it a month ago with graduation money. is there any hope for it? john biggs july 14th, 2007 at 2:12 pm mom - you can gently fit the ribbon back in. it slips in like a little piece of paper into a slot, so you have to be careful. the place where it fit probably has a little clip in it that you will have to flip up, then slide in the ribbon, then close it. http://www.ifixit.com/guide/ that site has a good guide to putting ipods back together. keith rosenthal july 14th, 2007 at 3:07 pm incredible!!!!!! i folded a piece of card, put it in and it worked. thankyou very much!!!! justin july 14th, 2007 at 6:36 pm thanks. that helped me out alot. haley july 14th, 2007 at 10:56 pm my ipod is completely frozen!! it won’t charge…even if i put it on the charger!!! i was going through the songs, and i selected the song and it just froze!! please help me!!!!!!! by the way, i have an apple ipod nano ~this situation really sucks, haley mauricio july 15th, 2007 at 6:01 am you’re a fucking genius! dude, you don’t know how happy you’ve made me!!! you have made my night and my birthday all the better!!! i went to the apple store and they told me i needed to pay $60.00 for a battery replacement or some shit like that, but i followed your orders and steps about the credit card…and bam! it works!!! i love you!!! so much!!! you’re my hero!!!please love me because i love you man!!! i’m going to tell everyon e about you and how you fixed my ipod!!! you rule, dude!!!:d ~mauricio!!! markus july 15th, 2007 at 3:47 pm excellent … it worked like a charm and we are celebrating the resurrection of our ipod … thank you m peter july 16th, 2007 at 12:12 pm please help!!!! i recently got the ipod shuffle 2nd generation as gift and tried it on the comp but it dint work…i hav tried evrything till now n dono wat 2 do…when i connect it .. itunes detects it 2 be corrupted n says that i need to restore it.. but when i click on restore a msg box saying - “the resource was not found” pops out…when i go computer managemant in the control panel it says that the removable disk is unreadable..pls temme what shud i do..i also kno dat dere is no problem wid my ipod as it wrked on ma frnds comp…pls help..jst 2 tell u guys i hav da latest version of itunes and also the reset utility for ipod shuffle 2nd gen…even dat does not work .. it says that the version of ipod is not suppported by it…. please help thank you ipod user july 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm thanks for the tip, it worked well for my 4th gen ipod. it was a bit challenging to open the ipod, but after a couple hours i was able to open it. i now have a bunch of scratches on it though, but at least it now works. just be sure not to put really thick piece of card! parveen july 16th, 2007 at 11:50 pm thats a great trick where in one can repair their own i-pod instead of buying a new one sj july 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pm i just used the business card trick to fix my 4th gen photo and i’d have to say that this is the only useful thing the internet has ever taught me. you sir, are a legend. lucas july 19th, 2007 at 3:25 am the business card fix worked great. it saved me from buying a new ipod. i thought at first it was just a quick fix but it’s been working again for over 8 months now. in total i have used this ipod for 51 months. thanks a ton courtney july 19th, 2007 at 8:53 pm my ipod still does not work. my ipod has the apple sign on the screen for the past 2 days and it doesn’t need 2 be charged. i have no idea how to fix it. jjennings july 20th, 2007 at 2:14 pm i’ve tried everything!!!! ere’s exactly what’s going on. i have a 20 gb 4th generation ipod made by hp. i’ve been using it with my imac for about a year without much trouble. 2 days ago it was playing fine until i tried to change songs, it went to the other playlist but just scanned through the titles without playing them. i did a restart and the folder icon came up. i’ve done a restore on it using itunes 7.3.1 and everything appeared fine. i was told to plug it into a wall charger. after that i chose a language and all the menus come up and seems like a new ipod. i plugged it into my imac and rename it. it begins to sync my itunes library and all seems well. it gets about 25-30 songs into the sync and just stops. no error messages come up, it just continues to spin on a random song. i’ve erased the ipod and started from scratch with the same results. i’ve downloaded yamipod and tried to fix the ipod but yamipod says nothing is wrong with it. i’ve used my imac’s disk utility and it says no repairs are needed. i’ve run all the diagnostics on the ipod itself and they all check out fine. i’ve tried using my usb and firewire and the same problem is on both. what else can i do? is it a itunes 7.3.1 problem? any ideas? thanks, jj ps - i’ve manually put songs on it but they skip randomly and stop playing. i’ve also tried the business card trick with no success. damina july 21st, 2007 at 3:58 am thank u so much that helped my dad come home and said ur screen is just black but i opened it up made the screen turn off and turned it back on and it worked than k u so much brian july 22nd, 2007 at 4:38 am my stupid fuckin friend droped my ipod and now the bitch wont turn on what do i do i have tried the reset but it wont turn on.what do i do!!????? please give me a solution!!!! brian july 22nd, 2007 at 4:52 am thank you. ba advice. a simple reset was all i needed. anonymous july 22nd, 2007 at 10:11 pm omg i am so happy i can about this site accidentally!! you are a genuis i do agree with them . i can not believe how it fixed it immediately and i did not have to spend a dime or get a new one and yes the warranty was already over with. i am so thankful for people like you to share your expertise with us . your a great person thank you!!! and ya know women can repair also lol . i fixed my husband ipod… well mine now since he upgraded to the video ipod. but hey i am happy . thanks again. pat july 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pm omg i can not believe that a simple card would have repaired this . i was so desperate i tried it. i agree with the people you are a genuis i must say you have saved so many people a headache.. you spend so much money on something and then you run into problems .. then you have to purchase another . i don’t think so …i am thankful of people like you .. willing to help others for free with an unbelievable solution. thank you thank you thank you a million!!! mickey july 23rd, 2007 at 8:29 am my i pod has stumped me, it just shows the aplle sign on the screen, but i cant turn it on or off it just shows me the sam screen. i thought it had crashed, so i plugged it into my computer, but my computer didnt recognise it so i couldnt reboot it or anything. johnny july 23rd, 2007 at 5:02 pm sweet! lazer july 25th, 2007 at 12:12 am that was amazing!!!! my ipod was out for about 6 months before i came across this…. i can’t believe it. thanks again!!! ipoduser july 25th, 2007 at 7:15 am i’m havin this problem guys. i connected my usb cable upside down accidentaly and it suddenly shut off my ipod. and i want to know what to do since i havn’t red anyone else havin the same problem or makin the same stupid mistake..:$:s so before i get into surgery could someone please send me an email to ruff_gangster_4life@hotmail.com and help me with this problem. cuz i bought the thing 5 months ago and would be a shame if i had to pay 400 euro’s again for a new one..:s aight thnx for reading and hope to hear soon from some gearhead :p.. peace out!! ipoduser july 25th, 2007 at 7:33 am and by upside down connecting the usb cable.. i mean on the pc port mark july 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm mine went through the wash and all i had to do was turn hold on and then of and held menu and the middle button (for nano only) mark july 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm on and off i ment ipoduser july 26th, 2007 at 6:11 am plzzz people.. i’m stil waitin for a reply on my ipod problem.. i’m desperate you guys.. so if anyone knows how to help me and my busted ass ipod send me an mail.. i need to know if it can be fixed without any surgery or anything that could help me trough this.. aight crunchgear is tha bomb btw!! adam july 27th, 2007 at 3:15 am hey you seem to be able to fix most of the ipod problems, so heres a rare one for ya. the sound quality on my ipod is terrible. plus one earphone plays louder then the other. both play, its just that one plays twice as loud as the other one. its really annoying. it is a 4th gen. 20gb. any tricks to try? thanks kisha july 27th, 2007 at 10:28 am hello, my ipod had gotten wet.what should i do? jessica b july 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am thank you so much =) i was about to bring it to the apple store but i just had to reboot it. jono july 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm thanks 4 making my ipod work agan thanks big time !!!!!!! by jono voodochile july 28th, 2007 at 3:56 pm hey i tried the piece of cardboard and it still doesn’t work. i just miss it so much!!! i dont know what else to do. the apple sign comes up like its rebooting and its going to work but it just keep doing that over and over and over again until it runs out of battery. it doesn’t want to respond. please help natasha july 28th, 2007 at 9:36 pm thanks for the helpful hints. i spent 5 long horrific hours trying to figure out to reconfigure my ipod after it deleted all my music, videos, etc after updating my software. i posted a message on the apple website and got absolutely no responses. this website is a godsend for anyone with ipod issues. i’m just sorry i didn’t visit this site sooners- my problem was fixed within 15 minutes. thanks mark july 29th, 2007 at 1:55 am the business card procedure worked. i haven’t been able to use this ipod in a year and it was fixed in 5 minutes. thanks a million. fred july 29th, 2007 at 6:40 am my apple ipod wont turn on, i’ve held down the menu button for 10 sec and it dosent turn on. wat else can be done david july 30th, 2007 at 6:42 pm 2yr old 4th gen 20gb. been a bit erratic, but always responded to reset. stopped dead today, got the sad face, would not respond. thought i was looking at a £160 (300 bucks!) repair. saw the “drop it on the floor” hint - wow, it works!! i’ll use the wedge fix when it goes down next time. triffic site, thanks minerva samayoa july 30th, 2007 at 6:56 pm wow!!! i am so afraid of doing stuff like this but i had to. i bought a new ipod because i thought mine was dead. i tried the business card thing in my old ipod and it worked. although, my ipod looked different than the one pictured. it didn’t look coily; it just had a flat metal piece that i put the folded business card on top of. i closed my ipod, reset it, and presto!!! it worked. www.myspace.com/minerva828 mehul wavade july 31st, 2007 at 7:53 am plz plz plz plz help me get my ipod repaired arv1102 august 1st, 2007 at 2:09 am this is all some great info…. i was little afraid to open up the ipod didn’t want to screw anything inside. so i follow somebody’s guide to trow it agains the floor and it worked. except i did it in thik carpet. it works…. thanks alot rab august 1st, 2007 at 4:22 pm god turned water into wine, i went one better got my ipod working with a bit of cardboard you are a god mate… thank you…thank you…..thank you… kelani august 1st, 2007 at 10:32 pm when i put my ipod in the charger. it didn’t say ‘charging’ or anything! i left it there for about 30 min. and it still showed nothing. i disconnected my nano and it felt really warm…and still wont turn on…i dont understand what to do now and my life pretty much revolves around my ipod! (im 13 and love my music!) help!!!! kevin august 3rd, 2007 at 10:31 am woah! thanks bro! the pressure on the hd worked for my girls ipod. much thannnnnkkkkssss! john august 3rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm thank you so much i am about to go on vacation and my ipod hasn’t worked in six months and this worked. my dad and i were in complete amazement. farreando august 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 pm amazing, it worked … just with a simple plastic guitar pick. thanks for the (now famous) “business card ipod repair trick” by the way tanks to google also cortney august 5th, 2007 at 9:49 pm thanks the business card worked. and to think i was just going to throw it away. thanks again. nat august 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm umm does this work if my 30 gb i pod just flashes a white light it won’t play anything it doesn’t work the only thing my ipod does is flash a white light ??? i would this help my ipod brian in pittsburgh august 5th, 2007 at 11:24 pm wow! i can’t believe it worked. just like new. it really took about 5 minutes also. thanks! heather august 5th, 2007 at 11:28 pm hey can you help me out, i read everyting that you said and i am way too scared to try it and i’m not sure if thats the problem or what. anyways, my ipod keeps freezing on me and i have to wait for it to die out in order for it to work again and then it freezs again. it usually freezes when its on my ihome and i just got this ipod from a friend of mine and well i’m wondering if its the ihome thats the problem or if its something inside the ipod. anyways, please get back to me as soon as possiable before i go and get it repaired. thanks. emma august 6th, 2007 at 5:16 am wondering if you could help me out.. i read everything but i’m still under warranty so i don’t want to try it out just yet… i’ve got an 80g ipod video and it froze so i did what any normal person would do and i rebooted it… but now all it does is flash the apple sign at me, first without light then with and finally it would die with a little click and try again… i’ve tried plugging it into my pc but it doesn’t recognise it and i’ve tried waiting till the batteries have run out and tried recharging it but it just does that apple flashing thing again… was wondering if you knew how to fix it before i take it to the apple people plus i have no warranty with me as i am on holiday… thank you! boris august 6th, 2007 at 8:12 am add me to the list of believers. i have a 20 gb 3rd gen ipod that wouldn’t boot or get recognized by my computer. i struggled to get the cover off, did the business card thing, put it back together and away i went, with a functioning, just like before, ipod. many thanks, boris adrienne august 6th, 2007 at 5:12 pm add me to the list of believers. my ipod clicked and whirred and sad macked a few months ago. i brought it to the apple genius bar where they told me “the hard drive was dead” and said i could get 10% of a new one. i held off because 1) i couldn’t decided between the nano and the video and 2) i was holding out for a new gen ipod. saw the business card fix awhile back and thought…maybe i’ll try. finally got around to it last night and it worked! unbelievable. i’m just mad i didn’t try it earlier. only problem is that i cannot use itunes at all to write music to my ipod. i have anapod, though, from red chair. a little more tedious, but at least it works! thanks! julia august 7th, 2007 at 3:17 pm wow, saved me from buying a new ipod. cheri august 7th, 2007 at 10:12 pm thought all hope was lost. took it to the genius bar doctor who could barely get it to restore (my ipod caused his computer to freeze…mwa-ha-ha-ha - i felt so powerful). he handed me something he printed off apple’s support site (as if i didn’t spend the last couple days trying anything and everything from that site). nearly decided to give up, then tried your minor surgery…brilliant. up and running and happy as four happy things. thanks! rebecca august 8th, 2007 at 8:32 am my ipod was totally dysfunctional - i couldn’t even get a menu screen. when i listened carefully, i could tell it was making the same mechanical noises over and over. i decided to try surgery…after i opened it (w/ slight damage to shell), it worked again?!! days later and it still seems good….so glad i didn’t throw it away. ross august 8th, 2007 at 8:27 pm hey there i have the same problem as emma above!! apart from i have a 30gb ipod. also i have already had this problem with my original 5g 30gb ipod, sent it back and they didnt fix it for me they just replaced it. then came home and connected my new shiny ipod up and the same problem happened again!! so is it my computer that is causing the problem or is that ipod’s are just faulty!!! please help! eric august 8th, 2007 at 11:05 pm legends!!!!!!!!!!!!! ruleover august 9th, 2007 at 4:47 am dude,none of ure freakin ideas worked! my ipod is gone forever,thanks to you, u suck! juan august 9th, 2007 at 7:34 am hey my ipod wont turn on and it only works while its charging in a car but as soon as i unplug it the screen turns blank and my pc doesnt even recognize my ipod…can anyone help me find a solution? charles august 9th, 2007 at 1:40 pm the bussiness card worked……thanks….as soon as i snaped on the cover it came right on , but now for some reason im not getting sound. any suggestions would be appreciated !! tom august 9th, 2007 at 2:33 pm my 60 gb ipod photo was completely hosed. sad ipod icons and 1418 error messages have been my nightmare for 4 days. it wouldn’t restore. after listening to everything i’ve tried , tech support at apple charged my credit card $29, then told me they could think of nothing else to try. they quoted me $175 for repair with an additional $29 shipping! the business card trick (folded 3 times) took 5 minutes and worked immediately! amazing!!! laurie august 11th, 2007 at 2:04 am un-freakin’ believable! this piece of junk has been lying around for well over a year. on impulse, i decided to check some do-it-yourself websites, and yours was the very first one i looked at. kinda spooky, though, ’cause i just (like yesterday) ordered a nano, after swearing to anyone who would listen, that never again would i buy an apple product!! my son’s quit a week after the warrantly expired, my friend dropped his in the bathtub (ok, not exactly a defective product, just annoyed about $$ down the drain, then his new one pooped out, but at least within the warranty period — still, sure seems like planned obsolesence here, plus, they’re slippery little suckers, so why not charge $10 more an give you a gd case?! guess i’m a hypocrite, but i wanted that $100 off through amazon when you sign up for audible, and there were a lot more apple products to choose from than anyone other mfgr. anyway, i do run on… so, matt — thanks! feels like i got a freebie! aloem august 11th, 2007 at 8:06 pm ipod anonymous august 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am i’m gonna sound like a broken record, but wow! i can’t believe putting pressure on the drive like that worked. but, i live in fear. how long does the magic last?? sam august 12th, 2007 at 11:12 am i’m gonna sound like a broken record, but wow! i can’t believe putting pressure on the drive like that worked. but, i live in fear. how long does the magic last?? anonymous august 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm wow! thank you so much! putting the cardboard in my ipod actually worked!! that amazing, and so simple kt august 12th, 2007 at 4:58 pm my ipod nano has managed to wipe itself of all songs and will now not connect to the mac, i get a sign when i plug it in saying, ‘can not detect device’. i need help!!! how on earth did this happen and how can i solve it as i can’t even access it on the mac now?! i read the suggestion of opening it up and sticking a beer mat in, will i need to do that in this case? help..!! jt august 13th, 2007 at 2:59 am i think i saw a lot of wows in postings so i am going to try find a different way to express how totally and completely stoked i am that your little cardboard trick worked. thank you for the awesome step by step process… i gotta tell ya, i was at the point where i was thinking that i may have to succumb and get a new ipod due to the file-exclamation point picture consistently showing up on my 4th gen ipod… but alas, you saved me! thanks so much. jt lawrence insula august 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am my 4g ipod will not turn on. it originally had a sad face when i turned it on afeter on nights charging i left it and tried to turn it on again and it didnt work. i left it for months (i mean like a year) and i found this site and tried all the suggestions (im a geeeeeeeeek) and it still doesnt work. do you think a replacement battery would solve the problem? as if the other things have worked but the battery is dead then the fixed problems wont do anything…help matt hickey august 13th, 2007 at 2:41 pm @ everyone who’s tried this in the last month: thanks so much for the comments. the “wow!!!!1!!one”s are great, and they really make my day every time i read them. glad we could help you save some green! chung august 13th, 2007 at 11:32 pm yo thanks to this method i was able to fix my brother’s ipod photo. thank you for saving me about $250 man. some dude august 14th, 2007 at 11:43 am rockon i saved my girlfriends ipod after she thought i broke it it saved my relationship man peace out jpeso1000 august 14th, 2007 at 10:41 pm thanks saved my ipod nano4g!!!!!!!!!!!! was going crazy. big up matt hickey!! sedonia august 15th, 2007 at 12:01 pm holy cr*p! it worked! i was getting the frowny-face ipod man icon with an exclamation point after each reset, and my computer wouldn’t recognize it as a device. 10 minutes prying it apart and 5 seconds putting in a twice-folded business card fixed it! thank you matt! bk balla august 17th, 2007 at 9:41 am it worked foos adam u august 18th, 2007 at 3:36 am havent tried this yet my ipod was washed sadly and now it turns on shows the menu screen but when i press any button it will not do anything it will charge tho and shows my music on itunes not sure if this stuff will work ill try it tomarow any tips would be appreciated. ty =p julie august 19th, 2007 at 9:17 am i left my ipod t ocharge in one of those cheap version of the ipod home speaker system and now my ipod wont turn on. im not quite sure what to do? tim_fred_007 august 19th, 2007 at 11:58 pm ipod turns on, when pluged in immediatly charges, takes a very long time to be recognised as a drive, nothing with itunes. fully functional otherwise corey from utah august 20th, 2007 at 12:30 am the business card trick work for my first gen ipod, thanks! jubee august 20th, 2007 at 1:51 am thank you, thank you!!!! you’re my hero! jubee august 20th, 2007 at 2:04 am thank you, thank you!!!! you’re my hero! i just fixed my 1st gen ipod and i am not tech incline at all. matt for nobel prize! cook august 20th, 2007 at 2:39 am oh, wow! i found an ipod while i was doing some cleaning, throwing out the trash at work, i found an ipod nano…was all beat up and all, so i brought it home, the darn thing would not turn on, or charge for that matter. i tried the business card thing and behold…i got a “very low battery, please wait…” message. i hope that i have myself a new ipod nano. thanx guys! \m/_ _\m/ dc august 20th, 2007 at 5:47 pm i love you no homo this worked!!!!!!!! steven mcdonald august 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm ok so heres the thing… i did this and the ribbons all disconneted…. i’m not getting any power… when i plug it in to my computer it says please wait very low batter…. i didn’t have a low battery when it was working… any ideas whats wrong with it? rick august 21st, 2007 at 1:29 am opening the thing up and giving the hard drive a poke worked great. thanks. arif august 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm hi, i have a ipod video 60gb, the problem is that the ipod logo comes at the start for a cuple of seconds. then the ipod switches off. thats all it constantly does till the battery gets flat. what could be the solution? could you please foward the answer to :jigger204@msn.com dave august 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm plugged ipod into usb port and all of a sudden the ipod got warm and will not even come on ever hear of this problem dave august 21st, 2007 at 3:59 pm email is dawoz76@yahoo.com anonymous august 21st, 2007 at 9:26 pm this trick really worked. you’re the best! i had a fourth gen my friend was throwing away and now it’s all mine. anonymous august 21st, 2007 at 9:46 pm thanx dude. keep the good work dave august 21st, 2007 at 10:42 pm plugged ipod into the 3rd usb port witch we never used and it hasnt worked since it got real warm when we did–domeone help please dave august 21st, 2007 at 10:42 pm plugged ipod into the 3rd usb port witch we never used and it hasnt worked since it got real warm when we did–someone help please robert august 22nd, 2007 at 12:12 am trick didn’t work, exactly. removed paper, and restarted. worked! woohoo! braxton august 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 am your the fuckin man! faizan august 23rd, 2007 at 1:57 pm woowwwww !!! u the mannn !!!! finnaallyyyy … i think i just saved 200$ … yeahhh thanks a lot dude !!! =) wayne grimes august 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 pm thank you!!! it worked!!!!!!!!! you rock!!! wayne sam august 24th, 2007 at 1:49 am hi matt, just wanted to say that i appreciate your help. my ipod wouldn’t respond after recharging. i googled and got to your help page and did the reboot procedure and about 6 secs later i was back in business. simple fix but, unless you get very lucky, when you don’t know about it you’re out of luck. thanks again, sam ayush august 27th, 2007 at 1:52 pm thanx , it worked ,i just rebooted my ipod by pressing menu and select … wow it really worked … thanx guys emily august 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm fxcking awesome!!! thanks so much for this. i was browsing ebay earlier to purchase a new ipod but thanks to you i don’t have to give apple any more of my money! i can’t believe a business card fixed my ipod!! scott august 27th, 2007 at 8:51 pm holy crap!!! i can’t believe that worked! you guys are fantastic !! dennis august 29th, 2007 at 7:02 am unbelievable!!! the card trick worked. everyone told me that my ipod was trashed and i should use it as a paperweight. i use my ipod every day at the gym and was devastated when it stopped working. right now i do not have the money for a new one so i was willing to try anything. you guys are great, thank you. alejandro august 29th, 2007 at 11:56 am hey dude, the card trick doesnt work, and its not like i feel like buying the new hardrive thing. any other tricks and if u happen to live in spain could u give me a hand? dan august 29th, 2007 at 6:05 pm thanks for this! - helped me today blue_56 august 30th, 2007 at 12:34 pm my daughter’s u2 ipod was toast. i was going to get her a nano(beings she didn’t want a sandisk like i have,although she recently swiped it from me.) well, i was going to try the card trick, but before i decided to do it, i gave it a hard knock on the side. lo and behold! it works again. i’m going to talk her into something else when this thing dies for good. thanks guys. traveler14 august 30th, 2007 at 10:44 pm definitely helped……thank you lauren august 31st, 2007 at 8:05 am ha! i can’t believe the business card trick worked summer august 31st, 2007 at 8:32 am i need your help i was on my bus coming home from school.. and my friends got into a water fight and got my ipod wet.. it wont turn on only when i plug it into my computer..oh and one more thing..when i take the plug out of my ipod it turns off.. and i cant get it too work.. can you please help me..and tell me what to do to fix it? craig august 31st, 2007 at 10:14 am like all of the others it looks like it worked for me too. have not loaded my tunes back on it but as soon as i put the bus. card in place it booted up fine. it appears to be back to normal. thanks for the advice and saving me from buying another ipod. anton alm august 31st, 2007 at 10:41 am thnx. worked great for me, my baby is singin’ again! =) hapto september 1st, 2007 at 10:06 am its true, it did work.. and it has worked for about 8 months… tho after this long it seems as if the “shim” occasionally will slip off target, and the ipod will freeze…. but after some voodoo diagnostics, i have fixed it several times by firmly tapping the ipod on the side to “re-seat the shim” — if i ever end up going back in there, i’ll try adding a piece of double stick tape to hold the shim in place. but 8 months, man… that’s almost 250.00 i didn’t have to spend thanks to you! anson september 3rd, 2007 at 10:09 am you guys are lifesavers. seriously, how the hell did you figure that fix out?! jalen and zach september 4th, 2007 at 12:09 am thank you we had no idea about the help on the reboot thing thank you once again. carlos september 4th, 2007 at 5:22 am well i plugged in my 30g ipod on my car charger for like a minute then i unplugged it and left it in my bed like two minutes later i grabbed it and it was super hot i left it alone for a while and then didnt turn on not even itunes will turn it on what can i do? hannah september 4th, 2007 at 2:45 pm i was listening my to my ipod then i turned it off then later i went to go and plug it to itunes and it wouldnt turn on so i thought it might have been the itune wire but it wasnt it wasmy ipod what do i to make it turn back on ?? pat september 5th, 2007 at 10:51 pm i have a 4th generation 20g ipod. i was getting the frowning ipod logo. all i had to do was remove the cover, press on the back of the hard drive, and it came back to life. i didn’t even have to stick a credit card back there or anything. in my best borat impression, “very nice!!!” yudi september 7th, 2007 at 1:29 am thank you!! i just saved $300 by using your solution!!!!! loren september 7th, 2007 at 6:01 am you are an ipod god!! my deepest gratitude cannot be expressed in words. i have had my 4th gen ipod w/ click wheel since it was released nearly 5 years ago. it has worked like a gem up until late last week when all of a sudden i couldn’t get more than 4 seconds of music every 10 minutes or so as the drive spun up then clicked to a halt. my computer even stopped recognizing it all together. i had every icon you can think of from the non-animated dead battery (even on a full charge) to the sad ipod to the exclamation folder. all my problems were solved when i disassembled my ipod and put a folded business card between the drive and the casing! who knew it would be so easy. i am forever in debt to you and your genius. i admit that i would have been proud to have just retired a 4th gen ipod with an original battery providing 10 hours of listening time after 5 wonderful years but with your solution i hope that i will have more years to come. or at least until they wise up and put at least 40gb in the ipod touch! thanks again! miss frog september 7th, 2007 at 4:26 pm dear matt or anyone who can help, my computer (or any other computer) does not “see” my nano anymore, which means that it does not appear in itunes, which means i can’t restore it from the “restore” button. the reboot from the nano does not do anything to it. it won’t charge on the computer (no problem in the car) and i can’t update music. can you help? b-funk september 8th, 2007 at 4:04 am all about the biz card. you rock! mahahlo and aloha! helena september 8th, 2007 at 12:58 pm thank youuuu your right good i nearly paid to have it fixed xxxx katie martinello september 8th, 2007 at 3:36 pm ok im having truble with my ipod it got wet in a storm 2 weeks ago and it seems to be dry every thing works but it wont play musics it wount even move. so i dont no what to do so if you have an idea that could help me that would be great thx bye katie martinello hannah september 9th, 2007 at 8:06 am can anybody help myt ipod wont switch on so i have tried plugging it in to my sound station but it wont switch on still so i plugged it in to itunes but my name wouldnt come up and still no picture on my on my ipod has this ever happened to you please help me fix it i need it badly robyn september 10th, 2007 at 8:39 pm you are a genius!!! the business card trick totally worked on my 4th generation ipod photo 60gb. i was minutes away from buying a new one…thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! john september 10th, 2007 at 11:28 pm i didnt want to crakc open my 30 gig ipod photo. so i did this, ake your ipod, find a clamp like the ones on those workbenches to clamp objects together for glueing,l sanding, etc. insert ipod into aid clamp, tighten clamp tightly so the clamp is on the back and over the click wheel, (not the screen). then tighten very tightly, and behold,.ipod works again, and, if this breaks again, either retighten it with the clamps, or service it by apple., since it says nothing about putting your ipod in clamps voiding the warranty, this way,m ipod works, warranty not voided. josh september 11th, 2007 at 11:00 pm dude, you guys rock. who’d a figured that an old business card could fix my “destined to be dead” ipod. thanks! tony september 11th, 2007 at 11:39 pm cuando conecto el ipod en el pc y me dice: que esta restaurando el ipod y aparece error, que tengo que hacer para restaurarlo, la musica esta en mi pc j.r september 11th, 2007 at 11:49 pm well i have some trouble with my ipod 30gb …. i´m conect the ipod at the computer and itunes open later i make clic in restore and itunes said to me for hours restoring ipod what i can do? marc september 12th, 2007 at 9:01 pm man, mine was a pain in the ass to get open. george september 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm hey guys i bought a brand new ipod 80 gb one month ago. andddd today i rechareged it for about 5 hours obviously i forgot about it when i came to disconnect it, my comp put the message about “generic volume cannot be stopped……bla bla” so i shuted down my pc and when i took off the ipod it began boot and reboot and boot and reboot later it put a message “please wait low battery” and also if i take off the usb cable it turns off and the pc doesn’t take it so i can’t restore it guys can somebody help me? george september 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm and also it doesn’t rechargeeeeeeeeee i’d be happy if somebody helped me george september 13th, 2007 at 2:56 pm k 10x guys but i figured it out by myself and big 10x to the guy that mentioned the thing about pushing the play and the center buttons it have put my ipod into disk mode and it began recharging that’s one problem solved george september 14th, 2007 at 2:28 am damn it i was wrong it didn’t work it just can boot on disk mode please guys help me george september 14th, 2007 at 2:32 am and my ipod doesn’t show this ipod sad icon gabriel september 14th, 2007 at 4:49 pm wow, i thought i was going to have to go out and buy a new ipod when my 60 gb photo gb photo gave out, but thanks to you guys it works perfectly. thanks a lot guys. sharad september 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm john my man!!!!simply genius!!! u din require to b an einstine to figure that out!! and thnx to that it saved my warranty!!! all i did wz pressed all my clicking buttons together at the same time!! walla! gv september 16th, 2007 at 3:48 am holy crap batman, i can’t believe that actually worked! thanks! steve september 17th, 2007 at 12:57 pm i have an ipod nano 1st gen 1g and it will turn on but after that nothing happens. how do i fix this? max september 19th, 2007 at 5:26 am dude i tried this with my 4th gen 40gb black and white and it worked!!! thanks a lot buddy!! kris september 19th, 2007 at 10:45 am worked like a charm. *loves you* hipo september 20th, 2007 at 7:45 am worked cool tristan september 21st, 2007 at 1:14 am i couldn’t fucking believe it when the business card thing worked. thanks! sabrina september 21st, 2007 at 3:18 am i’m having a hard time opening this thing. i dont have a guitar pick or a screw driver…=/ suggestions? lou september 22nd, 2007 at 1:30 am son of a gun. the business card trick worked. i used a very thin paring knife to carefully lift up one of the corners. after that it was a breeze. thanks. you saved me a lot of money and hassle. this ipod had sentimental value since it was a gift and i didn’t want to just chuck it. ipod repair september 22nd, 2007 at 7:18 pm thanks! chris september 24th, 2007 at 7:44 pm thanks so much my 80 giug video continued to freeze and finally wasn;t even being seen by my computer. also when the battery was very low i had to reconnect and discinnect to sync. now it’s working like when i first got it si far. thanks so much!!!!! chris september 24th, 2007 at 7:50 pm bang that motherucker on the table!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! clark september 24th, 2007 at 7:53 pm hey guys, another success story for the business card fix. did it with my 4thg 20gb that the hard drive sounded like it had someone with a hammer and chisel inside of it everytime i tried turning it on. thanks! jack walsh september 25th, 2007 at 2:00 am you guys have made my year, that’s for sure. thanks to you guys, i just practically scored myself a free 20gb ipod! a friend of mine lent me his old ipod (him since then upgraded to an 80gb video) and said it was practically mine if it was fixed. so for a good hour or so i stared at it primitively scratching my head. then the preverbial light in my head sparked on. it was probably a simple, ho-hum hardware issue. so one google search, snapped guitar pick & folded post-it later, here i am thanking you guys. it’s funny how resourceful people choose not to be when their ipods decide they’re taking long-service leave. random guy september 25th, 2007 at 8:35 am great job, 1 cent worth of paper and 5 minutes openining the back of the ipod saved me alota cash. geoff september 25th, 2007 at 4:57 pm i came to this page after taking my 60-gig 4th-gen ipod to the paramus apple store. the guy at the counter ran the same internal diagnostic i’d run about 10 times since the unit started hiccuping, then stopped booting at all, a few weeks ago. i was about to open it using your instructions, until i had that “just one more try” moment and started the ipod holding it horizontally with the screen toward the floor. mind you, there’s been a bit of a rattling like a loose screw in the unit for a while. lo and behold, it started again and played again (although holding the pause button won’t put it into sleep mode). i’ve been listening to it all day and tried rebooting it a couple of times. it reboots, but the drive doesn’t sound as though it’s moving with nearly as much ease as it should. could a screw have come loose within the hard drive, and if so is that fixable? many thanks for any advice. sammi september 25th, 2007 at 5:51 pm it works thanks so much a.j. podman september 25th, 2007 at 7:06 pm wow buddy, thanks sooo much for the ipod help. i have a 4th generation ipod picture, and to repair it would’ve been the same price as a brand new 5th generation ipod video what a scam. but, its working like new now! thanks again! jessica september 26th, 2007 at 1:56 pm thank you!!!! you are a lifesaver! i was about to have a nervous break-down after visiting the “genius” bar at the apple store. they told me ipod was a goner - along with all 7,000 i had rated, commented on, etc. i came home did a quick internet search & found this site. it worked like a charm. yo september 26th, 2007 at 7:57 pm ty lili september 27th, 2007 at 10:41 pm my ipod stay fros it only said conectado expulsar mediante tunes i conected with my computer but it dosent goes is the same what should i do liz september 29th, 2007 at 1:09 am thank you soooooo much, i was about to cry!!! k. poore september 29th, 2007 at 7:45 am you are a myracle worker!!!!! this shit even works on 1st generation nanos!!!!!! thanks yellowswan september 30th, 2007 at 7:38 am the audio jack on my video ipod broke last week so i went back to my 4th gen ipod photo - it had not worked in a year. i need my music at work so i tried the card trick and it worked. a simple card folded in half - fuck you apple. simon september 30th, 2007 at 1:45 pm awesome dude, thx heaps i almost threw it out the window thinking i lost all the data i had on it, its working perfectly now, better make back-up, thx again man tyler september 30th, 2007 at 10:35 pm you guys are badass it worked like a charm everything works again thanks for the help taylor october 1st, 2007 at 2:31 am umm help me!1! i just skimmed over your typing things and i dont know if you answered this already but: the apple logo wouldnt go away! so i reset my ipod and…now it wont turn on!!!! helpp!!! carolyn october 1st, 2007 at 5:28 pm and yet another word of praise for this unorthodox but very effective method. took me awhile to get the back separated but then reset it and it works perfectly. you are totally awesome. stevo october 2nd, 2007 at 11:48 am taylor.. i am also having the same problem…. i think something is wrong with the hard drive… i took my pod apart and took out the hard drive then reconnected it and now its just waiting to charge…… i think that did the trick .. try at ur own risk..im working on an ipod i got for free ana october 2nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm ohh myy! so i restored everything on my 30g ipod, and now its telling me that im supposed to connect it to something? the screen on my ipod has a wall outlet and i think a charger going into the outlet, im not sure. (well at least i thought it was a charger) so i went and bought a charger, and connected it… and it still isnt working! heeellpp gabby october 3rd, 2007 at 9:33 am hi. i have a 30g 5th generation ipod and it wont work, and im freaking out…as you can see. so the other day i plugged it into my dads laptop to let it charge and then the screen said “switched to disk mode” and now any computer i plug it into wont recognize it and when i try to turn it on it shows the apple and the light comes on like its about to show the menu, but then it clicks and turns off for like 2 seconds. then it does this over and over again until it dies. its like its trying to turn on, but it wont and i have absolutely no idea what to do! i just got it last week and i know if this one is broken, my parents will never buy me another one. i would restore it, but it doesnt show up on my itunes anymore. it wont turn on!!! please please please please help me. momfromohio october 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm well my son just bought an ipod nano(blue) from wal-mart on 9-29, his b-day, lost his reciept and now the thing will not do anything. now wal-mart willn ot return it without the reciept.the computer was finding it when it was plugged in, but now the computer will not even find it when it gets plugged in. no life to the thing at all, nothing happens when i try to turn it on, toggle the switch, push the buttons..lol..nothin..thought about sending it to apple to have fix but who knows how much that is going to cost me. any suggestions from anyone, sure would help out a lot….. email me please…tburrows04@comcast.net kezz october 3rd, 2007 at 9:24 pm fuck it worked dominique october 3rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm i just wanted to say u are awesome. my boyfriend who is a computer guru told me i had to buy a new hardrive so much for trusting in men to do electronic jobs haha but thanx i just saved money using this site!!!! apple = fail october 4th, 2007 at 12:54 pm man . . . i got a mini few years ago, bout a year ago it did the smiley face thing. i tried hittin it on the side which worked for a few months, but then it just stopped . . . i ended up raging and throwing it as high as i could, then into a brick wall repeatedly, then i bashed the screen in with a screwdriver. lmao . . . and now i read this. *sigh* last september i bought an 80 gig video, and about 2 months it buggered up with the usual didnt sync, and restore bullshit, and now i couldnt get anything on it it would just keep tellin me to restore . .. so i headbutted it lol. shes working great now. binky october 7th, 2007 at 11:50 pm good, my friend is extactic that we fixed her crappy ipod photo works again. hurray ^__^ thanks a bunch people whip3 october 8th, 2007 at 11:45 am well the banging and the spacer card didn’t work.. at first. but i searched around and found a couple of other problems. 1) the battery cable was loose so no pwr to the ipod - disconnected and checked for bent prod - fixed and reseated cable. this fixed the power problem but no boot. 2) reseated the hd cable and inserted the spacer - tadaaa!!! working!! thanks to all! juli october 8th, 2007 at 7:38 pm it worked!! amazing. i love you. rick october 9th, 2007 at 2:17 pm you rule!! i just did step 1 and brought my nano back to life thanks! michael october 10th, 2007 at 5:13 pm i can’t beleve what just happened. i am in ireland and my ipod 20 gig just stopped. i got the little sad face guy and could not get rid of it. rang apple and got through to england. guy asked a few questions and then proceeded to tell me i could send it back with 169 sterling (300euro) and he would not fix it but send me a new one. i found your site and opened ipod and pressed the spoonge back down hard. my ipod started working again. i feel like going to england and choking that guy whn he leaves the office. ill never buy and apple product again. they where not help., why did they not give em the advise you did. it as a rip off. micel derek october 10th, 2007 at 9:44 pm thanks for tip mang! shit worked like a champ. peace from the nyc dirt october 11th, 2007 at 9:47 am matt brought my 30 gig in for repair after getting water in the thing the apple repair shop recommended me replacing my ipod for a new 120 - 150 gig as my old one was scratched to shit, for a small fee of $450 us (in thailand i would add). i told them i liked my ipod “as is”, just try and fix it. ( knowing that if they did fix it than i would save money) not remembering they don’t fix ipods i ended up shelling out 150 us. well not one week later i spilled coke in my other 60 gig pod! urggggg urggg. i tell you there is no way those ipod nazis are getting another buck out of me (in the near future) instead i am placing my faith in you brother it would seem that you have a very faithful and satisfied following. wish me luck. jay paul october 11th, 2007 at 11:47 am my ipod has a grey screen and charges for 2 mins then freexes anyone help please sai october 11th, 2007 at 2:24 pm u guys r the best. i was about to give up on my ipod and decided to google to see if i could find some help. thanks to ur website i now have full use of the ipod again, which has sat in my top dresser drawer for the whole summer. thank you sooooo much. keep up the good work! shannon october 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm oh my god!!!! thank you - thank you - thank- you!!!! i actually have tears in my eyes… thought it was hopeless… bless you people! stocky october 13th, 2007 at 2:20 am i had a blank screen on my 40 gig - it just stopped! no sad face nothing… but step 1 fixed it thank very much ac october 13th, 2007 at 11:35 am in the middle of converting from a mac formatted ipod to a pc formatting, ipod froze up and wouldn’t work at all. found this page in the middle of my distress and never got the case open but got pissed off and slammed it on my dresser. and guess what….it works! david of seattle october 13th, 2007 at 8:17 pm simply amazing !!! you rock. i work in this industry and can’t believe that the card trick worked…… wow.. now on to my second ipod that got damp but suspect a logic card since the hard drive should be sealed. many thanks,,, david lou october 14th, 2007 at 11:31 am thanks so much…awesome advice. moe farooqi october 14th, 2007 at 12:54 pm when i turn on my ipod it says (www.apple.com/support/ipod) deb october 14th, 2007 at 11:24 pm holy crap…that worked like a charm! it was way easy too! african boy october 15th, 2007 at 5:32 am just when i was looking at a brighter future (my ipod lasted just 2 days b4 it started its problem). suddenly the ipod froze (kept showing “do not disconnect”), windows said “delayed write failed”, had to let ipod run down hoping to restart, now all i get is an apple icon and a sad ipod. help. –don’t try these repairs on your new ipod; these are for “bricked” units that nobody will care about should you muck it up. but if you do have success, let us know here, it makes us feel warm and fuzzy knowing that we’ve helped.– mark october 16th, 2007 at 7:00 pm yeah just be careful when u take the back casing off… i fucked up my screen so bad so i cant tell if its fixed or not im a noob andrea october 16th, 2007 at 7:45 pm my ipod won’t turn on, and it always shows a black screen (an off blackscreen). i’ve put it in the charger and the computer says that it is connected, but it still won’t come on! (and i’ve charged it for hours too…) i just got it about 4 days ago… five october 16th, 2007 at 8:06 pm i woke up today with a dead 1 year old 80gb video ipod. no life whatsoever, no connection possible to computer, no ‘whizz’ sound that its starting up, no sound from headphones. i read this post and found it logical to try the ‘business card’ approach so i pried the thing open with my fingernalis and put in the folded business car, put it back together and whammo! my ipod is back to life. what a great trick, thanks so much for posting this. :d ps i pulled the ribbon out of the connector for the battery, so had to put 4 or 5 layers of little pieces of scotch tape on the white side in order to get a snug fit when i pushed it back in. special attention was paid to the correct way to put it in… match the gold with the gold. anyhow alls well that ends well. eddie october 16th, 2007 at 9:42 pm ok i have a quick fix that will work if you are just getting the apple logo. first, plug it into you mac/pc. second, wait a little while (like 7-10 minutes). next unplug it and try pressing each of the buttons a few times. if this doesnt work then wait with it unplugged for a bit then after a few minutes you will get the language choosing screen and then you ipod will go to the main menu and you’re good to go ellie october 17th, 2007 at 12:17 pm matt, you are indeed a wonder, and all of the alcolades are well-deserved. my ipod was not displaying - the white screen of death. i could hear music, but i could not see the menu. i opened the unit, cleaned it a bit, and put in 1/2 of my business card, folded, above where the display unit is installed. i close the unit, and turn it over, and what was the first beautiful sight there? the apple! oh, joy in the morning. i did break the tiny plastic piece around the connector slot at the bottom of the unit so others beware. but that is a small price to pay! thanks!! corey october 17th, 2007 at 7:51 pm hey! while looking at the minor surgery part, and yelling at my ipod to start working again, it did! so, your website scared the shit out of it. thanks! crabbie october 17th, 2007 at 11:11 pm so, i’m a total goober and washed my ipod. how can i fix it? crabbie october 17th, 2007 at 11:12 pm ytes i’m a total goober and washed my ipod. how can i fix it? anonymous october 18th, 2007 at 4:04 am ryan. i do however have one question, i’m wondering if you can help me out here, i was updating my ipods firmware on itunes the other day, and as you probably know the first step in updating firmware is erasing the old. unfortunately i unplugged the cable right after the firmware was deleted my ipods firmware is now a resemblance of nothingness and my computer doesnt recognize it anymore, not even in “my computer” or “comand promt” here is a direct link of a video i posted showing what it’s doing now- http://www.metacafe.com/watch/458699/ipod_hacking_can_be_fatal/ any help will be much appreciated and probably save my life my email adress is xslatex@sbcglobal.net ———————————————————————————————- this is what we call ‘bricked’… nothing what you can to about it now.. you problably just have to buy a new one. darren october 18th, 2007 at 1:32 pm whoaaa! it worked. dude, you are the best. tip for others — use a razor blade to score around the edge and cut the glue bond. i jabbed the screwdriver into my hand several times before realizing that. you’re great. j.l.graham october 19th, 2007 at 12:03 am i can’t believe it. it worked! man, you just don’t know how much cash you saved me. the muse october 19th, 2007 at 12:04 am i’m surprised ipod hasn’t sued you for posting this, particularly after all the iphone hoopla. (rolls eyes) james h. peterson iii october 19th, 2007 at 1:15 pm many thanks for the reference to ifixit. brilliant. between your instructions and their instructions, the 20 is now a working 60 at less then half the cost of a new one. thanks. mike october 20th, 2007 at 4:33 pm just want to thank gid who made a comment on march 6th. i have a 60g ipod video that got into a constant cycle of powering up and down. wouldn’t get past the apple icon before powering back down. my computer and itunes didn’t recognize it. repeated resetting using the menu-select keys did not get it out of the mode. was going to just let the battery drain to see if it reset but read where gid had mentioned that the computer might recognize it if i put the ipod in hard drive mode. it worked. once the computer recognized it, i took it out of hard drive mode and used itunes to reset it once more before i did a final resynch and recharge. great suggestion. appreciate it! i’m sure that the contributors to this site are helping many. thank you. mo october 21st, 2007 at 5:11 pm stuck a playing card behind the harddrive and it booted up. thanks! gerell october 21st, 2007 at 6:51 pm holy crap…the whole puting the paper in the ipod thingy worked. i swear. i thought my ipod was broke for sure. but i took it apart and slabed a peace of paper in there and i worked…wow. awesome. im speechless. thanks gerell october 21st, 2007 at 6:55 pm lol im leaving another comment because its so awesome…its just a peace of paper…and i love that peace of paper…lol ok enough. thanks dude. edjahman october 21st, 2007 at 7:52 pm i accidentally found this site and i cannot thank you enough. my ipod is quite old and i was extremely sad when it malfunctioned. it was pathetically easy to open with a small screwdriver, just like the one shown. watch the ribbon cable man! thank you!!! i love you! –ejm edjahman october 21st, 2007 at 7:54 pm btw. i did the card thing and it worked like a charm. originally, i just pressed on the metal case to ‘jump start’ it but it would randomly lock up after a while. –ejm siel october 21st, 2007 at 10:19 pm i was really skeptical but it worked. the “genius” at the apple store told me it was toast and i got home all pissed off did a google search and no more sad ipod! david october 22nd, 2007 at 7:09 am hey matt, nice work with the fix it tips but i’ve got a problem, my 80g ipod fell into a bucket of water and since then it has refused to come on, the last i saw on d lcd was a message about the battery being low which i doubt cos it was fully charged when it went into the bucket…also my computer doesnt recognise it and it says my device is malfunctioning…..pls pls wot do i do? carrieb october 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm hi there you saved me loads of money it was easy to follow instructions and it sprung to life within seconds thanks alot i have only had the thing 2 years and refuse to buy another one ….. ray october 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm hi, i have a 60gb ipod photo. i was playing my my music through my bose sound dock like always and suddenly one day the ipod won’t charge anymore. i connect the ipod to my powerbook and everything is fine, charge, open itunes, etc. i connect the ipod to the wall and charge, but when i connect it to the sound dock doesn’t charge and try in my car with the car charger and nothing. only works with the computer and the wall charger. does anybody knows what the hell it’s?????? i opened and had disconnect the battery, the hard drive, i waited for more than an hour and connect everything again………..and nothing, same thing. this just happened! heeeeeelp! i have to charge my ipod first and then hear it in my sound dock untill the battery die…. what a f….. thanks cc october 23rd, 2007 at 7:12 am i have a ipod photo 60gb. i put in a folded business card and it didn’t work. reading the other comments, i then threw it at the floor (carpet). it works now =d thank you! bethany xx october 23rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm omg ur amazing!!! how did u find out about dat!! omg i lluurv u cuz i fianally got my ipod bac! thankyou soooooooooo much!xxxxxxxxx curious october 24th, 2007 at 9:59 pm ugh this my be a childish mistake and it is probably my fault… but i accidentally drop it and now the image is frozen from the song i was hearing. so is it completely broken or can i somehow restart it…(like a pc) curious october 25th, 2007 at 1:36 am i restart it and it seem i got back but i can’t use my wheel somehow it won’t move donald christensen october 25th, 2007 at 1:50 pm matt: you rock! this fixed my ipod!!! and you rock more for having radiohead’s amnesiac on that first image… -d maiky october 25th, 2007 at 5:12 pm hey, fantastic!! my 4th gen ipod was totally bricked: disk rw failed. i had the same problem fixed in step 3, but instead of taking the ipod apart, i just firmly pressed the back off the ipod inward! i don’t know if this is recommended, but it did the trick for me! michiel babs october 26th, 2007 at 9:36 am wow! my ipod just froze inexplicably and the simplest thing - holding down the menu button - made it work again! thanks muchly, this was really helpful! gina october 26th, 2007 at 4:28 pm thank you soooooo much! my ipod froze and this site helped me fix it….you rock :). anonymous october 28th, 2007 at 6:38 am thank you for the helpful advice. best regards from germany peter october 28th, 2007 at 11:07 am i kept getting the message: please go to www.apple.com/support/ipod and it wouldn’t boot up. can you help? jackie october 29th, 2007 at 1:27 am i love you. i love you so hard. anthony critchley october 31st, 2007 at 7:25 am i can’t thank you enough - i really thought my ipod was truly dead!!! cheers! sung shin october 31st, 2007 at 10:03 pm i tried the buisness card and didnt work i guess mines toast. but i really dont want to spend 120 dollars on a new hardware…. gazi november 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm http://alankus.com/main/node/175 don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix don’t open your ipod, this is easy to fix http://alankus.com/main/node/175 prime minist november 3rd, 2007 at 1:22 am omg!! u guys rocks 4sho, ya did save me sum$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$, thanks a lots pimp. khary november 5th, 2007 at 11:14 am dude you are a genius. the first 2 times i did it nothing worked because i was putting the paper on the wrong side. then i analyzed the pic and was like oh i’m an idiot i’m covering the battery not the hard drive. worked right away! can’t thank you guys enough! i have a 5th generation 30g video by the way. monte november 5th, 2007 at 11:26 pm i’m mortified stupified and petrified that step #3 (the business card) worked, but it did. many thanks, this really made my day. omar november 6th, 2007 at 12:07 am dude you are fucking awesome gazi november 6th, 2007 at 1:42 am hmm, people are not listening… guys, don’t open your ipods. your ipod is not booting simply because it does not recharge enough before attempting to boot. follow the instructions at the end of this post: http://alankus.com/main/node/175 pistol november 6th, 2007 at 2:37 pm thanks for your help. the business card brought my u2 back to life. colin november 6th, 2007 at 10:05 pm tried the business card but it didn’t seem to work, so i cracked it back open and disconnected the battery for about 10 sec. and then reconnected it. bam! it’s alive!!! thanks! john pyle november 7th, 2007 at 9:55 am hi…hope someone can help me here…my ipod, i think it might be 4th or 5th gen…(it has the round wheel that clicks when you touch it)….is working ok apart from 1 thing….it doesnt play any music….!…when i go to an album for example and press play, after a couple of seconds pause, the screen displays every individual song on the album (about 1 second for each) then returns to the main menu once the final track has been displayed…. when i said it doesnt play any music, it wasnt strictly true… when i go to shuffle songs, itll do the same thing, for maybe 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9 songs (there is no pattern) and eventually it will play a song….at the end of that song however it does the same thing….flicks thru a selection, with no pattern, and eventually plays something…maybe this is quite a common malfunction??….after reading the letters/advice on here, i cant imagine there is that much wrong with it…thanks….john… droski92wo november 7th, 2007 at 9:40 pm omfg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love u man!!!! it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! paul november 7th, 2007 at 11:44 pm thanks so much. my ipod ‘bricked’ on me for the first time tonight, and then i stumbled on this nyt article (and link). now it works. you are user-friendly folks! dan november 7th, 2007 at 11:52 pm i, like many others, i suspect, got to this site after reading the article in the new york times. let me just say, this is the best news i’ve read in a newspaper in ages — and i’m a reporter!! thanks a million. gmort november 7th, 2007 at 11:54 pm capt. crunch, i am a visitor from the nytimes website. my ipod photo has been collecting dust in a drawer for the past 6 months ever since i kept on getting the “evil folder” icon. this site looks extremely helpful, and i can’t wait to try out the suggestions! giza november 8th, 2007 at 12:15 am tried the card, no dice — hd just made a bunch of noise, and the ipod wouldn’t turn off again after turning it on. when i took the card out again, it’s back to its usual crapdom. i can listen to half of each song i can coax onto the pod. dan november 8th, 2007 at 12:27 am you are a rock star. here i am reading the nyt at midnight with my ipod sitting in a drawer for the last several months … got nothing to lose by taking a screwdriver to it, and now the sonofabitch is cranking again. knew my business cards would come in handy some day. thanks, man. can i be your agent? november 8th, 2007 at 1:09 am dude, nice press in the times. this is some serious genius. you gotta come up with some more crap we can all shove business cards into and then get us to send you some presidents on paypal. shit works x billions of lame ipods = new porsche. call me. a november 8th, 2007 at 1:21 am amazing - this actually worked really well! admittedly, it takes much longer than 15 minutes to pry the thing open. lola november 8th, 2007 at 5:11 am is it possible to repair an ipod where the screen is slightly broken and the graphics does not appear? someone crying for ipod help november 8th, 2007 at 5:24 am my ipod has its screen like light up for a day now and im scared. its not easy to buy ipods in my country because they cost a lot more than in the us. should i go to an apple store and get this fixed? please help me with this felipe from brazil november 8th, 2007 at 5:27 am hi, i live in brazil and here don´t have support for fix my zune, somebody know how to fix it? it´s doesn´t turn on. jojo november 8th, 2007 at 5:41 am thanks man. it worked. my 80gb video ipod was fully charged and out of nowhere, it just died. nothing worked and i was about the throw it on the ground thinking i now had to buy the ipod touch. ben the editor november 8th, 2007 at 6:45 am it works! congratulations, you have just cost apple $440, as i now cannot justify buying the 16gb ipod touch i was lusting after (uk prices). can’t wait to try this on my 20gb 3g as soon as i can find it - it had exactly the same fault. should be great to use in the car… once again - thanks for nothing!!!! lol. ben ps - felipe, this may not be the place for that query (!). liz november 8th, 2007 at 10:41 am woo hoo!! you helped us fixed a cranky 15 year old’s ipod. we just pushed hard on the back of the device. hopefully, we won’t have to resort to the paper we’d like to put off surgery as long as possible!! thank you!! josh november 8th, 2007 at 11:37 am thank you, i can’t wait to try this out. gt november 8th, 2007 at 1:00 pm new york times article sent me here. like many others, i just banged around trying to get through step one opening the case — my ipod 40g suddenly came alive again! will try the “card trick” if or when problem comes up again. thanks. nsr november 8th, 2007 at 2:10 pm tried the business card fix, didn’t work. took the ipod apart, pulled the hard drive out, banged it against my desk a couple times, put it back in and now the ipod works. go figure! ahetz november 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm i dropped my i-pod on the ground and it still works, but nothing shows up on the screen. any suggestions? rayman november 8th, 2007 at 3:29 pm shweeeeeeeeet! christina november 8th, 2007 at 3:43 pm just read the article the in nyt about your fixes and went to track down my special edition ipod that hasn’t worked in two years in spite having tried a few of the fixes listed above in the past with no success. i plugged in the ipod just now and now it seems to be functioning. perhaps we can add “just let it rest for 2 years” as a new fix… *sigh* ian november 8th, 2007 at 5:30 pm please add me to the list. thanks lots. vviv november 8th, 2007 at 7:09 pm tip: hey those having trouble opening ipod-i did too it’s ridiculously simple!! dont aim straight into the seam (i did that for an hour)-which is what photo looks like-aim your implement downward into silver back portion and pry it apart and it does slip apart very easily. so with ipod facing up on flat surface thin knife or whatever aim it into seam and then downward-hope that’s clear. question: card did not fix mine– as i get dead battery symbol when i hook it to mac, so i guess now what i need is a new battery. but i still hear a whizzing and click and was told by macgenius that i had hard drive failure-and i don’t have that blue foaming padding in mine…does anyone know if i should try thicker paper then? jen november 8th, 2007 at 7:26 pm hey dude, you’re probably tired of this by now, but thanks!– saw the link in the nytimes and figured what the hell–i had a 4g and a photo that have been sitting in a drawer for over a year and half — i was about to drop 60 bucks on a few batteries, hoping that would fix it and then i thought i’d try this first — damned if it didn’t work on both! for everyone having a hard time opening these, be patient — a guitar pick is seriously the best way to go, just pry the edge a little with a screwdriver or knife and shove the pick in. then, just work it all the way around until it pops. anyway, thought i’d add my voice to the millions. you rule man!!!!!!!!!!! anyone have any feedback on how long this fix lasts? am i going to need to change the card every few months or what? tish november 8th, 2007 at 7:37 pm i thought my 3g ipod was totally dead - i didn’t get any errors or icons of any sort! it wouldn’t even charge when i plugged it in. read the ny times article, then the posts here and figured i’d try dropping it on the floor first. it totally worked. that rocked!!!! vviv november 8th, 2007 at 7:58 pm to followup on my card failure-i read thru a bunch of the posts, and one guy said dont make the paper too thick. in photo looks like it’s four layers, i did two layers only –1 inch square, closed it agian and it’s working after over a year of sitting dead in my glove compartment. thank you so much, i let out a whoop of joy i was so happy youve saved me like $ 300 and as one sour puss says “it won;t last” well, it was totally broke before so any time workign is good for me. thanks! ryan november 8th, 2007 at 9:13 pm freaking brilliant! i owe somebody lunch. willow november 8th, 2007 at 9:21 pm the macgenius said there was nothing that could be done. i held on to my dead ipod for almost two years and now it works! thank you so much! arinda november 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm it worked - thanks a lot cecilia november 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm my ipod had a case of the “clicks”. before cracking it open, i decided to bang it a few times on a table (with a stack of paper as padding) and it is working just like before. thank you thank you! allie november 8th, 2007 at 9:57 pm for those with a dinosaur ipod like mine (i think it is a first or second generation - almost four years old) it may not work. i tried the paper trick and now it’s just vibrating - yikes! guess i will be getting a new one… amanda november 8th, 2007 at 10:04 pm thanks to whoever suggested dropping the ipod on the ground - i had tried everything, it broke a month after the warranty expired and had been broken for over a year, and now suddenly just by dropping it, it came back to life! thanks so much! ecktor november 9th, 2007 at 12:21 am holy sh*t. it worked. thanks a ton! i didn’t even have the case reassembled and it was booted up and ready for action. to make this sweeter, i don’t have my prior laptop with my itunes library any longer and my 4th generation ipod was dead for >6 months… so this fix just saved me a ton of money and time on new downloads. i had the assistance of yamipod to move the files from ‘pod to laptop. (www.yamipod.com) and to those wankers saying “don’t open it… warranty, battery, blah blah blah” i politely say: bite me. i don’t care if it lasts 30 seconds longer, at least i got my music onto my new laptop. ianita november 9th, 2007 at 12:57 am hi, i have a 5g ipod that is barely 1 year old and rarely used…. when i connect the ipod to the usb, it is not recognized by the computer at all… i have tried different usbs, the 5 rs and everything else mentioned on the apple website…. still it is not recognized… will it be solved by one of your solutions above? thanks anonymous november 9th, 2007 at 1:27 am matt hickey, thank you so much for coming up with such a creative solution to a problem that has so clearly frustrated many people. you should be proud of yourself. kyle november 9th, 2007 at 1:35 am matt hickey, thank you so much for coming up with such a creative creative solution that has so clearly frustrated many, many people. you should be proud of yourself. howie november 9th, 2007 at 1:36 am crazy!!! chino981 november 9th, 2007 at 2:20 am i can’t believe it!!!!! the fix took 2 min, and my piece of #$%& 4th gen is up and working again. now, will it work on an ipod mini? anyone have success? alex november 9th, 2007 at 4:22 am thanks. adriana november 9th, 2007 at 4:23 am i can’t believe this. it works! i’m so upset with the way they tell you at apple there is nothing you can do when your ipod dies. for them is just a fact of life. like you have to buy a new ipod every year… thanks so much, this is wonderful. patrick november 9th, 2007 at 5:23 am i can’t believe it. not possible. i had to pinch myself when my 4g showed something other than the sad face for the first time in over a year. damn thing works great now! david november 9th, 2007 at 6:52 am thanks so much. the ipod suddenly stopped in the middle of a song. i couldn’t do anything (my manual is about 7000 km away from me). i did the reboot, and, as we say in australia, ‘bob’s your uncle,’ i.e. it worked. any advice on how to get itunes to recognise your music library after transferring it to a new computer?? kim november 9th, 2007 at 10:03 am i dont have a sad face on mine.. it just wont turn on.. any quick fix for the battery? which i think is the case……. jamie l november 9th, 2007 at 10:41 am i can’t believe this. my ipod has had a sad face since june and miraculously it has come back to life with the business card trick. thank you so much. eilis november 9th, 2007 at 11:52 am hi i am 12 years old.i have one of the new ipod nano ones. i didn’t try any of the bits of advice because i’m after finding this. it won’t turn on.i just don’t know what is wrong with it.when i press a button turn it on it stays blank .hellllllllllllllllllppppppppppppppppp! josh bisker november 9th, 2007 at 11:55 am genius. paloma november 9th, 2007 at 12:25 pm hooray! i’ve had a dead 4th gen for 9 months–i knew it was worth saving. read about you in the nyt, grabbed the old brick, plugged it in, saw the dreaded x-ed out eye ipod cartoon and dropped it on the floor. the screen flickered for a second and up came that familiar apple boot screen. no surgery needed! i haven’t used this many exclamation points since junior high. starstuff november 9th, 2007 at 1:16 pm thanks for posting this! with your help i brought my mothballed 4th gen back from the great beyond. talk about a simple and elegant solution! thanks again! creneef november 9th, 2007 at 5:01 pm i had a question. my ipod nano was plugged into the computer when someone shut the computer off. all my songs were deleted but the memory is still being taken up. how do i fix that? will november 9th, 2007 at 8:15 pm worked perfectly. this thing has been dead for years, i had photos on this thing that have been previously thought to be lost forever. pure genius. thank you! maria november 9th, 2007 at 8:53 pm hi - i have a problem, my ipod is the old ipod mini and i cannot open it. somebody knows how? thanks maria paul november 9th, 2007 at 8:54 pm my 40gb 4th gen just came back to life with this tip. it’s been on its way out for a fair few months now and recently i’ve just been getting the exclamation mark folder. i opened it up, stuck a folded up business card into it, and it booted up no problems at all. now what to do with that new 8gb nano my sister got me for my birthday… tony november 9th, 2007 at 9:00 pm absolutely amazing. my daughter’s 20 gb ipod is up and running again after jamming a biz card in the case. of course, the new nano she bought to replace what we thought was a dead ipod doesn’t really work. it just ate all her music. somewhere in the world there must be an everest-size pile of defective ipods. erobin november 9th, 2007 at 9:58 pm my husband and my son just fixed my husband’s ipod, which had been broken for months. he was about to toss it when he saw this site mentioned in the nyt. you rock. thanks so much for putting this site up. you saved us the cost of a new ipod - money we don’t have. glu november 10th, 2007 at 12:59 am you are the best! vicki november 10th, 2007 at 1:59 am i love you… it worked. david november 10th, 2007 at 9:38 am the folded paper fix is simple and brilliant. i have a “franken pod” that i patched together from parts salvaged from a pile of “bricked” ipods. basically it is a 40 gig ipod click wheel with a 60gig drive and extra sized battery from a ipod . i had to stip a lot of the shock absorption padding to get it all to fit and mod the case a bit (i used the click wheel’s top and the ipod photo’s bottom…a real pain to get together). it worked great for about 8 months and then stopped working. no amount or manner of resetting would help. however, when i cracked it open again, inserted a wad of paper and sealed her up, the thing started immediately and works like a charm again. thanks again for this elegant fix. rlh november 10th, 2007 at 11:05 am i got the sad computer and had already replaced my ipod when i found the article on the ny times. all i did was get the small screwdriver out and start the process of opening the thing when it realized it should get it’s shit together. i now have two working ipods. thank you!!! raymon t november 10th, 2007 at 11:41 am thanks for the excellent handy-man tip. my son’s ipod died, so he replaced it. the next day the ny times article appeared, i followed instructions (getting the face off without too many nicks was a bit tricky), spent some time deciding which business card to stick in, then was the proud owner of my first (working like new) ipod. i love it. ks november 10th, 2007 at 1:43 pm i second rlh — my supposedly dead 4th gen ipod worked after i simply loosened up the rim of its case with a flat-edged screwdriver. i didn’t even fully open the case, much less put anything inside. it’s interesting that the basic problem has to do with pressure. so simple. ben fouche november 10th, 2007 at 2:37 pm amazing. my ipod wouldn’t boot so i took the back off and put a piece of paper against the hard-drive and now wallah. it works perfect. took about 5 minutes. thanks a lot bonnie november 10th, 2007 at 3:13 pm i saw this page mentioned in the ny times, long after losing hope for my little guy. i followed the directions and it worked! thanks so much! i’m definitely going to recommend this to other people who need help raising their ipod from the grave. annie c. november 10th, 2007 at 4:00 pm another ny times reader … i had put the dead ipod in the drawer for about a year…read the article…voila! the fix worked. peter november 10th, 2007 at 4:18 pm for 3rd gen nanos, if the power is too low, win xp won’t recognize it. so just charge it with a wall socket either before or at the same time you plug in the usb, and it will sync. pkeys november 10th, 2007 at 6:00 pm yo! so my ipods been broke for nigh on a year. i had given up hope, but i kept it around, and now i see this website! i just cracked open my broken down ipod, and found some screws loose inside the ipod. i screwed them back in where they were supposed to go, and also put in the 16th inch thick piece of paper. we’ll see how long this wonder lasts… thanks! bernardo t november 10th, 2007 at 6:22 pm uahuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is outstanding, genius…. and at the same time infuriating that apple would allow such predictable and preventable problem to happen!!! smells like… microsoft? and to matt — thank you; this is what makes the web what it is. could you have made money out of this? possibly (and maybe you did). did you withhold information? nope. best way to get something is to give first…. will pay it forward. awesome dude. diggin’ it now. cory november 10th, 2007 at 9:24 pm you guys are the best! this is awesome. i fixed harddrive in 3 min with folded paper. unbelievable. thanks! kyle november 10th, 2007 at 11:00 pm it’s a miracle!!!! you fine sir are a saint. i never believed it could work, and i’m not gonna ask how you figured that one out, but it did. i felt that without an ipod in in my life i wasn’t completely whole. the counting crows (playing on my resurected ipod) say it best…”you don’t know what you got till’ it’s gone.” well i know what i have now, a working ipod!!! i feel…alive? anonymous november 10th, 2007 at 11:34 pm omg, that worked. i cannot believe it. sean november 11th, 2007 at 12:06 am i can’t friggin believe it. i was sitting here for 3 years with two broken ipods in the desk drawer. i now have two working ipods. i have hated apple ever since they broke. i think i hate them more now for not telling me about this fix in the 1000 times i called them. thanks so much. alyssa november 11th, 2007 at 12:52 am hey, i’m one of those geeks that fixes everyone’s everything, and this is a wonderful trick! i thought i’d have to disappoint, yet no! i had a nice little pile of ipods that i’ve gotten to work on - i’ve used this trick three times in the span of about half an hour. (please note that everything below is for windows) jen - the card will be more or less prone to wear depending on what it’s made of - the simple truth is that it’s going to be exposed to a bit of heat; if the material that you used to stuff it is prone to wear (printer paper), it’ll be more prone than something that’s tougher (cardboard). it’s not really possible to give a timeline, since things that change everyday (the amount of time it’s used, humidity, and how much it’s charging) will affect the time. you probably won’t be changing it every few months, but don’t expect to use it for six years - just keep in mind that humidity, heat, usage, and charging will all wear the material to some minor extent. maria - use a gentle heat to melt the glue; a blowdryer on low held at a safe distance should do fairly well. eilis - your problem sounds like it’s battery-related; it’s not a difficult thing to replace, and you can buy one with twice the memory for the same price as a regular battery from apple. (…though, you have tried holding down the menu (up) and select (middle) button at the same time, right? it’s a simple reset; nothing to be afraid of.) my advice is to open it up, make sure everything looks good (if it doesn’t, there will be one or more parts which might need replacing/fixing), and change the battery. if you’re afraid of doing this, try your school’s technology department - they’ll probably have someone there who can help you. kim - i’m not sure you’d call anything dealing with a dead battery a “quick fix”… buy a new battery, and replace the one in your ipod. (it’s essentially the major surgery section up there, only with the battery instead of the harddrive.) ianita - i’m not sure if this has been mentioned yet in one of the posts above, yet i’ve had your problem occur a few times before with ipods… yet there’s one more detail which you didn’t mention that affects everything - whether it’s still being charged by the computer or not. i’ve personally never had one that isn’t being recognized and still charges, so i’d suggest an expert consult/repair if that’s the case (since it would mean a major issue with the wiring). if it isn’t charging, then there’s probably a problem with the connection port that can be easily fixed if it’s a “it’s leaning one way” problem by adding padding as necessary, or fixed by a local expert if it’s a “this doesn’t seem to have all the shiny lines it used to (speaking of the wires)” (i say local expert because that requires replacing the entire piece, which will be difficult for a beginner in maintenance and repair). creneef - i know it’s tough if you’re ipod is really personalized, but try doing a reset with the menu and select buttons (up and middle), and see if that fixes it. if it doesn’t, then you’ve got a problem that’s going to be difficult to fix. on any other type of ipod, you’d need to go into my computer, then access your ipod and double check that the songs are not still on there somewhere (most likely where they’re not supposed to be). however, since you have the nano, which disappears from the my computer list after syncing with the itunes library. you can try doing this, but it will take a lot more time and probably many tries. you can try windows media player, also; it’s been giving me some different options and information than my itunes library. nonetheless, either something is going wrong with where the files are (which will be solved by the above), or something is going wrong with the software on your ipod, which can be fixed through itunes rather simply (i’ve only once had to do this personally and i took a difficult and convuluded route - i’m sure that you could get instructions by a simple google search). hope this has been helpful for y’all! lord knows it was long enough… vasabi november 11th, 2007 at 1:59 am hi everyone i gotta problem my ipod has worked but once he fallen down and off i tried to restart it but nothing so now this stupid stuff is showing “please wait. very low battery” but how can battery be on if it can’t low. really i dunno please help me cuz my parents woun’t bye new for me. brad november 11th, 2007 at 6:47 am my son’s ipod is locked due to his forgetting the password. do i reboot using the steps in the article, or is there another way. thanks in advance. nick november 11th, 2007 at 9:51 am and… it worked! mark november 11th, 2007 at 11:35 am matt, you’re a genius!!!!! i had already spent $200 to replace the hd and battery on my ipod photo and within a month the ipod wasn’t working. i had given up hope when i read the nyt article. tried your fix and in five minutes had my ipod working again! thank you, thank you, thank you! just wished i had found your article before shelling out the $200, :¬( but am very grateful nevertheless. :¬) willie littlejohn november 11th, 2007 at 12:00 pm yep, i was a sceptic but what the heck, it’s just gathering dust anyway while i use my iphone. as previously stated “you’re a genius!!!” me november 11th, 2007 at 12:05 pm words cannot describe how happy you made me when fixed my ipod. the best way i can describe it is in emotocons :) :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from now on call me if you need a favor (on either side of the law) jim november 11th, 2007 at 12:23 pm another satisfied customer. thanks! robert november 11th, 2007 at 12:54 pm i saw a link to this site through nyt and thought i’d give it a try. i hate to sound like a broken record but i tried the drop method and it worked! you guys have made me the happiest human on the planet!! thanks thanks thanks thanks!!! pilar november 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm amazing! i followed the steps with the business cards and it works perfectly now! thank you. ben november 11th, 2007 at 2:03 pm thanks, i’ve been trying to fix my ipod for a year or so and nothing has worked, i wish i had found this sooner. tamo november 11th, 2007 at 2:11 pm wow mister november 11th, 2007 at 2:20 pm excellent tip! got my b/w click wheel ipod working again without much effort! the hardest part was opening, but vviv’s tip about not aiming into the seam was crucial help. thanks! pat november 11th, 2007 at 2:27 pm i can’t believe it, after being without my music for months, i actually have this ipod charging. thank you for the helpful information. steve november 11th, 2007 at 6:05 pm the business card fix worked! i must admit i was highly skeptical, but it worked like a charm! too bad i didn’t see this article until after i went out and bought a new ipod, but then again, it did give me a convenient excuse to buy a new ipod happy montina november 12th, 2007 at 12:21 am oh my goodness. i read the nytimes article this morning and it sparked interest in reviving my deceased 20g ipod. i was getting the depressing frowny face and after trying to throw it agaist the ground (also from the blog), and smacking it around, i was desperate. what was funny was that as i was about to begin the surgery — it came back to life! it a strange way, i think it knew it’s fate. so for the entire day it worked…but low and beyond, i went to sync it to itunes this evening, and it froze.-up. what a tease. from there, itunes said it was corrupted and wanted me to restore it, which i didn’t want to do. and then it reverted back to the sad face. so…i reached for my mini screw driver and shimmied off the backing. got a little nervous since my ipod didn’t totally resemble your photos (i had one wide ribbon with little give vs. the longer ones in your photos). grabbed my business card, did as you said, and right away i could see lights inside coming on and it was back to life! seriously an amazing trick and very happy. thank you so so much. tracie november 12th, 2007 at 12:57 am i am also one of the many who found this site via the new york times article, as that guy’s story was strangely similar to mine about 7 months ago when my 20g 4th generation ipod died and there was no help to be found at the apple site. it literally took me about an hour to fix my old ipod using this guide (opening the darn thing took 58 minutes of that hour). even though i love the new one i bought for myself, it is so nice that such a simple trick brought back the dead ipod that had been sitting in storage waiting to be sold for spare parts. thank you! jon november 12th, 2007 at 4:34 am no fucking way. i already got a video ipod but just wanted to try this on my really old one that stopped working out of curiosity. i cant even believe this works. amazing work man. dachubbler november 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am folded up a business card, put the thing back together, and turned it on, and it works just fine, so far. didn’t even have to do a restore or reset….too bad i already bought a new 8gb nano… bill g november 12th, 2007 at 9:22 am awesome- thanks for posting this info! i thought my ipod was hosed but i’m listening to it right now. i’ll eventually buy a new one with more storage but mr. jobs will have to wait for a bit longer to get my money. mick morris november 12th, 2007 at 9:52 am a scrap of paper (ok card) has restored my 2 year old (v4?) video ipod to life. i am delighted, what brilliant advice - thankyou. as i had bought a new ipod touch someone else is going to benefit from a free ipod gift as well. the times uk carried your blog details i’m obliged to them too! paulm november 12th, 2007 at 9:59 am i’ve had a ipod 20gb for about 3 years - that’s the one without a click wheel - just the “touch sensitive” buttons on the front and dock connector. recently, the damned thing has become unusable - i.e. when i power it up (and it’s been properly sync’d) it won’t play any tracks and just scrolls endlessly through the playlist that is selected. no sound output, just a scrolling through track listing on the display. has anyone else seen this particular problem, and if so has anyone got a suggested fix? hopefully someone may be able to save the “old beast” from the trash!?!?! cheers paul anil november 12th, 2007 at 10:43 am hi, i have an ipod 30gb and one of my frend accidentaly formatted the ipod in windows by right clicking on it and select format. however the ipod still switches on and goes to main menu. however, the itunes is not picking up the ipod. can anything be done on this? please help!!!! mona november 12th, 2007 at 11:28 am taking an ipod apart will void the warrenty if you purchased it with one. i had the first gen nano and it died on me within 6 months. now i got the second gen nano and because i had problems with my first ipod, i now get a warrenty every time. i got a 3 year one from target for 20 bucks! ginger november 12th, 2007 at 2:10 pm yay yay yay! i cut a 1″ square from a sam adams light coaster and followed the directions. took me about 8 minutes, including about 2 minutes to decide which coaster was the ugliest and nearest to 1/16″. thanks a lot! humble lion november 12th, 2007 at 3:11 pm 60 gb photo ipod resurrected! it is syncing now! big smiles… thank you so much! matt hickey november 12th, 2007 at 3:25 pm to everyone who came here from the times article: welcome! and i’m glad to see it’s helping so many of you fix your bricked ipods. it seriously makes it all worthwhile. also, if any of you are in the seattle area, you’re free to treat me to drinks as a thanks. :-p matt tyler november 12th, 2007 at 3:28 pm the business card thing worked! thank you! thank you! thank you! mehdi november 12th, 2007 at 4:07 pm hello, i have a huge question. my ipod video started powering on and shutting down by himself , all that withing 2 sec. and i can hear it. and when i went to the apple store, they said that my harddrive was dead and that i have no choice than get a new one. so i wanna know if that trick will work for my ipod , thx u veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy much dannyboy november 12th, 2007 at 4:35 pm i have just boughtand installed a new hard drive for my 4th gen ipod, when i came across this page. so i decided to see if my old hard drive could have been fixed with just a piece of paper. you guessed it, the old hard drive worked perfectly afterwards. i’m gutted, £32 out of pocket! thanks for the information though. i won’t be so quick to buy a replacement next time. bryan november 12th, 2007 at 5:16 pm it worked! thank you so much! somebody november 12th, 2007 at 5:54 pm whoah, i tried the paper thing and it worked! awesome! josh november 12th, 2007 at 6:18 pm smack it off your hand a few times as if you are packing cigarettes, and then reset it (menu+center button) if you have to… while this never permanently fixed my ipod it would fix it for a certain amount of time… sometimes weeks. i’m assuming this worked until something else jolted it and would mess it up again. but hey, just start smacking it off your hand again, and it’ll work. it finally broke for good and told me my 40gb ipod had a capacity of 16gb, and now i have a 16gb ipod touch, no more hard drive problems! emre november 12th, 2007 at 6:58 pm fucking brilliant! thank you so much, nothing makes me happier than fixing high-tech products with a slap on the back, duct tape or a paper stuffed inside. your method is flawless! matt november 12th, 2007 at 8:01 pm i have an ipod nano that has a blank screen and will not respond to anything. i read your article and was wondering where on the nano i should place the piece of paper. email me at thunderstreak155@yahoo.com thanks billie november 12th, 2007 at 11:14 pm i heart you. a few months ago i took my broken ipod to the nearby apple store where it was pronounced dead by an apple “genius”. i read the new york times article and, though, very doubtful, gave your remedy a shot. not only was i shocked to see it working but i didn’t need to restore any of the music, it was still there! thanks for making my day! alicia cost november 13th, 2007 at 12:06 am hey guys in need help. i have a 2gb ipod that wont sync any songs onto it. i have tried the restore thing on itunes but it says that it cant repair it cuz theres a missing file or somethin. could you guys help me if you can? ~alicia cost~ allie_cat_05@yahoo.com p.s. i have yahoo messenger too that im on all the time, thanks guys! scott november 13th, 2007 at 12:30 pm worked like a charm on my 4th gen ipod! thank you! joe november 13th, 2007 at 4:19 pm thank you. very, very much. leave a reply name mail (will not be published) website simple comment not enough? you can write your own article in response to this crunchgear post in the new best friends forever section. click for more info. once you're logged in over there, = 0){q=getselection();}else{q=document.selection?document.selection.createrange().text:document.getselection();}location.href='http://www.crunchgear.com/bff/wp-admin/post-new-new.php?text='+encodeuricomponent(q)+'&popupurl='+encodeuricomponent(location.href)+'&popuptitle=response to: '+encodeuricomponent(document.title);">click here to respond directly to this post. search rss subscribe email subscribe aboutcrunchgear is a blog covering gadgets and computer hardware. it is edited by john biggs. more... email | aim follow crunchgear at http://twitter.com hot stories · unreasonable stance: the iphone is no better than a motorola razr · palm garnet on your nokia tablet · “mad probz” plague moto sidekick slide, yo · daily crunch: bathroom rock edition · gphone madness winners more... recent comments · zuner: as a... on zune originals up and running, steer clear of the tattoo series [3] · joe: i would choose this over... on sandisk brings back sansa view to combat ipod nano [1] · jay linton: to... on unreasonable stance: the iphone is no better than a motorola razr [12] · bret: finally, i was... on zune *this close* to working on windows media player 11 [5] · bpm2000: lol.... on unreasonable stance: the iphone is no better than a motorola razr [12] · hot sarah: im hot, im a girl, and i like to download torrents.... on what.cd? invites [88] · bobby: thanks! 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