Comments on: How mental_floss Fixed My iPod!

By: Kathe

Kathe — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:19:56 +0000

I read this a couple of days ago. I was just in my room, and I saw my dead ipod. It’s been utterly dead since late 2006. I figured “why not?”, and I too, threw it on my floor. I plugged it in, and now it works.
You rule, Reub

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:27:04 +0000

Amazing. Worked for me as well!

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:58:17 +0000

I have yet to see the “sad face of death” on my brand new nano, but I know the solution of I do!

Thanks, mental_floss! You guys rock!

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:13:31 +0000

Long ago, back when 5.25″ MFM and RLL drives were the cat’s meow :-), I was a PC Service Technician for an un-named company, and that was the tech-support approved solution from Seagate for a sticking spindle (which the drive platters rotate on). Repackage the drive in it’s original shipping containter, then drop from a height of about 2 feet. Worked like a charm, and allowed MANY customers to get their lost data back. Nice to know things really haven’t changed…

By: tulip

tulip — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:50:18 +0000

OMG. Seriously I was laughing at this post and telling my husband about it and he said “isn’t your 40G hosed?” It was sitting near us so I grabbed it and let it drop from about 2 ft. up in our kitchen (linoleum). As we joked about how that would never fix it, it BOOTED UP.
Thanks mental floss!! I love you guys!

By: Reub wins a friggin book!

Reub wins a friggin book! — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:36:48 +0000

Hahaha! It’s hilarious that something you would never do to an expensive piece of equipment on purpose actually fixes the darn thing. Glad I could help! Geez, misspelling words is pretty embarrassing when they’re put on the front page for everyone to see =) oh well.

By: AnonyGenius

AnonyGenius — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:51:07 +0000

Hi,
I’m a Mac Genius at an Apple Retail store here in the U.S. Between us? We do that in back sometimes. But you would be a little unnerved if we took your iPod in back, came out fifteen seconds later, and it was working… am I right?

Percussive maintenance is secretly a vital tool to our own older iPods.

A warning, though: DO NOT DO THIS WITH A TOUCH OR PHONE.

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:15:48 +0000

Yep, that also happened with my non-iPod MP3. Every once and a while, it will freeze (usually between songs), and I hear a “skipping” sound. A quick smack with a hand and it’s all good!!

Technology is amazing, isn’t it??

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:27:24 +0000

I had this problem recently as well. I disassembled my ipod and found that the ribbon cable that hooked up to the hard drive was a bit loose. After unhooking it, and doing the classic nintendo cartridge clean-by-blowing-on-it method, I put it all back together and it’s worked fine ever since.

My guess is that by slamming it on the ground or whatever, you’re just reseating the cable. Hard drives tend to dislike slamming, so I’m not sure that’s a good long term solution but whatever makes you feel good right?

By: MH

MH — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:38:11 +0000

Good ol’ percussive maintenance. :)