The Gizmophile

The hard drive finally came in the mail today.  What a quick turn around and for 20 bucks plus free shipping, I can’t complain.  Looks like I made a mistake though and only got the 10gb version instead of the 20gb model.  It’s OK since I don’t think I’ll use up that much space.  In fact, I don’t ever recall putting more than 10gb of mp3’s on this iPod.

As you can see from the picture, it looks about the same as the old one.  With the exception of the model number and the Apple logo, it looks like the old drive and based on what I found, this hard drive should work just fine with my iPod.  We’ll see about that.

STEP 1:

Insert new drive and connect iPod to PC. Seems like a logical choice as a first step but wait – FAIL!  ERROR!  CAUGHT IN LOOP!  The only thing the iPod did was start, display the Apple logo, display the folder-icon-with-an-exclamation-mark error, then does it all over again.  After an hour of trying to figure out what to do, this “fun” experiment was starting to frustrate the hell out of me.   But after Googling a bit, I ran into a website that has some information about hidden commands.  This led me to a few more websites that recommended formatting the drive first before having iTunes detect the iPod then running the restore command.

New STEP 1:

Format hard drive. OK so how does one format a tiny 1.8″ drive?  It’s not SATA or IDE so I can’t just plug it in to my mobo.  Thank goodness for the site with the hidden iPod commands, I was able to set the iPod into Disk Mode.  This allowed my computer to read the iPod like any external device.  Only thing left is to right-click on the drive and format, right?  No.  I was met with another failure.  Seems like every time I click on the drive icon on My Computer or Disk Management, explorer hangs.  Even if I kill explorer and start it again, it’s still hung.  I thought maybe I was using Vista 64-bit?  Nah…  After a few minutes, I gave up.

STEP 1 – Take 3:

After another Googling session, I found a few more sites that recommended using the old iPod updater app to restore the iPod without using iTunes.  Every old version I found gave me an error when I launched it.  It was either “invalid iPod service…”  or some variation of it.  At this point, frustration was definitely setting in but I wasn’t giving up just yet.  I just needed a quick break and change my son’s diaper before I continue.

Still on STEP 1:

OK, we’re back from our short break and proceeded to Google some more.  I found a few more sites, including Apple’s, that suggest downloading the latest iTunes to restore my iPod. I did but it still doesn’t detect my iPod at all and still caught in the reboot loop!  Then I realized that I could format the drive in DOS.  Simple right?  But guess what?  Yet another wall.  Seems like everytime I connect my iPod to my PC, it would only show up briefly before iTunes launches then it’s gone again.  So I started looking around iTunes to see if I can prevent it from launching everytime I connect my iPod but that didn’t work.  Now I’m really getting frustated so I removed iTunes.  All of a sudden, my PC sees my iPod as a drive.  Yay!  OK it still hangs explorer but now I can at least use Disk Manager to format the drive.

Step 2 – FINALLY!

While the drive was formatting, I decided to re-install iTunes.  I figure it’ll work this time and detect my iPod to run a restore.  Once both tasks were completed, I rebooted my box just for kicks.  Now the moment of truth… Launched iTunes and connected iPod.  To my amazement, iTunes greeted me with a prompt to restore my iPod.  I was so happy I didn’t even read through the rest of the message and simply clicked OK.  The rest was history.  MY IPOD LIVES AGAIN!!!!

Here’s the real step-by-step instruction.

1. Use a wide flat-head screwdriver to open your iPod.  You’ll need to press the sides until a large enough gap allows you to wedge the screwdriver in.  Simply work your way around the iPod until it’s open.  You may need a hair dryer to heat up your iPod and melt the adhesive if you can’t get a gap going.
2. Once open, you’ll see a connector attached to the back of the iPod.  You can detach it for now.
3. Remove rubber padding around hard drive and disconnect.  You’ll find the model number on the label side.  Look for it on eBay and buy one.  Used is OK but the new ones are cheap.  If you have the 3rd gen touch wheel iPod like mine, the model number is MK2004GAL.  MK2006GAL works too.
4. Connect new hard drive and put everything back together again.  You can wait close everything up in case the hard drive you purchased is dead.
5. Connect to PC.  iTunes should detect it according to Apple.  If you run into a similar issue like I did, you’ll need to put the iPod in Disk Mode then format.  You can use this site or the Apple site as a reference if you have a different iPod model.  You may also have to remove iTunes like I did.
6. Open Disk Managment by clicking Start | Run | type “compmgmt.msc” without the quotes.  Go to Storage expand Disk Management.  You should see all drives on your computer.  Make sure you select your iPod and not any other drive on your computer.  Do not use quick format.  Set to FAT32 if not default and leave everything else as is.
7. Once the drive is formatted, iTunes will detect your iPod and you can begin restoring it to factory settings.
8. That’s it!  You now have a working iPod.  It should take no more than 1 hour including format time.

Even though this little experiment turned out to be more of a challenge than I originally thought, it was still fun!  Well I hope you found this information useful if not entertaining.  Until next time…

-gizmophile