Applecare 4G iPod Replacement
by Nate
My 4G 40GB (monochrome) iPod seems to be having trouble spinning up. I had “fixed it” by restoring it, but now it won’t mount again and I think it has pretty much hit the dust.
Luckily I chose to buy extended Applecare after I got it replaced the first time - it had a similar hard drive problem where it displayed a sad iPod. Here’s a informative comment I found here:
For Christmas 2004 both of my daughters received iPod’s from Santa, one U2 20Gb iPod and a regular white 20Gb. The white ipod has been returned twice to Apple under warranty and the U2 iPod once , although it has just failed again as I write this note and needs to go back. In each case the folder and exclamation mark were on the screen. This is a fatal error 90% of the time it happens. Both girls swear they did not drop their iPods.
Apple may have a quality problem with their hard drive supplier for the gen 4 iPods or it may be that shipping or how you use your iPod is causing a problem.
I’ve been in the data storage industry for 15 years working for a number of hard drive manufacturers in that time and I recognize the sounds that a drive makes when it has crashed or has a stiction problem. Stiction is a situation where the drives heads are “stuck” to the surface of the disk and the motor torque is unable to free them. In some drives additional current is used to pulse the spindle motor to “free” the heads when the firmware detects that the drive is not up to speed. This pulsing can sometimes have the unwanted effect of ripping the heads straight off the suspension arms if they are well stuck. Stiction is a problem you never ever want in a hard drive and is always a design problem, it’s never anything an end user can cause.
Head crashes can be caused by stiction but are often caused by mishandling of the unit during manufacture or during normal use, even when powered off. An excessive shock can generate “head slaps” which is where the head gouges in to the surface of the disk creating small abrasive particles that can later on cause the head to crash in a pretty fatal and permanent manner (never buy a hard drive from a store where they have them stacked on top of each other, unless they are in their boxes, you’re buying a time bomb).
A stiction situation can sound like the drive is straining to power up and never quite gets there. A head crash or damaged head usually sounds like the drive attempts to spin up but when the head/actuator assembly releases and tries to come ready it cannot and a “chattering” noise is heard followed immediately by spin down.
Having performed failure analysis on many hard drives over the years, one of the first things you do is to listen to the drive trying to power up and come ready to listen for the things I outlined previously.
The next time you see the dreaded file and exclamation mark listen to your iPod, my descriptions may give you a clue as to what’s going on. If the sounds are different then you may get lucky and a reset procedure may get you back and running.
Hard drives are incredibly fragile devices and even a gentle knock when it’s playing can cause damage that will not show up immediately. Most hard drive problems can show up several weeks after the event that led to it took place.
So be careful when you’re using them while your exercising, if the music skips it’s a good indication that you’re causing out of spec shock levels to the drive which potentially may cause latent damage that could ruin your day in the near future.When my daughter’s iPod’s bit the dust, I listened to them, one met the description for stiction and the other three for crashes.
First one was a crashed head, this one seems to be stiction. edit: Just after I submitted this post, I spun my iPod on its back and freed its heads or something, and enabled it to spin up. So it’s working at the moment.
Anyhow, I’m wondering if there’s any chance that, if I wait a month or so, I could get either an iPod photo or video as my replacement instead of another ho-hum 40GB monochrome iPod. This possibility only has entered my mind because people were getting upgraded iBook a while back.
Has anyone gotten anything other than a 4G or 3G under an Applecare replacement?
-Nate
December 9th, 2005 at 22:29 CET
Hey Nate,
I’ve sent my iPod 40 GB back 3 times since June of this year and each time sadly got a monochrome back. I swear if it goes again I’m going to push for a color upgrade.
Despite the trouble, I must say my experience has been wonderful with my iPods—overall. Occasionally stuff happens.
February 23rd, 2006 at 07:48 CET
Hah, thanks for the reponse Nate.
My iPod is still alive… it’s pretty bizarre. It’s given me the sad iPod two or three times since I posted it, but hitting it and freeing the heads has kept on working.
I’m not looking forward to paying that $30 processing fee they charge again though. Did you have to pay that three times? That adds up.
March 6th, 2006 at 14:07 CET
My Ipod 4G 20 GB failed last week, 14 months after purchase, luckily I had taken out an extended warranty.
It happened gradually, at first taking a long time to start playing a song, then jumping back to menus part way thru a song, and then finally failing to work at all. Plugging into my PC it took 20 minutes before it was recognised as a device.
And judging by the noises it made, it sounded like a head crash.
I think Apple should warn users about the falibility of hard drive devices generally, and if there is a generic fault with the 4G drives, then users should ne told about it.
Arun
April 23rd, 2006 at 02:36 CEST
UGH. yes, my U2 Ipod has been returned twice, and it seems like it’s going to crash AGAIN… no idea why. I’ve been taking care of it with EXTREME caution… thanks for the info on the hard drives though. Makes me feel good that I’m not the only one out there with a failing iPod.
Btw: Pocky = Total Coolness
June 6th, 2006 at 22:49 CEST
I had the same problem. It turned out to be striction, I guess. I had the same long delay playing songs, and random jumping around in the menus. I spun the ipod as fast as I could, and blow me! The ipod was mountable again! Thanks a bunch. It works great now.
July 10th, 2006 at 16:58 CEST
I had just managed to get my ipod working again as the hard drive kept dying and not spinning by opening the case and hitting it a few times out of anger, i shall try spinning it next time, it seems to work then not work all the time, its rather annoying
July 31st, 2006 at 16:13 CEST
I purchased a 4G 20GB iPod in December 2004 and it has died 4 times on me so far. Once in Feb. 2005, once in July 2005, once about two weeks ago and again yesterday. I’ve returned it 3 times so far and I’ve gotten back a monochrome 4G 20GB all three times.
November 28th, 2006 at 20:37 CET
I was having the sad ipod problem but solved it by dropping it from about 6 inches on its right hand side when it was attemping to spin up. Now it works perfectly again! Woo
June 18th, 2007 at 19:17 CEST
Ned you are the man!! I thought that my iPod was toast after I’ve tried everything humanely possible. I have a 20GB 3G w/ the Click Wheel and I was having lots of problems with it. The HD would spin for a few seconds and then click, and then spin down and start the cycle again. It was nearly impossible to get my computer to recognize it, and when it finally did, the iPod wasn’t on enough to do anything with it.
Solution: So, I dropped my ipod on it’s side from about 12″ off the ground when it was trying to spin up. Then, i heard that the HD was spinning steadily and plugged it into my computer. It was instantly recognized and I was finally able to do a restore on my iPod. I think all is well :)
THANK YOU!!
August 16th, 2007 at 05:22 CEST
This is wild. I had heard from a coworker that he got pissed at his iPod and threw it against the wall - lo and behold it started working again.
My 40GB 4G wouldn’t connect to my PC today. After a couple hours DID see iTunes for the restore, but the restore would’ve taken about 2 days given the sloooow transfer rate. I stopped the transfer (from JRiver’s MediaCenter) and figured what the heck. After smacking it around it around a bit (and a few infamous exclamation mark errors) - whamo! - it’s working again and transferring at full speed. Who knows if it’ll last, but at least it postpones the inevitable. Maybe it’ll last until the new version is released later this year (I hope) -hehehe.
July 22nd, 2008 at 22:19 CEST
Add me to the list of folks for whom a good whack has at least temporarily fixed my iPod. Outstanding!