I hope this article may be useful to someone else who loves his iPod as I do. I own a 60gb iPod Photo and went through all of the possible steps leading to the definitive end of my beloved. It all started when I decided to buy a car connector for my Fiat Grande Punto. Fiat itself sells through its resellers an iPod cable (serial number 50901536 visible only on www.fiat.it and not on www.fiatpunto.it) which connects directly to the dock port and enables the driver to control the iPod directly from built-in car stereo commands. Although not as user-friendly as one might expect, it works but… But it sometimes hangs your iPod and some other times it turns it off and on randomly. Moreover, the connector itself has static eletric charge which in the end, I think, has compromised my iPod. First advice: stay far from this device ! After sometimes my iPod started turning off even when it wasn’t connected to the car connector. Then it started to present the sad iPod icon. Each time I had to reset it but, hey, it started getting difficult even this operation. Yesterday the tragic end: it didn’t even turn on. Since last istants of life had been accompanied by clinks typical of a dying hard disc, I thought that a hd replacement was necessary. After searching over the Internet I found different sites that explained how to open my iPod and replace its hard-disk (see http://www.notpopular.com/blog/comments.php?blogID=63 i.e.)
After opening it, I checked my hard disk model and searched eBay for a replacement. Meanwhile I had disconnected the hard disk from its port. Just when I was starting to enter my PayPal password for the payment, I tried to put the hard disk back into place and close the iPod. I pressed the select button and, first surprise, it turned on ! But my surprise became an unconfined joy when the Apple Logo lighted and suddenly I found myself before the standard interface. I’ve been using it for several hours by now and it works fine. Was static charge the problem ? Maybe. The final advice is obvious: before buying replacement parts or (aarghh !) throwing it away, open it for some fresh air ! Korn, I’m coming. Cheers.