Missing Link

Arguably one of the most popular technological gadgets these days is the Apple iPod. Since it’s introduction a few years ago, it’s sales have soared and no competing product has come close to matching it’s market share. Microsoft recently released their “ipod killer” named Zune, but due to poor implementation and some very odd technical decisions on their part ( such as it’s inability to play purchased windows media files that have the Microsoft “Plays for sure” DRM). Quite obviously, Apple has a hit on their hands. In fact, the iPod has performed so well that Apple’s iTunes music store had problems handling the volume this past christmas.

I personally love the ipod. It enables me to carry my whole music library with me anywhere I go. While some people don’t really care about that ability, citing that they can swap out which music is on their player of choice easily enough, I do care about it. I like having all of my music easily accessible, and with the “on the go” playlists, I can dynamically create a playlist that suits my current mood, drawing from any of my thousands of songs.

Now, as much as I love my iPod(s), they haven’t been without their own problems. I have two iPods, a 4th Gen (pre photo) iPod, and a 5th gen iPod Video. 11 months after I got the 4th Gen iPod, it died. More specifically it’s hard drive failed. I hadn’t gotten applecare for it, becuase at the time I didn’t want to spend the extra $50. I was lucky it died when it did, as I still had one month left on the warranty so I could get it replaced for free* (I paid for shipping). I did so. And for the past year it has worked very well. In september (around september, not sure of the exact month) I got the new ipod. I’ve used it most of the time since I got it, using the older one only occasionally. On new years day, however, I woke up to find that my old ipod, which I had left connected to my powerbook and charging overnight, was making a rather ominous clicking sound. *click* *click* *click*

I knew it wasn’t good, and knew exactly what the problem was: the hard drive. Again. Unfortunately for me, when Apple replaced my iPod a year ago, they didn’t also extend the warranty (how sneaky of them!), so there was no way apple would repair/replace it for free this time, and in fact it would cost me a couple hundred dollars to get it fixed through them. Instead of that, I had a different idea.

Since I already have a newer ipod (with applecare this time), and since this old one is out of warranty anyways (and is already broken), I figured I would try to repair it myself. The first step to doing this was to figure out how to get the ipod open, so that I could get the old hard drive out and put a replacement drive in.

That turned out to be fairly easy, actually. All ipods are a plastic front shell, married to a shiny metal backing. There’s a seam between the two, where you can slide a very thin (VERY thin) screwdriver into and slide it down the length of the ipod to release the clips inside that hold the halves together. Once that’s done, you can carefully and slowly lift the backing away from the front. It’s important to be careful at this step, though, as there is a ribbon cable connecting the two halves ( it’s for the headphone jack, if I’m not mistaken, and it’s also not very long). Once you have that done, it’s pretty easy to get the hard drive out. It’s a standard IDE interface for mini hard drives, so the drive should seperate pretty easily from the ribbon cable it’s connected to. You may have to wiggle it a little bit to get it out, but be careful to not be too forceful.

The hard drive itself is surrounded by blue shock absorbing bumpers. It’s also covered on one side by a light blue foam material. The blue bumpers come off without a problem, but you’ll need to be careful taking the blue foam off. You’ll likely need something that you can use to scrape it off, like a knife or a razor scraper. You’ll want to keep it intact, so don’t just rip it off.

Once you have the foam off, you’ll notice the part # of the hard drive. For the 4th Gen’s like mine (20 gig), it’s a Toshiba MK2004GAL. Now that I had the part number, ordering a replacement turned out to be pretty easy. While I couldn’t find a MK2004GAL I did find a MK2006GAL, which has the same dimensions and specs (as far as I could tell) as the MK2004GAL.

The drive has not arrived yet, so I haven’t yet finished the repairs. The next steps are pretty straight forward though, so I will outline them here and do a followup post with the end results when I’ve completed the project.

The next step is, obviously, to put in the new hard drive. It’s as simple as attaching the blue foam to the drive, putting the bumpers back on and hooking the drive into the ipod chassis. Once that’s done, I’ll put the two halves back together (they snap together). I’ll then have a repaired (though as of yet unformatted) iPod. From there it’s just a matter of hooking the ipod up to my mac and restoring the software to it. That’s a pretty fast and painless process, and when I’m done I should have a good as new ipod ready to hold all of my music again.

Total cost? Less than $100.

The process has taught me something: Don’t be affraid of tinkering. I used to LOVE to tinker with things. I’d pull apart computers, pull out hardware and put new hardware in, mix and match and see what worked well and what didn’t. I’d take things apart to see how they worked (and in some cases figure out ways to fix them so they’d work). Nowadays, I feel this strong hesitation to do anything of the sort. This idea that “if you take it apart, you’ll void the warranty and then you’ll never get it fixed!” And I wonder where I got this fear from. Having seen through the process of fixing my own ipod how easy it is to do, I’ve realized how much I enjoy doing things like this. I think it’s been a wakeup call for me that I should do stuff like this more often. Sorry Corporate America, you won’t keep me in check with your silly little warranties anymore.

Note:  click on any of the above images for a larger version.