Bringing an iPod Nano Back to Life !

The other day a friend gave me her iPod Nano (G4) to repair. She described the symptoms as:

“It just stopped working...  When you plug it into the computer the apple icon appears momentarily then the screen goes black again. I've tried charging it from the computer and the power supply but it doesn't do anything. Do you think you can fix it ?”

The first thing I did when I got it home was plug it into my pc and the results were pretty much as my friend had described. It didn't launch iTunes and wasn't recognised by iTunes when I launched the program manually. An Apple fan would say “It failed to mount” or some such jargon.

The next thing I did was look to see if the iPod was recognised by Windows. Sure enough it appeared as an external hard drive (in this case G:) and the music files and photos where in tact. But the iPod's screen remained blank. At this point I decided to reset the iPod. This is done as follows:

1. Switch the hold button on and then off again (the small button on the top of the device).

2. Hold down the centre button and the menu button simultaneously for 10 seconds.

Hey presto ! The iPod is now recognised by iTunes while connected to my pc and the screen comes to life an it will play music. Unfortunately it dies as soon as I eject it from Itunes and disconnect it from the pc.  This makes me suspect that the battery is flat and I leave it connected to my pc to charge.

So after 3 approximately hours of charging the battery still appears to be flat, i.e. the iPod stops working and the screen goes blank as soon as it is disconnected from the pc. This gives the impression that the battery might be faulty ( it should be nearly fully charged after 3 hours). But previous experience with my own 60GB Ipod tells me that it might just be a software problem so I decide to restore the original software on the device . This is done via iTunes on the pc.

 Still no change (apart from the fact that I've just wiped all my friends music and photos off her iPod !) the Nano still only works when plugged into the pc – interestingly it ONLY works when connected to the pc and NOT when connected to a power supply ! To me this is also suggests that it is a software problem rather than a flat battery.

Another thing I've learnt from my iPod is that the hold switch works via software and therefore consumes current (There was a software update a few years ago which caused the button to stop working on my iPod for a few months). So I leave the Nano with the hold switch active overnight to run the battery down ( even though it looks like the battery hasn't charged up at all anyway).

The next morning it still seems to be dead, nothing responds. So I plug it back into the pc, this time Itunes launches automatically (as it should ) and all seems well ! I update the Nano's software, synchronise some of my music collection onto the Nano and leave it to charge for 4 hours. Now when I eject the iPod from iTunes and disconnect it, it works :-)

So there we go another iMystery solved (until the next time !!) and one happy friend !

If the above procedure doesn't fix your iPod Nano then the next step would be to change the battery. You can pick up replacement batteries (complete with the tools required to do the job) pretty cheaply on ebay. Alternatively you could take it to an iStore and get it done by them.

Please note: In these photos the iPod is connected to my netbook. According to the Apple website you shouldn't try and connect iPods via the USB port found on some keyboards or using a USB hub because it may cause problems due to lack of power