A guy I know, “dave”, had an iPod that was acting up. On top of that, his warranty was was almost up, and he was worried that the iPod would live just long enough to go out of warranty before fully breaking, leaving him with out an iPod.

He was looking for a way help to speed up the failure process of his iPod, so he could make use of the warranty. Knowing that I have a back ground in working on the inside of iPods he hit me up for advice… advice that got him a new iPod

Based on the experiments and hundreds of comments I have received on my previous blog posts (here and here), its clear to see that when an iPod hard drive comes loose, the entire iPod goes nuts, and doesnt work (it cant read the music, so there is no music to play!).

1. I suggested to Dave that he take a guitar pick (This is an old photo I am reusing where I used a screw driver for my example.. DONT USE A SCREW DRIVER you will scratch the metal part of the case!), and force the pick between the metal and the plastic, being careful not to scratch either surface.

   

2. Once the guitar pick (NOT SCREWDRIVER) is in between the case halves, twist the pick and move it slowly along the seam to release the internal latches. Take your time, so you don’t mark up the case, or Apple will know you were up to something.

   

3. Once you get the case apart, be careful and move the case halves a part, keeping the plastic side down. Be sure not to break the ribbon cable joining the halves.

   
   

4. Next, find the hard drive, it should be easy to see. At the top, it is attached with a large ribbon connection. This is where the magic happens! We need to unplug this cable from the drive, but still leave it semi attached. Pull the cable straight out, unhooking it completely. gently push it back on. enough to hold it in place, but not make a complete connection.

   

   We are trying to simulate what happens when some ipods are dropped. In some cases, the hard drive shifts and the cable becomes unplugged, creating a messed up iPod.

   To test this, gently pick up the iPod and press the scroll wheel. If you can see your songs, you pushed the cable back in to far, unhook it and try again. If you get an error, you did everything just right!

5. To put it back together, flip the metal side over the top and gently squeeze it all together. The case will snap back into place.

   

6. Your iPod should not play, and it looks completely broken.

   

If you return it to Apple under warranty, they should give you a new one. If they wont replace it, open it back up, re attach the hard drive cable and enjoy the dying days of your old iPod.

I haven’t tried doing this this, and I don’t really suggest doing it. I’m posting this for educational purposes, and because it is both an interesting hardware and social hack. I’m guessing that Apple might change their policy if they see a lot of this happening. You probably should just buy a new one. (I hope that covers me legally!)

While we are talking about iPods, subscribe to my podcast!