My iPod fell out of my pocket and won't work properly now
Hi, I've had my 160 GB iPod classic since 2007 and it's been working really well since then. Freezes up every so often, but never been an issue. But I was riding my bike yesterday and my iPod fell out of my pocket. It seemed to be fine so I kept playing music, but after one song finished it wouldn't play anything else. So I tried restarting it, but I kept hearing a clicking noise as it tried to start up and eventually got a red X and the phrase "www.apple.com/support/ipod". I tried restarting it a few times to no avail, tried checking the hard drive specs but couldn't, and I couldn't even go into disk mode. But after a while I gave it a firm shake during another attempt at restarting it, mainly because I was curious what the **** that clicking noise was, and then it suddenly started making a loud whirring noise. I was quite worried, but eventually it stopped and suddenly my iPod started working again. Success! I played some music from it and everything seemed to be working well.
But that's just a little backstory. I still have an issue. I eventually plugged my iPod into my computer and started syncing it. It seemed to be working, albeit much slower than usual. Slowed down my iTunes as well. Then I ejected it and much to my chagrin my iPod claims that it has no music on it. It's still showing that all the memory is still there. It's telling me that it only has 103 GB free space, so the files are still there. If I try plugging it into my computer, it shows that it's there and everything, but I can't access it. I can't do anything with it while it's connected to my computer except slow down iTunes. If I enter the Hard Drive Smart Data on my iPod, it shows me the following:
Retracts: 39
Reallocs: 525
Pending Sectors: 3
I'm not very tech-savvy, so I'm not entirely sure what these mean. But I believe that the pending sectors used to be at 0 while I had this problem earlier, but it seems to have gone up a little bit since I've been plugging it into and out of my computer and trying to access it and stuff. My memory could be playing tricks on me though. But that's what it's telling me now anyway. I'm suspecting that the hard drive is just loose, but I really have no idea. Restarting my iPod also takes significantly longer than it used to and it's making some slight noise as if there's a small computer fan inside of it (never noticed this sound before), and if I shake it while restarting it makes a sort of clicking noise. I really don't know what to do and I don't want to lose this iPod I've had for the past 8 years that I can't really replace. Thanks in advance for any help!
iPod classic, Windows 7
