Q: iPod 4th Gen No Boot
Hey guys,
My iPod (4th gen classic monochrome, 20GB) and a friend's identical iPod both have the same problem - no boot. Once plugged in, all it does is endlessly spin up the hard drive and display the Apple logo for about 10 seconds and then go blank for a second and restart. Hard resets don't do anything. Any way to fix this because most of my music collection is on it (including some songs I for some reason no longer find in iTunes)? I also saw this: frozen on apple logo but the link in the response doesn't work and it's for a 7th gen iPod.
Thanks!
iPod classic, Other OS, White monochrome 2004 20GB
Posted on May 2, 2016 7:57 PM
I think that hard drive is bad.
Some extra info: I have a 4th gen iPod (monochrome screen). I replaced its hard drive with a 64GB compact flash card on an adapter. I bought the adapter many years ago, but it looks like one of these on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/CF-Pin-1-8-IDE-Adapter/dp/B004FCY7WQ
and I also see similar items on eBay. I can't tell if this is exactly the one I have. It's NOT the type with the "ZIF" connector; those are for 5th gen and later iPods. The only minor complication was for the jumper used to set it as master/slave. It sticks up too far. I just bent the two metal "pins" (where you place the jumper to set as master) by 90º using needle-nose pliers. That design flaw may have been corrected by now.
SD ("SDXC") cards at the same capacity are usually cheaper than Compact Flash. You can put an SD card in an SD-to-CF adapter, and then put that combo in the iPod-CF adapter. It needs to be the thinner "Type I" adapter. "Type II" is thicker, and may not fit in the iPod's casing. I did this for my even older 3rd gen iPod, with a 64GB SDXC card. This is the SD-to-CF adapter I used
http://www.amazon.com/DIGIGEAR-SLIM-CF-Adapter-WiFi-SD/dp/B00XO2KSEO
My "flash-enhanced" iPods work quite well, with over 50GB of songs loaded. I replaced their batteries too, so they are working better than new. 32GB would have been a safer bet (closer to original capacity), but I wanted to fit my complete music library, so I took a chance with 64GB.
Posted on May 2, 2016 11:54 PM
