'Please Wait. Very Low Battery.'

Want to share my experience, have a 80GB Video iPod and it had the "Please Wait. Very Low Battery" message with spinning wheel for a very long time.

I would read these forums a little, try again, then leave it for a while. Also, note that my iPod would come up and function if it was plugged into the wall, but as soon as I unplugged it, it would die. When I plugged into my computer it would not show up in iTunes and would have the message I described above. As noted in earlier posts, it doesn't have enough juice to get passed this stage. That is why doing the resets seems to work. But keep reading as just doing the resets did not seem to work for me until I had done some combo of all the stuff listed below.

What ended up working for me was doing the reset of holding the "select" button and "menu" together. I hold hold it for 3-4 seconds, it would kind of flash, then come right back up. I would release and do it again. When it finally worked I had done it probably thirty (30) times AND I thought it hadn't worked, so I gave up and 45 secs. or so later the magical apple came up. I had tried all this before, BUT also read the next paragraph. (I had tried many times doing the resets as just described before where I reset 30 plus times, without doing the things listed below and it didn't work, that is why I place some importance on changing your battery/power cord settings, unplug all other USB stuff, try all USB ports)

Anyway, over the past 6 months I have had to get a new battery for my Powerbook G4 and a new power cord. AND, I also tweaked the performance settings under system preferences and "energy saver" to give the highest energy output or best performance or whatever it says AND i dimmed my screen to almost all the way off.

Now, I have no idea what combination of stuff helped it to to finally work, but I would try all this stuff if you are desperate. Good Luck.

I replaced the case on my battered old worn gen5 video ipod.
The result was a wont charge error.
I tried everything here to no avail.

I replaced the cable between the hard drive and the board,,
Problem solved...

Alright. I will disclaim this by saying, I do not know what the **** I did. (I know you guys are rolling your eyes a guy who posts and on the same day fixes his Ipod). Well for about a week/two weeks my ipod was doing as I described before. Today I just left it plugged into the wall off for awhile. Got sick of that and plugged it back to my computer. Well eventually something most of worked. I noticed I could get it into disk mode (so I figured I would actually charge it on the wall, makes sense right?) Well I plugged it into the wall for about five minutes. Plugged it back to my computer, I would just see an apple screen and it would freeze so I rebooted it a couple of times. I didn't even restore anything..

Saul's post above is getting close to the mark. If the 5th generation Ipod runs the battery down very low, the resistance of the battery is too high for the current coming from the USB port to initiate the boot sequence. Hence it get stuck in the "very low battery" / glowing silver apple on black screen sequence, does lots of whirring and clicking, and can't get enough charge to boot.

I had this problem with my 80GB ipod this week. The local shop explained the problem, and offered to "reset" my battery for $35 thanks very much!

I don't have an AC charger. If you have one, then that would be my first choice to get it charged up enough to talk to the computer.

Here is what got mine going again off the USB port:

1)plug it in to the USB port and hit menu + select until you get the glowing silver apple on the black screen.
2) keep holding the menu+select buttons down until the ipod resets, and the screen goes dark
3) when the silver apple comes back, repeat step 2 above. You might have to do this 5-10 times.
4) eventually, the "very low battery " message comes back. Repeat steps 1-3 above.
5) go through this sequence five times at least. This is building charge in the battery bit by bit.
6) next time it is on the "very low battery" screen, press play+select instead of menu+select. At this point my ipod entered disk mode, and started charging off the usb port.
7) leave it to charge fully for 4 hours at least
8) at this point my ipod was still stuck in disk mode and I was still getting the silver apple and a failed boot sequence.
9) connect to the computer, itunes should detect it. go into itunes and restore factory settings - it will wipe the whole ipod hard drive, boot it up and then sync all your songs back on.

Mine seems back to normal now.

I hope this helps someone. Have to admit it is a bit of an oversight on apples part to let a product out there with this sort of problem, especially as it doesn't come with an ac charger. Hopefully they can produce a fix in software that will shut the ipod down before the battery level gets critical.

Who wants to be listening to their music with a constant eye on the battery level??

Andy

Which port are you connecting it to on your computer and is your computer set to sleep when not used?

Maybe you'll have to check your cable. I had the same problem. I first thought it was my battery but I found out that somehow my cable was broken. Using anotherone solved the problem.

I have this exact same problem. A little help?

So, Apple, any idea how we can fix this problem?

Pretty disappointed with the lack of an official response here.

mine said so just a few munites ago- i think it isnt a fault, try to wait 20 min
if your ipod is seriously discharged it may take a whle....

Hey Guys, you saved my day. My iPod 60 Go had the same problem. Reseted it a lot, pluged and unpluged it. Finaly it started, I plugged it to my mac and boom, iTunes recognized it. Now it's Charging.

Thank you sooooo much!!!!
though my ipod was lost forever

I've got a fifth gen 80GB and this way worked for me as well. My warranty just expired. I thought for sure I was doomed. Thanks!