'Please Wait. Very Low Battery.'

I'm having a similar problem - which started after my ipod became accidentally disconnected from my PC. But for me, it's that I started getting that message and plugging it into my PC did nothing BUT if I stick it into a Bose sound-dock, it will do a reboot on its own and then it seems to be fine... until I take it out of the dock. What happens that is I can scroll through the menus and sub menus but as soon as I click on a sound file, or video file, it goes to a black screen. So I tried playing music while connected to the sounddock, which all worked fine, but the second I take it out of the sounddock, with music still playing-again it dies on me. It seems like there's plenty of power in the battery as long as I don't try to get it to play anything, as I can scroll around and keep the backlight on as long as I want. At this point, should I just write it off and get an ipod touch?

I now need to amend a little bit about my problem: I set the ipod so that the backlight stays on and it stayed on for about a minute and a half and the battery indicator was red before the message 'No battery power remains. Please connect ipod to power' and then it crapped out and died again. Is that how the battery dies in these? Instead of charged time decreasing grdually, it just, all of a sudden, doesn't keep a charge at all?

had this problem today which left me really frustrated.

i remember ejecting the ipod properly before leaving the house. i had it charged via the usb cable that came with it. after 2 hours, i checked on it and it had like only 10% of its battery left, which means it didn't charge at all while i left it plugged in.

i tried charging it using a wall charger, but it doesn't charge at all.

by the time i got home, i plugged it into my pc. it said that the USB device cannot be recognized. the ipod does not show in my computer.

a little later, it showed the dreaded message: please wait. very low battery.
then it faded into white.

i tried resetting it, but it only made the white apple logo on a black screen appear and disappear every second with the accompanying clicking sound. the ipod logo was just flashing. i tried resetting, but i couldn't even get it to work because the battery is already empty.

Read a few of your posts and thought I would share what I've done with mine.

I have a 30gb I got for christmas in 2005 and I have the same problem with the low battery. The way I wake mine is to plug into a cigarette lighter via the FM transmitter setup I use. I leave it plugged in for about 10 minutes then plug it into my computer where it takes over the charging and is recognized by itunes. I initially thought it was the battery so I replaced it with a new one purchased off ebay. It didn't fix the problem, but I did find something interesting. Looking at the motherboard, there appears to be a burnt up capacitor. Its at the upper left, just below where the battery plugs into the motherboard. Its marked C140. I know its burnt because there is a burn mark on the padding around the hard drive. I don't know if this is the cause of the problem, but I'm thinking of replacing the motherboard and seeing if this will take care of charging issues. Anyone see a similar spot on their motherboards?

Here's a solution that worked for me:
My ipod would not charge. It kept going from the "please wait, very low battery" screen to the apple icon screen and then back again. I've been trying different things mentioned on this discussion for a few days, but none of them seemed to work. A few minutes ago, I started screwing around with all of the different methods, combining some of them and seeing what happened. Here's what went down. And this may sound kind of complicated, but I want to make sure I get every detail so that it works for everyone else:

I plugged the ipod into the computer and did the reset thing where I held down the menu and select buttons while the screen was at the "please wait, very low battery" screen. I CONTINUED to hold the buttons down, even when the screen went blank, and CONTINUED to hold them down when the apple icon appeared. As soon as the screen went blank after the apple icon appeared, I let go of the buttons. The apple icon appeared again, and I did the reset again, holding down the buttons until the screen went blank, and then I let go of them. I would continue to reset every time the apple icon appeared, letting go of the buttons just when the screen went blank. Eventually the "please wait, very low battery" screen would return, and I would start the whole process again, remembering to hold down the reset buttons all the way from the point where the "please wait, very low battery" screen appeared until the screen went blank AFTER the following apple icon disappeared. After the 3rd or 4th time going through this, I then did the reset one more time at the "please wait, very low battery" screen, again holding the buttons down through the following apple icon screen. But then, when the 2nd apple icon screen came up, I held down the PLAY and select buttons to go into disc mode. At first it worked. It went into disc mode. Unfortunately, the screen said "ok to disconnect" rather than "Do not disconnect". A few seconds later, it returned to the "please wait, very low battery" screen again. So I did the whole process again, going through the cycle about 3 or 4 more times. This time, I made sure that only 2 or 3 apple icons were coming up between each "please wait, very low battery" screen. I then tried going into disc mode again, after resetting one more time on the "please wait, very low battery" screen and remembering to hold down the buttons all the way through the first apple icon screen. When the 2nd apple icon screen came up, I held down the play and select buttons to go into disc mode, and it did. And this time, it said "do not disconnect" and itunes was reading the ipod and syncing it. At this moment it is done syncing and is charging in disc mode. Please note that the ipod was plugged into the computer during the whole process.

I know this was a very long explanation, but I wanted to make sure everything was covered. I really hope this helps some of you, since it seems like some solutions only help certain people.

Ipod video g5 60GB

Message:
'Please Wait. Very Low Battery.' and spinning weel.
New battery: no change
Disconnected the hard disc: got the Apple-logo.
Reinserting the dic the message again: 'Please Wait. Very Low Battery.'
Potentially: the disc is gone.

Raimund

YESSS
THIS ANSWER IS THE BEST SOLUTION. THANKS MR. ORANGE! I actually had to disconnect the usb cord press and hold select and and play, as soon as the ipod turns on in disk mode quickly connect the usb and voila ! your back in business. Thanks to everyone for the feedback on this. Yes maybe apple should have thought of this, but it still remains a great mp3 video player!!

thanks,

i had the same problem where i got the please wait, very low battery message but that disappeared and now i don't get anything at all. i've tried resetting while connected to my computer and i tried resetting while connected to a wall charger and nothing happened. has anyone experienced this that can help me? thanks in advanced.

i finally got my ipod working again. i thought my ipod was completely dead and needed to get repaired because it wouldn't turn it at all, nothing on the screen, whether plugged in my computer or the wall charger. but i read somewhere that you should leave it unplugged for 24 hours and it might start working again. so i did this, actually, i only waited about 17 hours and plugged it in my computer and i got the please wait very low battery screen again. i tried mr. orange's solution and press the center button and play button but nothing happened. then i read saul123's post so i figured i should try that. so i unplugged from my comp and plugged it in the wall charger and i got the black apple screen. i reset while on that screen by holding the menu button and the center button and voila, ipod booted and is now charging. hope this helps someone that runs into the same problem. thanks everyone!

A friend of mine inherited my 30 GB iPod 5G when I got an iPhone 3GS. It appeared to work fine, until - two days ago - he started getting the "Please wait. Very low battery" message.

Well, he's got an iHome boombox (part of the passed-along loot), which he's been using to keep the iPod charged. Its battery was at about 50% at the time.

Tried the reset. Tried disk mode. Tried a software restore.

He's running a homebrew PC with WinXP on it, which has two built-in USB ports, and a card that has four more ports on it.

Twiddling and fiddling led us to plug the iPod into the USB ports that are part of the PC (as opposed to on the expansion card). Since then - so far, at least - the iPod has been working as expected.

So, well, if there's no obvious immediate solution to your iPod woes, and particularly if you're on a PC, try plugging it into a different USB port.

This works---follow Mr. Orange's instruction.

To add: I did the same with a wall charger: plug it in, hold down the centre button and the play button. The screen is grey and says "Disk Mode" and "ok to disconnect" in the vaguely OS 9-like font, but it is finally charging again.

I think you fixed meeeeeeeeeee! I wasn't holding play/center long enough I guess and I was plugging it back into the usb when it told me to. I tried your way, then held the buttons until it said ok to disconnect. First time I got to that point. So I plugged it into the wall and it seems to be charging now. Keeping my fingers crossed and thank you! I was about to pull my hair out with this. These things are too expensive to have this much trouble with them. I already had to turn ours in for support once when it was still under warranty. Was totally ticking me off and we never have issues with our Nano.

Jlmawp wrote:
These directions worked without a problem for me...with a slightly different step in there. Instead of constantly holding down the buttons (maybe it's just the wording you used, and I'm still doing the same as you suggested), but when the screen is on the "battery very low"/spinny circle screen, I'd hold Menu+Select until the apple icon showed up (not lit, just displaying), and immediately let go. A few second later, when the screen would backlight, that's when I would press and hold until the iPod shut off again. Rinse, repeat. I noticed that the more I did, the more frequently the "battery very low" screen would come up.

Once it started coming up after every cycle, I unplugged the iPod and did a Play+Select reboot, and it booted up to my main iPod menu. I immediately plugged it in tot he USB, and is charging peacefully as I type this. I hope this helps someone else, cuz a wave of relief just washed over me.

OMG this totally worked for meeee!!! Thanks a lot for your advice.. I tried doing it the way the other ppl were saying but it just wouldn't do it!! Thanks

-babysurfer

Message was edited by: babysurfer

Message was edited by: babysurfer

For some reason I'm still having trouble. Here is my preface:

I am getting the please wait very low battery screen. However, even when I reset the IPOD (menu/select) the apple screen doesn't come up. The screen just fades away then comes back to the low battery screen again. The IPOD will turn on when I plug it into an IPOD boombox charger, but when I unplug it it immediately dies. I haven't been able to get any of the aforementioned suggestions to work because I never get the apple screen while plugged into a computer.

Any suggestions?

Ok Ladies and Gents. I have used this method many many times. If you have this problem, do the following. It has worked for me on my 30GB 5th gen Ipod and several others too.

1. Toggle the hold switch a couple of times.
2. Hold Select and Play until your IPOD enters Disk mode.
3. If it is not already plugged into your computer, plug it in now, and let it charge for twenty minutes to an hour.
4. Reset it by holding menu and select.

You should now be able to access it again, and charge it up via your USB cable no problems.