Fix broken ipod by putting into a freezer! 26 September 2006, 22:18
Posted by Orhan in : Geeky Techy Stuff , trackbackAfter I recovered my data from a failed external hard disk, I told my story to people around me, enjoying the surprize effect it had on them. It has been almost a few months now, and I almost totally forgot about the fun fix until my advisor, Dr. Smtih, told me even a funnier freezer story.
Her son’s ipod recently decided not to start at all. He tried everything but could not bring the thing back to life. Then she says she told him to put it in the freezer, because she knows that it fixed my external hard disk. He had nothing to loose so he puts it in a sealed bag, into the freezer, and forgot the ipod in there for 2 days.
The end? NOW THE IPOD WORKS!! Hah haa. I have heard and personally experienced the phenomenon of hard disks being repaired by putting into the freezer but an IPOD??
If you are experiencing similar problems with your pod, try the freezer. You have nothing to loose (DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK though!).
Comments»
I don’t have an ipod but i”ll try it on a western digital hdd. What is the principle involved here, what does freezing & unfreezing do? I imagine this fix only works on ipod’s with hdd problems? Roger.
the principle behind this is expansion and contraction of the metal surfaces in the bearings of the ipods hdd, if the bearings have seized up freezing could help free up the bearings and let the hdd platters spin again…….then ipod here we go!!!
or so ive been told. not ever needed to try this but been told it works 50/50.
as your man has said u got nothin to loose…
my ipod shuffle isn’t working, i’ll try it…if it works i’ll be soo glad…and thnx for the idea…..
believe it or not, the freezer trick works!!!!! i have a 5th gen video ipod and on day the sound just stopped working. i read like 100 threads and feeds and said what the hell. instead of putting it into the freezer i grab a flexible ice pack and wrapped the ipod in it! sure as S***, the ipod plays WITH sound again!! it worked for me, give it try, you’ll save money and heartache!!
i had no sound on my ipod, tried everything and nothing work.. out it in the freezer for 10 minutes and it works again.
thanks!!!
Hooray! This technique worked for my dead iPod too! We put it in the freezer for 15 minutes and then tried to restart. The disk still sounded stuck, so we just left it to come back to room temperature. Then, like magic, the menu came up like nothing was ever wrong!
Both my brother and my sister have fixed their non-responsive ipods by putting them in the freezer overnight and then booted up connected to the computer. It worked like a charm. It is fun to see others have come up with the same solution!
I can add another success report of the “Freeze Method”. I my case I could hear that the ipod (4th Generation) was trying to startup and would start to spin the hard drive. The apple was showing up on the screen and I could hear the drive starting to spin. However, the spinning then stopped and the image turned to a sad ipod face and a referral to the apple support website. It would then try to charge the ipod for a second before repeating the above stages.
So, i put it in the freezer for about an hour. Then pulled it out and it boots properly! (after one or two on/off cycles). I have now reset it to factory setting and will be trying to load my music back on now. Most people probably don’t need to reset it.
One thing of concern is condensation. Any ideas?
what about if my ipod fried cause of a charger incident, think this will have any effect??
I’m doing everything I can to bring my 5th gen U2 edition ipod back to life. This ipod was seriously my best friend. Same problem… it keeps restarting itself, it goes in disk mode, but doesn’t get recognized in itunes, won’t reformat, etc. Now that I hit rock bottom I’ll try the freezer idea…. but I just don’t know the specifications. Do I wait til it dies then put it in? Can I put it in while its in disk mode? for those of u that had it work, please help ASAP.