major ipod problem

[gav]

So, I went to charge my ipod so I could go and work last night and all I got was a file symbol with an exclamation mark. Went through all the apple support info, but no go. Computer doesn't recognise it at all.
Spoke to a guy here and it seems the only place to have them repaired in europe is the Netherlands and If my ibook repair is anything to go buy, it would probably take 3months !! On further investigation on the internet, I figure the drive has just suddenly packed it in.
Has anyone else had this problem and had the drive replaced, and if so, how much did it cost?
Out of frustration, I managed to open the damn thing up, not that hard once you know how. Didn't help me though. Unless of course I can order the toshiba drive fro somewhere and then fit it myself.
Good news is, if you can find someone willing to sell you the replacement battery, it's a simple process to replace it.
Any advice would be usefull.
It's a 40gb model, 3g I think, the one before they released ipod photo.

[Evan Young]

last I heard buying the drive itself by itself costs more than the ipod. Mac buys them in huge bulk and gets a good deal that they can pass on to the consumer. You might be able to buy a broken ipod with a working drive off of ebay. mabey find one with a dead batery.
good luck.

[Kim]

Hey Gav

Is that the exclaimation mark symbol that comes up when you have it hooked up to your pc/mac? (The one that lets you know not to pull the plug until you close the software, or something bad will happen)

I pulled the plug out while that exclaimation mark was showing, a few months ago, and had a similar sounding problem.

ipod wouldnt turn off, or play, or do anything... just kept displaying that symbol.

I just waited till the battery ran completely flat, and it rebooted itself...

May not be the same problem, but sounded similar...

Cheers . Kim

[Evan Young]

oh yeah, if you hold the center button down for a while it will reset the ipod.

[gav]

I went through all the resesting and rebooting procedures, and even went as far as opening it up and disconnecting the battery. No go still. Managed to get it into disk mode where it displays a message that it's ok to disconnect but from there it does nothing. I found some further info on the net and it looks as if its definately a hard drive issue. I was really looking forward to getting an rf remote for it, kind of essential for my new show. Looks like I'll have to get my wife to be dj with a diskman for now.

[Tyler]

If I were you, I'd go to the place you bought it and complain until they replace it.

If that's not an option, hopefully your warranty (if you got it) will cover a replacement from Apple.

[gav]

ipod warning

Unfortuantely, my ipod was almost 2 years old(not very old if you ask me), so no warranty now. The shop I bought it at is 25 000km away.
I took it to the local approved apple repair place and the guy gave me 2 options, 1. the legal way. He sends it to Amsterdam where they replace it with a completely new exact same old model . The price, 260 euros. The wait, 3-4 weeks. The price was good, the time was not. Option 2, illegal. He replaces the drive for 125 euro and it's ready the next day.
Time being of the essence, I went with option 2 even though option 1 was a better deal in the long run.
The catch!
The information on your ipod drive is non retrievable! Stupid old me, because I travel with my laptop and use my ipod as external drive, had backed up a lot of my music and other files on the ipod so I could make room for some movie files on the book. All gone, and I only have some of it on cd.
How many people out there back up everything to cd?

[frodo]

i dont backup to cd, i use two seperate removable hard drives.

I would proberly loose cds, my laptop only has a small hard drive so my removables are a god send!

lets just hope my ipod dosent die!