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Thankfully I’ve, so far, not needed to use this method on my iPhone but there was a time back in the day of the 3rd generation iPod where we had a spate of broken iPods: I had one, my friend had one, a work colleague had one and weirdly enough I managed to fix them all!

Now this is going back some time ago (but hey I’ve only just started this blog and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do) and it was the 3rd generation iPod but I presume that it’s worth a go with all iPods that have a hard drive.

Firstly, before you do anything take a look on the Apple website at iPod iconology or what does this picture on my iPod mean? page gives suggestions on what might be wrong and helps to solve the issue. Also, if your iPod is under warranty then get Apple to sort it out. The only reason I resorted to the steps below is that my iPod was out of warranty and I’d tried everything to get it working - all unsuccessful.

1. Turn on your iPod, put your ear next to it and listen out for a clicking noise. It sounds like it’s trying to whir around but can’t so it clicks to stop and then it continues again. Now I’m not techy but hard drives have a needle looking thing that accesses the data (like a turntable)
2. Next taking the iPod in your hand you need to hit the long thin edge of the iPod against a hard surface from a distance of about 10cm (obviously don’t do this against a brick wall or something that’ll scratch your iPod) - A wooden table is ideal.
3. Now restart your iPod and see whether the ticking continues or whether it’s kick-started the hard drive needle into action. If not, then try again and again. You can also try the same hitting method but hitting the back of the iPod instead of the edge.

I know this may all sound a bit simple but this really did work for me on more than one occasion. I had a feeling it was simply the needle was stuck and just needed to be shocked into moving again. The sudden hard knock on the table seemed to do just that.

By the way, I won’t be held responsible for any iPods that become completely unrecoverable by using this method - although it sounds as though it’s broken anyway so hitting it a few times shouldn’t hurt it any more than it already is!

Let us all know how you get on by leaving a comment below.