Matt Carlson mentioned<\/a> that he’d had a similar experience reviving an MP3 player with a stuck hard drive head by smacking it — smacking it so hard that it flew out of his hand!<\/p>\nWell, wouldn’t you know it, but we happen to have a nice 80Gb iPod Classic (pictured above) that died over the summer with the telltale clicking sound of a stuck head. So I tried out Matt’s trick & whacked quite firmly (& quite loudly) multiple times on an old wooden chest and voil\u00e0 – it came back to life! We thought we’d be travelling without the benefit of our huge shared pile of music, but it’s worked beautifully for many hours (all the way down to Arkansas & back).<\/p>\n
Huzzah! Big thanks to Matt for the suggestion – banging on hardware beats the heck out of having to buy a new iPod. Again, I was only willing to risk this because this puppy was well past warranty, and there was no chance of repairing it. Obviously beating the tar out of electronics is something one should think carefully about and do with some care; your mileage definitely<\/em> may vary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As reported earlier, I managed to use a few drops of nail polish remover to postpone my iPod Touch’s trip to the great pile of electronic waste that is one of the banes of our modern world. In the comments Matt Carlson mentioned that he’d had a similar experience reviving an MP3 player with a … Continue reading “Saving money by doing more silly things”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25,1,2],"tags":[197,873,491,492,485,489,493],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-family","category-general","category-music","tag-electronics","tag-family","tag-fix","tag-hard-drive","tag-ipod","tag-repair","tag-stuck-head"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-iu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/01\/20\/turn-any-ipod-into-an-ipod-shuffle-in-3-easy-steps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":0},"title":"Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Jan 05","format":false,"excerpt":"mhusson (via Extended Abstract) has hilarious instructions on how to Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps! Gotta love modern technology (and marketing).","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1113,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2009\/12\/04\/i-just-saved-several-hundred-dollars-with-a-drop-of-nail-polish-remover\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":1},"title":"I just saved several hundred dollars with a drop of nail polish remover","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"4 Dec 09","format":false,"excerpt":"I fixed a non-responsive home button on my iPod Touch using a drop of nail polish remover. Your milage may vary, however.","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Our family iPod (which is truly dead due to a bad hard drive, but that's another story)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1191\/1162258117_f3b72d4d48_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":446,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/06\/are-there-interesting-affordances-of-mind-mapping\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":2},"title":"Are there interesting affordances of mind mapping?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"seismograph #4, originally uploaded by Nils K. Windisch (netomer). Bill over at Notional Slurry has been wondering whether the mind mapping emperor actually has any clothes. Which is a fine bit of timing, because I'd been wondering the same thing. In all the driving back and forth to Arkansas to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":506,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/03\/07\/honey-jar\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":3},"title":"Honey jar","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"7 Mar 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Honey jar, originally uploaded by Unhindered by Talent.","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":413,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/12\/16\/midwestern-evening\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":4},"title":"Midwestern evening","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"16 Dec 06","format":false,"excerpt":"Midwestern evening, originally uploaded by Unhindered by Talent. Beauty is where you find it...","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":468,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/15\/february-letters\/","url_meta":{"origin":1146,"position":5},"title":"February Letters","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"15 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"February Letters, originally uploaded by magic fly paula. Just too cool...","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1191\/1162258117_f3b72d4d48_m.jpg?resize=240%2C180\" "\\"OurPod\\"")
<\/a>