Handicapped, but still living, iPod mini

[zeroatma]

Hey all, I'm new to the forums, and I thought I'd see if anybody has any thoughts/advice for my iPod mini situation. Sorry in advance for the long post, I'm trying to be thorough. Here it goes:

I was at the airport (Seattle), and as I was getting out my mini, since they ask that people remove small electronics "to make things faster" (why did I listen?!), it, as expected, fell.

The mini was totally off, as I hadn't been using it for a few days. It landed on a bottom corner, denting the aluminum case a bit.

Now, I have to say, my iPod mini has dropped before (once or twice), much worse falls, and come out none the worse for the wear. But this time is different, of course.

The next day, I turned on my iPod to get the frowny face. So I plugged it into my iBook, used the updater to restore it, and it was fine. Or so I thought.

I started to upload songs onto it, and somewhere between 1.15 and 1.19 GB on the 6 GB drive, things froze up: the iPod and iTunes were stuck. I had no recourse but to pull the cable out, which I know is an EXTREMELY BAD thing to do. But I did it, because there was nothing else to do.

Now, I reset and restored my iPod again, and went into Disk Utility, scanned the iPod drive, and everything was said to be fine. I could erase the drive, repair/verify the drive, no problem. If I tried to do a secure erase, it froze after about 15% or so.

It appears that my drive can no longer write past 1.15-1.19 GB (it can vary a little, but 1.15 is the safest bet). I've read of other people having the same problem who have NOT dropped their iPod, so I'm not convinced the drop is the cause, especially since the drive is a solid-state device with no moving parts.

Eventually, I resorted to something that has worked for a few people on Apple's forums: I took the whole thing apart, disconnected and reconnected the drive, but that didn't help.

Does anybody have any advice on how to make the drive a 6GB again? The 1.15GB of music I can put on plays fine. Reading the entire drive appears to be no problem since I can verify the disk, and repair disk says there's nothing to repair. I can't change any permissions on it (the buttons are greyed out), but I can format it on my Mac.

I also own a Windows PC, I was thinking of trying to format it with that.

If I can't fix it, is it possible to replace the drive with a Compact Flash card? I've read you can, at least on first gen (though mine's a second gen, which is why I don't know), and if you can, I could look into a 6GB or 8GB CF card.

[CJ MAC OSX IPOD]

Originally Posted by zeroatma

If I can't fix it, is it possible to replace the drive with a Compact Flash card? I've read you can, at least on first gen (though mine's a second gen, which is why I don't know), and if you can, I could look into a 6GB or 8GB CF card.

Maybe make a converter ?

[CJ MAC OSX IPOD]

You might of damaged the HDD during dropping

[zeroatma]

Originally Posted by CJ MAC OSX IPOD

You might of damaged the HDD during dropping

That's what I'm thinking, although I've read posts of similar problems from people who haven't dropped their iPods. I'm looking into finding a replacement drive for less than the cost of a new iPod.

Still, if it was damaged, why does everything that reads it think it has the entire 6GB available? Weird...

Well, any more help/thoughts would still be appreciated.

[Qion]

Don't go the Compact Flash route. A card that large would cost more than a new iPod...

If you still have AppleCare, try that.

[zeroatma]

My AppleCare has long since expired.

I know the cards are pretty expensive, so maybe a new iPod is in order, but I love the mini. Maybe I can get a refurb one from Apple for not too much.

[Qion]

Maybe. There's a lot of ways to get a cheap Mini though, eBay and MacMall are two options that come to mind.