Okay then.. that's a bit more of a problem. Try this (taken from O'Reilly's iPod7iTunes guide):
If your hard drive seems to be acting up (freezing, skipping songs, and so on), you can force the iPod to do a Disk Scan self-exam on your command, like this:
Reset the iPod as described in the previous section.
(On 2003 and later iPods, slide the Hold switch on and off again.
If you have an earlier model, go straight to step 3.
Press the Menu and buttons on the front of the iPod simultaneously. (On the iPod Mini, press the Menu and center Select buttons instead.) Hold them down. Wait until you see the Apple logo appear, then go on to step 2.
Press the FF, Menu, RW, and Select buttons all at once.
If your fingers are contorted in a yoga-like position, you're doing it right.
An icon appears. It may take up to 20 minutes for the horizontal progress bar to creep along, so you may want to just let the iPod do its disk introspection and go buy some new tracks from the iTunes Music Store.
You can interrupt the disk scan by holding down the round Select button for a few seconds—but the next time you turn on the iPod, it will begin to scan the disk again. (The "interrupted disk scan" icon looks like an X over the disk icon.)
Once the test has finished completely, you should see one of four icons on the screen. These are:
Checkmark on a disk. Your iPod has aced the exam and everything's fine. No worries, mate.
Exclamation alert triangle on a disk. The disk scan test failed, but will try again the next time you boot up or reset the iPod.
Arrow on a disk. The scan found some disk problems and fixed them, but the show's not over. You should now download the latest version of the iPod software from Apple's Web site and run the Restore program to reformat the iPod's hard disk (Section 15.8).
(Make sure you have all your music and files backed up before you do, because running Restore wipes the drive clean.)
Exclamation alert triangle on sad iPod. This one's bad, really bad. The iPod's hard disk is damaged. About all you can do is send it to Apple for repairs. Go to the iPod Service page at
http://depot.info.apple.com/ipod.
---------------------------
To get to the diagnostic mode, reset the iPod. When the Apple logo appears, press the RW, Select, and FF buttons simultaneously. When you let go of the buttons, the iPod lets out a tweet and flashes a quick screen giving the version of the tests being used.
For 2001 and 2002 iPods running iPod Software 1.3, the tests include:
A. 5 IN 1. Runs five tests (described individually below): LCM, RTC, SDRAM, FLASH, and OTPO.
B. RESET. Restarts the iPod.
C. KEY. Tests all the buttons on the front of the iPod (press them all within 5 seconds to see if they pass).
D. AUDIO. Examines the iPod's audio circuitry. You'll see "0X00000000 DONE" on the screen if it passes the test.
E. REMOTE. Gives you a chance to push each button on an attached remote to make sure it's working right. (If you don't have the remote hooked up, you get a RMT FAIL message.)
F. FIREWIRE. If your FireWire bus tests okay, you get an FW PASS.
G. SLEEP. Puts the iPod to sleep—deep sleep. The Low Battery icon appears on-screen and you'll have to reset the iPod to wake it up again. (If it does take the snooze, then it passed the Sleep test.)
H. A 2 D. Tests the iPod's internal power system and then shows you a voltage reading, along with a string of numbers and codes comprehensible only to iPod engineers.
I. OTPO CNT. Spin the scroll wheel during this test to see its response presented in hexadecimal code. If the value onscreen changes as you spin, your wheel is working. (Hexadecimal is how computers count on their 16 "fingers." They count like this: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F. Programmers know how to read it.)
J. LCM. Push the Select button through three different screen patterns to test the iPod's screen.
K. RTC. Most iPodologists think this test performs a system check of the iPod's internal clock. (You can see more hexadecimal code each time you push the Select button—in case you just can't get enough of that hexadecimal code.)
L. SDRAM. Checks whether your iPod's memory is OK. If so, you see SDRAM PASS.
M. FLASH. Displays a hexadecimal number that identifies the iPod's ROM version. (ROM is read-only memory, a stash of permanent memory that holds startup instructions and other vital info.)
N. WHEELA2D or OTPO. iPods with the immovable, touch-based scroll wheel use the WHEELA2D test; iPods with the moving scroll wheel (and software before version 1.2) use the OTPO test. (You need to reset the iPod at the end of the wheel test.)
O. HDD SCAN. This is the hard drive test mentioned on Section 15.1.1.
P. RUN IN. This test runs several of the diagnostic tests mentioned above repeatedly until you press the Play/Pause button to stop it.
The Diagnostic Menu for the 2003-and-later models and iPod Software 2.1 is almost the same. Different or renamed items include:
F. LIN REC. This test, which supposedly dealt with the iPod's Line In recording function when placed in the iPod Dock, appeared in iPod Software 2.0 but was replaced with a FireWire test in 2.0.1 and later.
J. RECORD. The secret recording feature described on page 250 made a cameo appearance in iPod Software 2.0, but was gone with the iPod 2.0.1 software.
K. CHG STUS. The iPod shows STATUS TEST across the top, and lists information about the player's USB, FireWire, and battery charge.
L. USB DISK. Running this test flips the iPod into Disk Mode and displays the big "OK to Disconnect" checkmark onscreen. Resetting the iPod gets you out of it.
M. CHK SUM presents another hexadecimal number across the screen, and Apple isn't saying what it means.
N. DISPLAY. This was a test for the Display, but it changed to the CONTRAST test for the screen in iPod Software 2.0.1.
No matter which iPod model you have, press the RW and FF buttons to scroll through the list of tests; to start the highlighted test, press Select. Press the Play button at the end of the test to go back to the main list.
When you want to stop testing and go back to listening to music, press the iPod's reset button combination (Menu and Play) until the Apple logo appears.
Can I get away with posting all that? :S hmmm.. if not, let me know and I'll take it down. Otheriwise, midwinter, try this on your iPod and see what the test results turn up.
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