[sfieldhouse]

So, Im driving along in my car when my music suddenly stops. My iPod is frozen. no response. After arriving safely home I reset my iPod using the menu/select combination and i get the sad iPod face. My course of action? I hit it hard against my knee, reset again and its alive!

This isn't the first time this has happened. The first time i simply tried to skip forward tracks and it froze, after resetting i got the sad iPod face. Whilst geting my pod out of the car i dropped it and it worked normallly again.

The worrying thing is, is that its now doing this more regularly. I'll turn it on and you can hear the HDD start to spin, then die, spin, the die in a "hmmmmmmm, click,hmmmmm , click" sort of way. It'll do that for literally hours until the battery dies unless i givce it a hard knock and then the drive spins up fine. The latest development is turning it on and getting the apple screen and the drive not booting up at all.

Is it safe to say I have a HDD problem? I hasten to add that NO WAY would I ever bang, thump or otherwise impact any electronic device, especialy one containg an HDD undder usual circumstances.

It's a 19 month old iPod photo.

[ghporter]

You have a hard drive problem. That's the same set of symptoms my son's iPod Photo had (though not as abrupt and not as frequent), and that's exactly what it was. Try the self test tools in the iPod: read all about it here. This will tell you far more than you could possibly want to know. Of particular importance are the hard drive tests. Note that some WILL OVERWRITE YOUR DRIVE AND MAY REQUIRE YOU TO RESTORE THE IPOD AFTERWARD. Be cautious and use the non-destructive tests first.

Good luck.

[molarszbt18]

None will over write the drive...