iPod Classic iPod Question

[patseguin]

I was doing some cleaning in my music studio and noticed that I had forgotten that I still have a black iPod with hard drive. Did I read somewhere that they were selling extremely well on eBay? This has a 60GB HD, is black with a color screen, and has a 2005 copyright on the back.

 

[BrettApple]

Nice! That would be the iPod (5th generation)—also known as iPod with video or Fifth Generation iPod.

Looking at sold listings on eBay you should easily be able to get around $60 if it's in working order. I bought a used 80GB model for about $80 a few months back. They run about a dollar a gig. And depends on the condition. Or use it yourself. They're easy to work on to replace the front and back, hard drive, or battery. They just keep working.

I'd check the hard drive and battery first. Once it's in diagnostic mode (reset the iPod with center + Menu, then hold center and previous), scroll to IO and go to SMART DATA. That will give you an idea if it's failing or not.

Example: failed drive on my iPod classic

New drive installed:

Pending sectors are a pretty good give away that it's bad. While a few reallocations highly increase the fail rate, they can still work fine with them up to a point. But I won't go into much detail here.