Dead iPod Nano (4g)

After my run yesterday, during which my iPod nano worked perfectly, I couldn’t get it to sync. I have issues at times where I’ll connect it to the laptop, it will start iTunes, and then it will give me an error. Typically I see that the Nano has rebooted, and when it comes up, iTunes will see it. There are times that doesn’t work and I need to disconnect, stop the USB drivers, and then restart again, but that’s rare. And most of the time it just gets detected and works.

However yesterday I was working along and noticed that it hadn’t sync’d. I stopped the USB services, but that didn’t work. I disconnected, rebooted, and reconnected. Windows would detect it, but the iPod never showed up as a drive. I opened the properties for my USB devices, I’d see the Nano, but when I tried to force a population of the volumes, it would fail.

Then the iPod rebooted.

As I was messing around, it just rebooted. I let it complete, it reconnected, and nothing happened for about 5 minutes, at which time it rebooted itself again.

I got busy, so I didn’t do anything with it for a few hours, but I tried later, just to access the Nike+ with it unconnected, and sure enough it rebooted itself about 5-6 minutes after it started up. At this point I knew something major was wrong. However I also knew that Apple tech support would be asking for me to troubleshoot. So I tried a few things.

• I shut down the Nano
• I rebooted it. (it rebooted itself after 5-6 minutes)
• I connected it to a new computer, thinking I could wipe and reformat. No go, not recognized.
• I changed cables

At this point I checked for service from the Apple site. Putting in the serial number had them recording the purchase date, which was amazing since I don’t believe I registered it. My guess is that  Best Buy fed that back to them. I was inside the 1 year warranty, but outside the 180 day range. That meant I had to pay handling of $30.

I did, and then got an email later saying I’d be getting a box in a day or two that would be used to ship it back.

Slightly annoying, but it happens. Someone’s iPod will fail, no matter what the manufacturing, and I got (un)lucky. It’s under warranty, and I should get another year from the time it’s replaced, which is cool. I wonder if I’ll still be running by then.