Tuesday, September 1, 2009

How to Fix a Dead IPod Touch 2G - The Secret

Can I tell you how much I hate technology?


An upcoming trip to Europe pushed us over the edge to buy a Ipod Touch 2G. We figured it would help out with entertain us, give us the opportunity to perhaps get email on the run and use some cool apps like maps and travel guides as we tour London and Paris.

Well, yesterday was a very exciting mail delivery day when the new Ipod Touch arrived from Amazon. Right out of the box I marveled at how easily it came alive and synced up with my Itunes software and a few games and apps I had downloaded. I was praising Apple for its advanced usability compared to my very much hated underpowered Vista laptop which is the only computer in the household that works with Itunes. My old reliable desktop computer running XP never can load Itunes because it won't install Quicktime. But anyway back to the story.

So everything was peachy keen that is until I was tempted to upgrade my Itunes software for $9.95. At first I was a bit outraged at the idea of upgrading for money but I went for it anyway.

Then my brand Ipod Touch 2G simply dies. Blank screen. No reaction to any button pressing, wouldn't even be recognized as a USB device. But this story has a happy ending and after hours and hours of trying to revive it let me just jump to what worked for me.

First I tried the following suggested methods of reviving a dead Ipod Touch:

http://www.apple.com/support/ipodtouch/troubleshooting/ipodtouch/

But I had better luck with the "DFU" method:

DFU mode is a mode where the iPod Touch/iPhone will be made to force a restore of the firmware into whatever version firmware it is given.

Getting your iPod Touch/iPhone into DFU mode is somewhat tricky, and it may require some patience/practice because timing is essential to get it to DFU mode and not into recovery mode.

1. First, Open up iTunes, plug in your iPod Touch/iPhone to the CPU's USB port. Turn on your CPU's speaker and make sure it is loud enough that you can hear it.

2. Hold down the Home button (top left for iPod Touch and top right for the iPhone with the screen facing you) and the Power button (located on the front bottom of your iPod Touch/iPhone) simutaneously, until the screen goes black and the device turns off. (past the red slider/slide to power off screen)

3. Now let go of the Power button, but continue to hold the Home button. Your iPod Touch/iPhone should have turned off and the screen should not be on.

4. After around ~10-20 seconds, you will hear a noise (beep/ding) from your CPU as if it had just recognized a new hardware device, now iTunes should recognize it in DFU mode.

5. After iTunes recognizes the iPod Touch/iPhone, let go of the Home button otherwise it will go into recovery mode and you will have to do the entire DFU process over again.

6. You will know when you have put your iPod Touch/iPhone correctly into DFU mode when the display is blank and that you do not have anything on your device.

My problem was first that it took many many tries to get into the DFU recovery process and when it did get started it would stop about half way through and give me an error message (error 6 to be precise).


MY SECRET FOR FIXING A DEAD IPOD TOUCH

The solution I found for fixing my IPOD Touch was to do all the above BUT with my Zone Alarm virus checking software turned off. It seems that during the Ipod Touch restore process that it needs to communicate with Itunes headquarters about half way through and the security software was blocking the connection. With the security software turned off I had no problem restoring my Ipod Touch.

I hope this helps anyone out there with a dead Ipod Touch especially anyone thinking of throwing theirs against the wall. Did I mention I hate technology?

2 comments:

MrXboxHD said...

dude u r my new best friend all i had to do was turn my zonealarm off and ur like the only person tht new this tyvm i love u

Unknown said...

u r the MAN ... u r my saviour.... thanks a bunch... i have been trying for 48 hours with no success where were you before??