Help! My holy source of joy is dead!

[Homer_Bart]

To start off, it's my 2 and a half year old iPod Mini that's dead
This morning, it lagged and hanged (as usual). So I rebooted it by holding down the centre button and the menu button simultaneously. It took longer than usual to reboot. And to my horror, everything including all playlists were gone! The only thing that appears under 'playlists' is 'one-the-go', and all that's left unerased are some txt. files that I use to view lyrics. itunes simply hangs my whole computer when I plug it in, and recovery softwares (yamipod recover my data, etc) all don't work, and hang or simply can't detect the ipod (even though I can see it as ":G drive" in my computer). It says 0 songs, but only 388mb of 3.7gb left, meaning my songs are still in there....

What can I do to at least rescue my ratings and customizations and playlists from that damned thing? Other than buying another iPod

On the side note, it appears that the top white plastic part of the ipod is slowly popping out day by day. Looks as if stuff inside is going to explode. Help!

[anti-net]

May I recommend buying one of the new iPod Classic, I got an 80GB one quite recently and I am really pleased with it. I've always avoided buying iPods and brought alternatives from companies like SanDisk or Creative Labs and they've always been a bit shit.

Oh and to the answer of your question: there's not much you can do I'm afraid

[Prost264]

He's right. From everything I've read that stuff is gone.

I also agree with the iPod Classic recommendation, its [fairly] cheap and you get 80gb!

[killpanda]

In my opinion, the microdrive is dead.

What you can do is open it, put a regular compact flash card in it and see if it works. If it works, go on ebay and buy a cheap big compact flash

I bought a 16GB for 60€

[luvcars]

i have an 80gb black classic and luv it!

[Prost264]

^ +1

When my 4th gen died, I really didn't like the Classic at all. I thought it was slow and clunky, but there was nothing else that met my needs, so I bought one and couldn't be happier.

I should add that its not really slow, just it tries to load too many things at once sometimes.

[Susie]

That's exactly what my old 3rd generation ipod did before it finally gave in. I managed to get five well-traveled years out of it.

I've replaced it with a 160 GB classic (8 times bigger!) So if you really do have to replace it, the classic is fantastic.

[matt2000]

Well if you don't want a classic (if you were happy with 4Gb, then it seems a bit pointless) then I can highly recommend the new Nano, in 4 or 8Gb. My sister got one a few weeks back after I persuaded her not to buy a cheap Mp3 player. Very good piece of kit, and works perfectly with her laptop. Having not owned a 'pod I didn't know hoe much fun touch volume controls are.

[NooDle]

solution is simple

don't buy anything Apple in the first place

[watisdis]

Originally Posted by NooDle

solution is simple

don't buy anything Apple in the first place

IceBone, is that you?!?

[Adunaphel]

When data matters to you, always make back-ups. Because remember kids, Jesus saves, but God makes incremental back-ups.

Seriously though, don't you back-up all the playlists and shit in your iPod using iTunes or some less crappy yet equally or more functional application?

[Blind_Io]

Sorry, but the data is gone. It sounds like the battery burst and probably ate the guts. I don't remember if iTunes has a copy of your ratings and such or not - I think it does. When you connect your replacement iPod it should all transfer over.

[Viper007Bond]

If you didn't use the manual method, iTunes will auto-resync all your songs.

I wiped my entire iPod Touch the other day and as soon as I reconnected it, iTunes resynced ALL my music (took like an hour -- stupid slow USB/flash memory/iTunes) as well my Safari bookmarks, my contacts, my IMAP mail settings, etc.

[KaJuN]

Originally Posted by NooDle

solution is simple

don't buy anything Apple in the first place

*cough* Get a Zune! *cough*

[Quiky]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

*cough* Get a Zune! *cough*

QFT.

[Blayde]

^Agree, but don't use USPS to ship it anywhere >:

[NooDle]

Originally Posted by Adunaphel

When data matters to you, always make back-ups. Because remember kids, Jesus saves, but God makes incremental back-ups.

Seriously though, don't you back-up all the playlists and shit in your iPod using iTunes or some less crappy yet equally or more functional application?

Yes, listen to this man
I've currently got about 150cds of music backup shit, and so far Ive had to use them to get all my shit back thrice

good too, since I started collecting music 12 years ago...

[Blayde]

You don't use DVDs?

150 Cds @700Mb each = 22 DVDs, much less and longer lasting, plus it's cheap enough to make two copies on a 50 DVD spindle

[Homer_Bart]

Thanks for all these awesome replies!

So, my ipod's dead, and nothing can save it other than having to open it up and change the parts. That means I should buy another iPod, being the classic as recommended, should I get the green light from my dad (hopefully!).

Should I buy a new one or a refurbished lightly used one? Is the classic's video quality okay for Top Gear and movies?

EDIT: didn't back up my ratings and playlists on itunes, but saved the songs in my external hard drive(thankfully). And I use manual syncz so stuff's gone. Well, at least I get another reason to beg for a new ipod!