After almost 10 years’ service - almost on a daily basis - my iPod Photo HD died this week. I tried a few things to revive it - including a format zeroing out data (this maps out defects as well), but I started getting “can not write to the last block” error messages. The general consensus is that such a message means the thing is dead.
So the options are (in no real order)
1 - Buy a new replacement iPod. I’d like one that can hold my entire music collection, so it has to be a Classic.
2 - Buy a second hand iPod - probably cheaper, but you don’t know how it‘s been treated. I want a good 5 years out of any replacement. We have a branch of CEX which does at least cover devices with a 12 month guarantee.
3 - Replace the exiting iPOd’s HD with another storage device. This can be done by me - and I’ve found you can replace the HD with a suitable (read ATA) CF card. There are adapters that provide the right kind of interface for use in an iPod - e.g.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CF-Card-Compact ... 1468988304 . Could be an interesting project to do, but the battery and other bits of the iPod are old. This is the cheapest option, but I have no guarantee that it will work. It would be an interesting project to undertake, but in order to preserve the capacity of the iPod, I’ll need a 64GB CF card onto of that. So, I may just retire the iPod and look for a replacement.
That all said, having the thing last for so long is very good. I am reliably told by the person I slot it to that my previous iPod (a 1st Gen model) is still functional.
