Sunday, February 8, 2009

How to Troubleshoot IPods

By Jennifer Kilpatrick

The Ipod generation has not only opened doors for limitless entertainment and business opportunities (and a saving grace for Apple) but has also given rise to the demand and expectation in durability of its product releases. The gadget though pretty and still the top leader among music player brands, couldnt be spared by faults from time to time (just like with everything).

But good news is that like most Apple products, the iPod is well designed both internally and externally and provided you have first-hand knowledge in technology and the likes, you can diagnose the fault and home repair will be as easy as counting 1-2-3.

You will know there is a problem with your iPod when: it doesn't power up, not recognized by iTunes, it won't play music, or it displays the dreaded sad face logo on its screen. Before panic strikes you and thinking maybe the screwdrivers ought to do the job, you should first try the 5 R's which are detailed at length on Apple's support site and briefly they are:

First and always Reset the IPod when symptoms starts showing off. Flick hold on and off then hold down the menu and select buttons (centre button and top of wheel). Next is Retry by plugging your IPod into a different USB or fire wire socket on your computer or laptop. When everything is settled on it is now time to Restart your computer. After that Reinstall by getting the latest version of iTunes and reinstall your iPod from this new version then Restore your iPod from iTunes.

If the above Diagnostics still proves your IPod has serious problems, there is another method you can use and that is by using the reset method and then straight away pressing the play/pause button. Doing this will force the ipod to act like a standard external hard drive and it will become visible in Windows. Next select the ipod in the Windows view, right click and select format (before doing this remember that this will erase everything on your iPod; music, audiobooks, videos, pictures, etc). Open iTunes. If it was just a problem of corrupted software on the iPod, iTunes will go about reinstalling and then you can catch your breath now. - 16651

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