Does the iPod work without a screen?

Question

Hello all, I am asking for your help.
I have an 80 gig 5.5 gen iPod video and the screen was recently broken. After the screen was cracked (I don't know how this happened), the iPod quit working altogether. So I decided to remove the screen and see if the ipod would work. It kind of works, but the music won't play and the click wheel doesn't click. All it does is fire up in disk mode, and the buttons click when you press them (an audible click is heard from the clicker inside). I am wondering if this is normal for the ipod to not work when the screen is missing, or should it still be functional? I would like to know this for the simple reason of whether or not to buy a new screen and put it in, or is my ipod broken for good.
I don't want to spend the money on a new screen unless it will make my ipod work again.
Thank you in advance, and any comments are welcome.
Update:
I just plugged the screen back in and the iPod is doing the same thing, and the backlight always stays on. Is this a defect of the broken screen, or is the whole ipod wrecked?
Message was edited by: Lafanda

Answer 1

It should work. Reports I have read from people with broken screens on these boards usually say they can not see anything since the screen is cracked, but the iPod will still play fine.
Perhaps you are not hitting the right menu items (on the display you can not see) in order to get it to start playing something?
You might try resetting it first...
Put the hold switch to the OFF/White position. Now toggle it ON/orange then back off again. Then press and hold both the MENU and center buttons on the iPod and hold them for a good 15 seconds or so. Your iPod should reboot starting with the Apple Logo screen, which of course you can not see. But you should find if it is rebooting that the click wheel will no longer give any sounds for a good minute or two while it reboots.
So just keep whirling the click wheel around every 30 seconds or so until you hear the clicking noise again. Once you do, then you should be able to whirl it clockwise which would put you on the last item of the main menu of your iPod. Hopefully this is the Shuffle library one on yours. Hit play and then wait while it loads up the music and see if it starts playing.
Patrick