IPod mega frozen

Question

Hello,
Ok well I was on here like 6 months ago (almost to the day) and I had a problem with my 4th gen iPod photo. It locked up while changing songs. When I reset it, it went to the exclamation point thing with the www.apple.com/support/ipod thingy. So I looked up some stuff and decided to drop it from like 3 inches onto a desk. Walla, it worked again. Now it has locked up a couple more time since then and so I would just tap it and it would run again. Now the problem, I was listening to a song when it just froze. Nothing moved, no sound, NOTHING. So I reset it (Menu and select). It goes to the apple sign then to the excalmation point thingy. So I tap it again and nothing happens. Also when I reset it, the hard drive spins up like it is loading, but it doesnt. Also it is making a clicking sound, and when I move it side to side, it makes a humming sound. One more thing is that when I plug it in it wont charge, and when I plug it into my Mac it says that the iPod cant be synced to iTunes. I did some of the diagnostics test and all where fine except the HDSCAN, which would run for a bit then reset. I have read a bunch of the topics on here and I havent found one like this. I dont what to buy a new iPod or try and put in a new hard drive till I know this one is dead. Please help.

Answer 1

see doing the following helps
For Mac computer
1. Open the disk utility, hope your iPod appears there (left hand side), highlight it
2. Go to Tab “Partition”, click either “Delete” or “Partition”, if fails, skip this step and go to 3
3. Go to Tab “Erase” , choose Volume Format as “MAC OS Extended (Journaled), and click Erase, again if fails, skip it and go to 4
4. Same as step 3, but open the “Security Options....” and choose “Zero Out Data” before click Erase. It will take 1 to 2 hours to complete.
5. Eject your iPod and do a Reset
6. Open the iTunes 7 and click “Restore”
otherwise, Windows users having trouble with their iPods should locate a Mac user. In many cases when an iPod won't show up on a PC that it will show up on the Mac. Then it can be restored. When the PC user returns to his computer the iPod will be recognized by the PC, reformatted for the PC, and usable again. By the way, it works in reverse too. A Mac user often can get his iPod back by connecting it to a PC and restoring it.
Tips
a. It does not matter whether the format is completed or not, the key is to erase (or partly) the corrupted firmware files on the Hard Drive of the iPod. After that, when the iPod re-connected with a computer, it will be recognized as an fresh external hard drive, it will show up on the iTunes 7.
b. It is not a difficult issue for a Mac user to find a window base computer, for a PC user, if they can’t find any Mac user, they can go to a nearest Apple Shop for a favor.
c. You may need to switch around the PC and Mac, try to do several attempts between “Format” and “Restore”