Appreciation post: My old iPod Classic still works because of a freezer trick

My 2008 iPod Classic started making this awful clicking noise about two years ago, and it wouldn't boot past the sad folder icon. I was ready to give up and just stream everything, but I missed having my own library in my pocket. I found a forum post from 2012 where someone said to put the hard drive in a sealed bag and freeze it for exactly 30 minutes. It sounded crazy, but I had nothing to lose. I carefully took the iPod apart, bagged the tiny drive, and stuck it in my freezer. After letting it warm up for an hour, I put it all back together. It booted right up and has been working fine ever since. The theory is the cold contracts the metal just enough to free a stuck read head. Has anyone else had luck with weird fixes like this for old gadgets?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliver7722mo ago

Wow, that's wild! So the fix actually lasted for two whole years without the drive failing again? I'd expect it to be a temporary band-aid at best.

willow2441h ago

Wow, that's actually pretty wild it held up for two whole years" - dude honestly that's way better than I wouldve expected. I read somewhere that those old drives had really loose tolerances or something, like sometimes the bearings just needed a little jolt to get unstuck? But yeah two years is crazy, most people I know who tried that got maybe a week or two out of it before it died again. My cousin tried the freezer trick on his old WD drive and it booted for like 3 hours max before going kaput again.

oliver_ross82mo ago

My buddy did something similar with an old laptop hard drive. He baked it in the oven on low heat for a few minutes. The thing actually spun up long enough for him to grab his files. Crazy what works sometimes.