iFixit - Answers With Device "iPod 3rd Generation"

iPod 3rd Generation: My iPod keeps skipping through music

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 03:37:43 -0700

my ipod will continuously skip through music sometimes without me evan pressing the skip butten. im hoping that there is some way to fix this without buying another front panel but if not then ill just get a spares and repairs pod from ebay. im not sure if this could be a hardrive problem or something elce

iPod 3rd Generation: Weird storage options for the old hdd drive. 40gb showing 5.64?

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 14:24:28 -0700

This ipod 3rd gen has been a ride to say the least, but above all that, I got a 3rd gen 40gb with a broken drive(it still works but I can hear clicking and grinding) but I got a new drive arrived yesterday! Yay lol but I put it into the 3rdgen and it shows a folder with a exclamation point, so I plugged into iTunes and tried to do a restore, and it went through great until it said “error ipod can't be restored, and unknown error occurred(1429)” so I put my 3rd gen drive into the 4th gen and it shows up, restores and shows right in disk utility(40gb ipod media), in the 3rd gen it shows 5.64gb external hdd. And when I put the 3rd gen drive into the 4thgen I did a smart test and sure enough the new drive is almost perfect. Thanks for any suggestions.

iPod 3rd Generation: Weird icon on the screen, then turns off

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 02:25:03 -0700

I found my old iPod Classic 3rd gen, 15gb model. Battery is obviously dead and nothing happens when I charge it so I opened it and found out the battery is swollen. I took it out and connected the wires to another 3.7V battery. When I press any button, hdd spins up and it shows this “connect dock cable” icon on the screen and it shuts down after a few seconds. I tried a few different batteries, all 3.6/3.7/3.8v but i got same results. I also tried hooking up wires to power supply with no avail.

Edit:

I tried menu+center, menu+play/pause, play/pause+center, previous+hold…etc it just restarts back to same screen.

I have usb to dock cable so I tried connecting it to my iphones charger and plugging it to pc/mac while itunes was running. Same thing.

⟐ Edited by author February 24, 2020 at 2:25 MST

iPod 3rd Generation: Headphone out plugged into mixer with phantom power, what to replace?

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 04:59:14 -0700

I acidentaly plugged my ipod 3G into mixer channels with the phantom power (48V) on. It sems to have fried the output amp, the sound is still coming out but very faint (not enough to drive earphones but audible if amplified).

What do i need to replace in order to replace the headphone amplifying circuitry? Just the headphone out, or the main board too?

Thanks!

iPod 3rd Generation: iPod Syncs but Hangs on "Okay to Disconnect".

Wed, 21 Jun 2017 08:53:41 -0700

I have a 15GB iPod 3rd Gen. When I sync it puts the songs on the iPod. When it finishes it says safe to disconnect but then hangs and wont reset. It also wont update and hangs on the update as well. Any Ideas?

⟐ Commented June 21, 2017 at 8:53 MST

iPod 3rd Generation: I changed the batterie but it doesn't charge,

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:24:10 -0700

I changed the battery but it only display the battery with a interrogation sing

iPod 3rd Generation: Works in Disk Mode Only, Hangs at Apple Logo

Thu, 19 May 2016 16:19:02 -0700

I recently pulled out my old 3rd Generation iPod, hooked it up to its Dock Connector to charge and it came on and hung at the Apple logo. At first I thought it may have simply been because the battery had been drained and it had not received a charge for quite some time. However, after half an hour the Apple logo remained. I tried multiple resets, but it would only get as far as the Apple logo. So, my search for answers began, and I discovered the Diagnostic Mode.

I got the iPod into Diagnostic Mode and ran the "5 in 1" test and the tests passed. I then ran the HDD Scan, which failed immediately with "HDD Fail (a hexadecimal code) WR Fail". So, naturally I decided that that meant the HDD had gone bad, but I decided to try some more things just to make certain.

I found out that I could get the iPod into Disk Mode, so I connected it to my computer and both the computer and iTunes recognized that the iPod was connected and was an iPod not just an external drive. I was able to transfer all non-music data from the iPod to the computer with no issues, and iTunes showed all of the music on the iPod. I tried restoring the iPod through iTunes. It went through and downloaded and then told me that the iPod was restarting to finish the restoration and would reappear in iTunes when it had restarted. The iPod, however, showed the "Ok to Disconnect" screen, but did not restart. I held down the "Menu+Play/Pause" buttons to get it to restart. When the Apple logo appeared it had a progress bar beneath it that filled up, then the Apple logo came back and it froze there yet again. After putting it back into disk mode I ran the Disk Utility First Aid on the iPod and it eventually exited with an error instructing me to repair the drive.

I then erased (zeroing out all data) and reformatted the iPod, and ran the restore process once again with the same results as before. This time, however, running the Disk Utility on the iPod showed no errors even though the Diagnostic Mode HDD Scan still shows the "Fail" message. I also noticed in iTunes that for the System Version and device Serial Number both show "n/a".

It seems odd to me that if the HDD is bad, that it would pass a scan in Disk Utility, and would successfully transfer files and sync songs while in Disk Mode. I'm afraid that it may be the logic board, something I'm wary to replace. Taking my iPod apart is not something I want to du unless it is absolutely necessary.

If it would be useful, I can provide the results from the various Diagnostic Mode tests.

Any advice or help that anyone can provide would be very welcome.

iPod 3rd Generation: Will not charge with firewire cable

Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:51:41 -0700

I just picked up a 15GB 3rd gen iPod. It was dead and would not turn on. I had a new battery so I put that battery in. The iPod turned on and play music although the backlight didn't seem to work. I noticed it did not appear to be charging. (Yes I am using a firewire wall charger which charges other iPod's fine.) So I thought I would try and connect it to the computer and restore it and see if that helped. I connected to the computer and iTunes recognized it and I restored it. It then told me to remove from the computer and connect it to the wall charger. When I did this the iPod did not acknowledge it. It is still asking to be connected to a wall charger. So I am guessing the logic board is bad. Does this make sense to the experts here?

⟐ Commented March 24, 2015 at 12:51 MST

iPod 3rd Generation: Step 18 on hard drive repair - battery clamp

Thu, 12 Mar 2015 15:31:38 -0700

I replaced the battery on my iPod 30G classic but unfortunately, the locking clamp at the battery connector got lost. Is it possible to order just the locking clamp?

Thank you,

⟐ Edited March 12, 2015 at 15:31 MST