My wife has one of the original 5G IPods. She loves it and uses it all the time. The fringe benefit has been a better appreciation of the CD library I've built up over the years and less griping about adding to it.

The drive has crashed and of course we're now into the Apple forced OS and hardware upgrade scenario. Unfortunately, she has to continue on System 9.x due to work compatability requirements so the the new IPods are out since they require 10.x.

I've popped the case on the old 5G unit and see that a Toshiba 1.8" drive is used. Seems simple enough. I'll just buy a replacement of the same, or even a larger one, right? My research says no. It seems that neither a straight replacement nor a larger one of the same type will work due to an OEM ROM on the logic card that prevents the use of 3rd party drives.

Anyone here had any success repairing or replacing the drives on one of these? Jeffrey, Adrian?

This is one of the reasons I really don't like Macs. Apple did this in the old days with their SCSI hard drives as well. This seems to be very unnecessary proprietary engineering that locks folks into their technology. Enough griping.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Jeffrey, Russ, thanks for the upgrading encouragement. Unfortunately, that will be driven by her employer at this point. I did scour the discussion groups before posting and came up empty. We'll see what smalldog comes back with.

Thanks again!

For guitar retards, like me, they are invaluable. I can lay down a rythme track and a bass line in Reason then spit it out as an mp3 to my iPod and use it as a backing track while I stumble thru a toon on one of my guitars. good fun.

I too was reluctant to move to OSX but I finally did a month or so ago and I have no interest in using OS9 again. Make the switch.

Guys, your in luck, i have all the drives you need. Furthermore documentation on how to take them apart as well.

Visit www.ipodreplacementparts.com

The iPod housings SUCK.

Until they figure out how to make the entire thing more durable - forget it.

IPods are disposable items w/ a 2-3 year life span.

I've got a boombox that was one of the first gen ones to play CD's and it still works flawlessly.

Low tech ? High tech ?

Hold the iPod in your hand (the way you normally do with the screen
facing you) and smack it on the right side...

I know it sounds crazy, but it *just* worked for me (my 2.5 year old
iPod died this morning with clicking noises and then no battery charge).
I was ready to go buy a new iPod.

I found the fix in a discussion group here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2237714#2237714

I can't believe it worked, but it did! The iPod came on, I was able
to play and song. It is now happily recharging.

The wierd coincidence is that after I did this (and shouted with sheer joy
when it came on!) is that I then went to this forum and saw your post!