Fixing Stuck “Hold” Switch on iPod

I use my 4th Generation iPod for only one purpose — bringing music easily into my car to listen to while I’m commuting to work. I have an Alpine head unit and an iPod adapter which lets me hook the iPod up and control it via the controls located on the head unit itself. Sound gets fed into the head unit through the same adapter connection.

Several days ago I was getting out of my car with my iPod in hand and I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to it safety. It jumped out, slammed on the ground with all it’s got jumped up several more times performing triple flips and such until it finally came to rest. If my iPod would be a gymnast on a competition it would’ve scored the maximum grades right there.

However the iPod is no gymnast. I guess it hit its head a little too hard and put me in the following predicament: the hold switch got stuck in the locked position. Everything seems to look fine and dandy, but none of the buttons would respond because they are on hold and the damn hold button stopped caring what position it is in. I guess it figured I’m going to teach that motherfucker a lesson for dropping me like that.

Either way, the iPod kept performing its duties just fine in the car, since I don’t need to use those button anyway. Oddly enough though I decided to crack that bastard open and see what might have gotten messed up inside. What’s the worst that could happen?

I grabbed the thinnest screwdriver I had, jabbed it in between the plastic front and metal back side and twisted it. Not the most careful way to do it, but it worked. At that point just work your way around it and open it up. Be careful not to rip off the the thin cord that holds the front and the back together though once you do open it up completely.

I started sticking the screwdriver into the switch and it looked like it was just fine. While doing that I noticed that the front and the back are not connected anymore. That can’t be good, I thought to myself. However it turned out that there is a plug on one side of that cord/tape deal that actually came unplugged. It also turned out that exactly that little plug bastard was the reason that “Hold” button was not working. As soon as I plugged it back in everything came back to life. That’s exactly what came lose when my iPod was performing the acrobatic tricks.

On a slightly different note, I think I’m going to try to install Rockbox onto this thing to make it a little less boring.