Chatter Of The Squirrel

Cherries, an iPod, and Happy Days

March 30, 2007 on 2:22 pm | In Me! | 2 Comments

I just discovered the music of Ai Otsuka.

Her best hit was Sakuranbo, that stayed on the top 100 charts for 2 years. The chorus ends with “…Atashi Sakuranbo”, which when translated means, “I am cherry.”

But hey, that’s J-Pop. I am most delighted by “Happy Days”. There’s just something unbelievably delightful hearing a shrill young Japanese girl go “HA-Pee Daze! HA-Pee Daze!”

I only came across this song when listening through someone else’s iPod playlist, on my iPod.
Yup, I just bought a 2nd hand iPod.

For RM 80.

That’s no typo! I’ve got a 20GB 4th generation iPod. The monochrome one that doesn’t play video, but it’s still a freaking bargain.

I browse through the LowYat.net forums every once in a while, especially to dig around the Garage Sales. Who knows what kind of bargain you can dig up?

I’ve got a very new Zanussi oven + 4-hob cooker for RM550.

And just a few weeks ago, I bought a refurbished 21″ Triniton flat-screen monitor. For RM 259.

A few days ago, I saw this guy selling his broken iPod.

In the description, he claims that iPod still plays music ok, but has problems loading new music up and would crash every 10 songs or so.

But for RM80, that’s still interesting. But I found it late, and the item was already reserved by someone else.

Two days ago, I rechecked the thread. Item still reserved. But the seller mentioned that he’ll give priority to anyone who would buys both the iPod and the speaker accessory together. I gave it a little thought, and went for it and made an offer.

Got an SMS reply a few hours later. Made the meet for 7pm at SS2, and there’s my iPod. For RM 80. But also had to shell out RM 150 for his Altec Lansing InMotion portable speakers.

My reasoning was, that it’s most likely the harddisk that’s damaged. So the harddisk can always be replaced. And if it’s the iPod electronics that’s dead, then hey, a 20GB harddrive for RM80 is still good.

The iPod works. But some music files were corrupted. Possibly due to incomplete file transfers when the unit crashed and the guy had to reset it.

When I plugged the iPod into the comp, it didn’t work all the time. Most times, the harddisk won’t be detected. The iPod just makes buzzes and clicks and nothing happens. (Having a stethoscope is handy while I was figuring out the diagnosis.) I even stuffed the iPod into the freezer for a couple of minutes to see if that helps the harddrive.

So, next step will be to crack the case open and take a look at the harddrive. Google turned up a few guides. Tried to look for a nylon pry-tool in SS2 with no luck. Need the nylon tools to crack the case without scratching it. I know where to buy them in KL, but didn’t feel like going so far to get them. Finally went ahead and used a switchblade and managed to open the case with minimal scratches.

And that’s where I got quite an education. The iPod uses a 1.8″ harddisk. Gosh, they really make them that small? I has assumed that it was using the 2.5″ disk that notebooks use. Well, it should have been obvious that it’s impossible that the iPod can fit a 2.5″ disk. But I’m just not that good at eyeballing dimensions.

This 1.8″ thingie… I won’t be able to source for the part cheaply.

Miscalculation.

Ah well…

Last night, after my tenants had finished watching Blood Diamonds (with my 21″ screen), and gone to sleep, I took another crack at the iPod. Still making clicks and whirrs, but I managed to get it to behave long enough to start formatting the drive.

Took almost an hour, but I was able to reformat the whole drive. Used iTunes to restore the software onto the disk.

And I started loading up some songs into it.

First, an audiobook by Agatha Christie. 88 files went it without a hitch.

Grabbed a few more albums. They synced perfectly.

Loaded up almost 2 Gigs of tunes. And everything’s still good.

Woo~~Hoooo~~~~!

Fingers crossed… But it looks like I’ve repaired my RM80 iPod!!

If everything goes sweet, then I can christen the iPod and give it a name so I won’t have to keep referring to it as “the iPod”, and truly welcome it into the family. I’m partial to naming it Munin (Memory), one of Odin’s ravens.