My long and expensive journey of restoring an Apple iPod

We were just ending the year 2025 and I wanted to get a good digital audio player for a long time, and I had the wonderful idea of looking for the cheapest used iPod 5/5.5th gens available everywhere I could buy. Vinted, Wallapop, eBay, etc. And I managed to buy an iPod 5.5th gen that looked alright, but didn't play any audio for the decent cost of 50€, thinking that I could easily and cheaply fix that issue with a new headphone jack assembly. But little did I know that this would become so expensive deeper into the journey.

The back of the iPod said "80GB" which made me assume it's a thick-back iPod 5.5th gen, but when I got it, I realized that this iPod was actually a frankensteined mess. Even the clickwheel has been replaced. The hard drive inside was actually 160GB and the back must have been taken from a 6th generation iPod, as it's thin and says 80GB. As I thought I was getting a thick iPod and couldn't tell by the listing pictures, I still proceeded with the order. Though after all, I found that I prefer the thin iPod for reasons I will mention later on.

About two days after I ordered the iPod, I came back home from Christmas vacation and a day after that, my iPod got delivered in one beautiful afternoon.

Alright! It's here! The first thing I tried to do was turning it on, and once I did, I heard the hard drive starting to spin, but seconds later it shuts off and the HDD makes that sound we all know. I assumed the battery was low, so I plugged it in and tried turning it on, and it showed the "Connect to iTunes" screen!

I tried restoring the iPod in a Windows virtual machine, but the thing took way too long to get recognized by iTunes, and when it did, I tried restoring it, and it succeeded after some time, but it would still show that screen. According to my research, the problem would be either a bad battery, or a bad hard drive.

I left the iPod plugged in for a while, but the charge level didn't seem to go up, so I figured I'd need a new battery. I ordered one 3000 mAh battery from AliExpress since I wanted to do that mod, but just in case that didn't fit I also ordered a 650 mAh battery from Amazon. It came in handy because the 3000 mAh did stop working after a while!

I got the 650 mAh battery, connected it, and tried restoring it, but I still didn't succeed, but I also realized that the HDD was making bad noises from time to time, so I figured that the issue MUST be the hard drive. After informing myself a bit about iPods, I learned that iPods have a diagnostics menu built into the firmware, so I booted into it by pressing both the Previous Track and Center Button and checked the SMART status of the hard drive.

Yup, this ain't cooked... this is DEEP FRIED. I really didn't mind as I was going to put flash storage in this iPod anyway. Speaking of which, let's talk about flashmodding...

I have looked at many flash storage adapters or disks, but they were all pretty expensive for my budget... But, I found this one on AliExpress for under 15€!

At the moment, this product got a ton of positive reviews, but when I bought it, it only had one or two detailed reviews but I decided to take the risk and buy the adapter. Meanwhile, I also bought a 3000 mAh battery (it couldn't "co-exist" with this adapter without slightly bulging out, though, which is one reason why later on the journey I decided to just pay the premium that an iFlash Quad is worth. I did fit it with the cheap, slightly thicker adapter before getting the iFlash, which is likely the reason why this battery stopped charging (physical damage).

Before getting the adapter, I was going to open up my iPod again for a reason that I cannot remember, but I slid my iFixit pick around the screen and... surprise, I cracked it! Yaaaaay, 20 more Euros down the drain to restore this iPod!

Welp, at least it still had enough realestate for me to mostly see what I am doing in the iPod or what song is now playing, so a screen replacement sure could wait a little... Funnily enough, the black lines in the middle of the screen disappeared after a while of cracking the screen and that black spot got smaller, but it still will never go away as I cracked the display.

When the adapter arrived, I immediately installed it in the iPod along with one 128GB micro SD card. I thought these little boards had a limit of 128GB according to some Reddit posts I've seen, and I really thought that was true with this board when I inserted two 128GB micro SD cards and the diagnostics menu said "127GB", but turns out that happens even with an iFlash Quad. It recognizes the whole storage in the iPod's firmware version 1.3 and Rockbox, though. As for this cheaper adapter, I am not sure whether that would've been the case, but I bet it would, as someone on this AliExpress product posted a review saying that it works with a 512GB micro SD card and another buyer reported success with 256GB micro SD cards.

Anyways though, I have switched on the iPod and it showed the "Connect to iTunes" screen, which confirms success! I restored it using iTunes in a Windows virtual machine, and this time it actually worked because the storage was in good shape.

Now, I put some MP3s in the iPod to test it out, and it didn't play sound indeed. So I decided to install the new headphone jack I got from AliExpress. At first, I thought I bought a thick-back iPod and I also ordered a headphone jack that I thought was for a thick-back, but it was actually for a thin-back, but thankfully the iPod I actually got is a thin-back, so... that's good! Anyways, I have installed this new jack, but it still didn't play any audio, which indicated a motherboard issue.

I did some research about this issue, and I found many Reddit posts indicating that it's one faulty component that can be replaced with a jumper wire, and even someone made a guide about the issue, how to confirm it and how to fix it.

I have plenty of 28AWG wires, so I cut a tiny bit of it, removed the U14 component and tried soldering that jumper wire with hot air. After a ton of trial and error, I managed to tack the wire into the two points I had to solder on. After minimally putting the iPod back together to test it out, it played audio indeed, so I completely put it back together and enjoyed it. Unfortunately though, that didn't last long :(

After a while, the thing stopped playing audio again, and it was a Friday night, so I decided I would leave it for tomorrow and take a rest. Next day, I tried again, but this time I screwed up one point I needed to solder on, and that probably made this iPod unfixable... or so I thought, maybe I actually could...

I immediately thought that this was a total loss, so I rage quit and damaged the motherboard. Now I had to get another one...

I may have been able to fix it, because on this repair guide there was a picture showing one board with a lifted pad that was able to get fixed, and that was the pad that I lifted, and that pad may have been GND because I just can't see where they could've possibly soldered it other than scraping the silkscreen in the middle of every point... I should've tried this, but what is done is done, and it would've probably break again or I'd lift the other pad to which I bet there's no alternative point.

In the same night, I started looking at new motherboards on eBay and AliExpress. I found one iPod 5.5th gen 32MB motherboard for around 50-60 euros, but I wanted to opt for a 64MB board as from my knowledge, these were more likely to play FLAC audio with no issues, but I couldn't find any of those on AliExpress, so I went to eBay and looked at iPod 5/5.5th gen motherboards. I found few sellers selling some 32MB iPod 5.5th gen motherboards and some 64MB iPod 5th gen motherboards. Ideally, I'd buy a 64MB 5.5th gen iPod motherboard, but I couldn't find any of those, so I went for the 5th gen with 64MB of RAM. It was priced around 56.99USD, but I had to pay shipping (9.99USD) and VAT (15.41USD) as the thing was shipping from China, so I ended up paying 82.99USD (73.79€) which was a bit too high for my budget. It was worth it though...

Fast-forward about 9 days later (surprisingly) the motherboard arrived. I had classes in school that day, so the package got delivered before I left the house and I installed the motherboard when I came back home.

Whew, alright! It actually works! Now time to connect this to the Windows virtual machine and restore it using iTunes!

A few minutes later, the restore succeeded. I set it up and put some MP3s to test the thing out.

It plays sound perfectly fine, yaaay! It was very late, so I went to bed and continued messing with the iPod the next day.

Next morning, I used it for about 15 minutes, still testing things out with the stock firmware, but the battery ran out. It turned out that the original ~550 mAh battery was pretty worn, so I put the 3000 mAh battery that I got earlier.

I had some trouble fitting it with the generic ZIF to micro SD adapter, as it was just slightly thicker than the iFlash quad and it bulged out a little.

A few days later, the new screen arrived, so I replaced it, and now I had a working pod that no longer had an annoying sun!

I did realize that I was warping the battery with this cheap micro SD card adapter and it felt dangerous to close the iPod shut, so I seriously considered getting an iFlash Quad, and I did.

About ten days later (UK to Portugal) the iFlash board arrived, so I formatted my two 128GB Kingston CANVAS Select Plus micro SD cards in FAT32 and restored the iPod again. It came with a ton of cool stickers and it came with two ZIF cables as I ordered one myself. They probably include one ZIF cable when you purchase an iFlash board? Afterwards, I reinstalled Rockbox and put my almost 100GB of music there. The back shut perfectly with the 3000 mAh battery! Yay!

Unfortunately though, after a while, the battery stopped charging and I suppose it was due to the warping on it. I temporarily used that 650 mAh battery and ordered another 3000 mAh battery for a thin back. When that battery arrived, I installed it and my iPod is back to having near infinite battery life!

After this whole journey, I applied one of the iFlash stickers on the back of my iPod, covering that Apple logo. This concludes my journey with this iPod.

One important lesson I learned is: Don't buy iPods that play no audio, unless the seller can confirm it's a headphone jack issue (which is easy to fix). Most of the time it's a DAC circuit issue on the 5th/5.5th gens.

Another thing I'd recommend is asking the seller for pictures of the sides if they aren't already on the listing, as this will help you to confirm that you're getting the iPod you want (thick back or thin back). I was going to buy a thick back iPod, got a thin back, but thankfully I actually ended up prefering the thin back, as it's a lot easier to shove in my waist bag and there are transparent plastic cases for it. I swear I couldn't find cases for thick back iPods!

I've used this thing for months now. I carry this thing with me everywhere. It goes in my waist bag, I use it in the car to shuffle music or play full albums (connected to the AUX jack) and it's a pretty neat FLAC player, there are a lot of cool themes for Rockbox, and it's got excellent battery life. Would I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good Digital Audio Player? If you've got the money, absolutely. If you have a lower budget, check out the iPod Mini where you can install a CompactFlash to SD adapter. It's also got a monochrome display, so you can read it easily under direct sunlight.

Would I recommend something like the Innioasis Y1? It seems like a promising device, but I never tried one myself, so I don't really have an opinion on it.

This concludes my first actual article on this website! I hope you liked it!