Get your music back from a dead or failing iPod.
Your iPod may hold the only copy of a music library built over years. If the drive is readable, we copy your songs, with their real names and tags, to a drive or your computer.
- 3–7 days typical
- No fix, no fee
- 90-day warranty
- Free insured mail-in shipping
Signs you need this repair
Sound familiar? The diagnosis is always free.
- A sad iPod face icon appears on the screen
- A folder with an exclamation point appears instead of the menu
- The iPod clicks, ticks or buzzes and won’t start
- It freezes on the Apple logo or keeps restarting
- iTunes or Finder asks you to restore it, or doesn’t see it at all
- Songs skip, stall or show up grayed out
Why iPod hard drives fail
Every iPod Video and iPod Classic left the factory with a small 1.8-inch spinning hard drive. Those drives are now between fifteen and twenty years old. Their bearings wear, the heads drift and surfaces develop bad sectors, and the iPod’s habit of being carried, dropped and jogged while running made all of that worse.
The symptoms tell us a lot. A folder with an exclamation point means the iPod can’t find its software or can’t read the drive. A sad iPod usually means the drive failed its startup check. Clicking or ticking means the drive is trying and failing to read, and it is the clearest sign to stop powering it on.
What to do now, and what not to do
- Don’t restore it. A restore erases the drive. If iTunes or Finder offers to restore, say no until your music is out.
- Stop if it clicks. A clicking drive can damage itself further each time it spins up. Every attempt makes recovery harder.
- Try disk mode once. Reset with Menu and the center button, then as soon as the Apple logo appears hold the center button and Play. If the iPod shows Disk Mode and your computer sees it, the drive can be read.
- Don’t freeze, tap or shake it. Those internet tricks can turn a recoverable drive into an unrecoverable one.
Why you can’t just drag music off an iPod
Even when an iPod works, your music isn’t stored in folders you can browse. It lives in a hidden iPod_Control folder, spread across numbered subfolders, with each song renamed to a short random code. The song titles, artists, albums, play counts and playlists live in a database file. iTunes and the Music app only sync to the iPod, not from it.
We read the drive directly, copy every audio file, and use the tags inside each file to rebuild proper names, sorted by artist and album. Where the iPod database survives, we also recover your playlists. You get a library you can add straight back to a computer.
How the recovery works
- Free diagnosis. We check whether the drive spins, is detected and can be read, and tell you what we expect to recover before you pay.
- Image first. On a weak drive we make a careful copy of the readable data before anything else, so we aren’t working on a failing drive longer than needed.
- Rebuild. We extract the songs, rebuild file names from tags and recover playlists where possible.
- Delivery. Your music comes back on a USB drive, or on a new storage upgrade in your iPod if you choose one.
If the drive can’t be read at all, for example after a head crash, recovery may need clean-room work we don’t do in-house. We tell you plainly, and under no fix, no fee you don’t pay for a recovery we couldn’t make.
Recover and upgrade in one go
A failing hard drive is the moment to replace it for good. We can recover your music, fit silent flash storage with far more space, and load your library back on so the iPod comes home working and full. Add a fresh battery while the case is open. Our flash upgrade guide explains whether it is worth it for you.
Timing, pricing and privacy
Most recoveries are done within our typical 3–7 day lab turnaround. A weak drive that reads slowly can take longer, because we read it gently rather than forcing it, and we tell you at diagnosis if we expect that. Mail-in is usually 7–10 days door to door.
Music recovery starts at $79. The price depends on the drive’s condition and how much work it takes to read. We only copy and handle your music and files for the recovery, we don’t keep copies after it is delivered, and you approve the price before we start. We never need your Apple ID or any password to recover files from an iPod.
Mail it in from anywhere in the US
No repair store near you? Book online and we'll email a free, prepaid, insured shipping label. We diagnose it within 24h of arrival, repair it once you approve the price, and ship it back insured. How mail-in works.
Questions
Can you recover music from an iPod that won’t turn on at all?
Often. If the battery or board is the problem, the drive is usually fine and we can read it directly. The free diagnosis tells us which it is.
Will my playlists and play counts come back?
Songs come back with their names from the file tags. Playlists and play counts depend on the iPod database surviving. We tell you what we recovered.
Do you recover music bought from the iTunes Store?
We copy all the audio files on the drive. Older purchased songs with copy protection may need to be authorized on your computer to play. Newer purchases and your own ripped CDs play normally.
Can you recover photos, videos and voice memos too?
Usually, yes. Photos synced to an iPod are stored as resized copies, not originals, but videos, voice memos and files stored in disk mode can be recovered.
Can you recover music from an iPod that was already restored?
Usually not. A restore reformats the drive and erases the iPod database. Some files can occasionally be found on a drive that was restored but never synced again, so send it in before you sync anything new.
More iPod Classic repairs
Something else not quite right?
Battery replacement
Dies fast or won't charge. Quality cells, fitted without damaging the case
Screen
Cracked, dim or blank display
Click wheel & buttons
Unresponsive or skipping
Headphone jack & hold switch
Sound in one ear, crackling, stuck hold
Repair guides
Try this first.
The iPod Classic flash upgrade, explained.
Swap the old hard drive for silent, tougher flash storage. Here's what changes.
Does your iPod Classic need a new battery?
Signs of a worn battery, what replacing it involves, and a smart pairing.
iPod Classic mods: what fits together.
Flash storage, bigger batteries, Bluetooth, USB-C and new cases, and how to combine them without surprises.
Broken today? Start your repair in two minutes.
Three quick questions: your model, what's wrong, and how you'll get it to us. See your price, then book a nearby store or mail it in.