iPod Mini alive again!

Last year sometime in November we got lightning strike at home, just when my daughter sat in front of her (and our family) PC..She told me blue light appears accross the main board. The PC is dead, so does the cable modem, the printer and my daughters iPod Nano..sigh..but thank God she is OK.

The Nano got so hot she put it in the freezer!.I wasn't at home. Alas it was over then with it. So with no budget after buying new motherboard-second hand-Phenom X4-cable modem, her dead iPod mini is my target operation. Thought that only the battery needs replacement.

Spend a half afternoon to read how to open the thing-and finally have luck to change the battery after admiring the Wolfson DAC-Phillips chips-no wonder people like the sound of this 1st gen mini. Apple just wants only  the best for their products that time. But the display shows discouraging message..a frowning face appears then followed by an URL..bah..., must be the mini drive that gives up..so did I..throw a towel.

But with luck and persistence of a DIYer-I found this link..of the late Mark Hoekstra, who back then in 2007 have already done it!..replacing the venerable minidrive with 4GB compact flash memory card. A couple month later and it's just yesterday I found a 4GB Transcend CF card that known to be working well with iPod. I've spent a couple of hours and yes..it works, here are the pics. Veel dank Mark..you've leave us wonderful knowledge..

The mini drive-new batt-and  CF card

This thing makes the old iPod mini to a cult status..(Wolfson 8711 DAC) and yes there are people out there tweaking this little guy !

after restoring with iTunes....

With backlit ON & the busted Nano..Apple proprietary chip in there and a korean memory chip..:(

This morning I've made my daughter happy, also my son who got new iPod shuffle for his birthday to day..not to mention my wife who otherwise will spent more money!..So, please throw away then your iPod 1st gen...to me :).