iPod Mini—Better than New

Sometimes something old becomes new again. I recently resurrected my old fourth generation iPod to use in the car because I find setting my phone to stream music to be too cumbersome while driving. The iPod had sat in a drawer for a few years and was stone dead when I pulled it out. It took three days to charge and while I was waiting, I looked online to price replacement batteries—just in case.

Of course, that lead to looking at second hand iPods as well. In the process, I came across an iPod Mini that had been upgraded to be better than new. Besides replacing the original 650 mAh battery with a new 1,300 mAh unit, the 4GB micro hard drive had been replaced with a 32GB Compact Flash memory card, of the sort that used to go into high end digital cameras. The cool thing is that it's a direct fit, requiring no adapters. With a better battery and eight times the storage capacity in a solid state format to boot, this unit was truly better than new and since it was priced right, I bought it.

Being generally curious about such things, I did some online research into what it is involved in making this upgrade and found it's surprisingly easy. Just remove the two plastic end caps, a spring clip from the bottom end and two teeny-tiny screws from the top end, disconnect the click wheel control cable and the whole chassis slides right out. Replacing the drive is pretty much plug-and-play, and it doesn't hurt to put in a new battery while you're at it because iPad Minis were made in 2004 and 2005, so they're getting some age on them.

Learning how the upgrade was accomplished made me want to try my hand at it, so I bought a second Mini for about half what I paid for the first one. It was sold as being in working order, although the battery would go flat in a little over an hour. In short, it was the perfect candidate for an upgrade. After finding a replacement battery kit that included two tiny screwdrivers and a generic 32GB CF card, I was ready to proceed.

Popping off the end caps was easy. There are two competing methods on the Internet: you pry it out with the tiny flat screwdriver that comes with the battery, but you will inevitably gouge the aluminum case. The other, less damaging method is to hot glue a piece of wood (I used a tongue depressor-like 'craft stick' from from the dollar store) to the cap, then lever it out. I used this method and removed the caps with ease and without damaging the aluminum. Removing the wooden stick from the end cap was a different matter but I did accomplish it with a little patience and perseverance. Now came the truly challenging part—getting the iPod software file system set up on the newly installed CF card.

The procedure is supposed to be pretty simple. connect the iPod to a computer with iTunes and run the 'Restore' routine, then start loading on the music. File this one under 'E' for 'easier said than done'. Mine would not successfully restore for what the computer said was an 'unknown error'. After a couple of hours doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result (classic definition of insanity), I opened up the Disk Utility application on my Mac and tried to reformat the CF card at the root level. This failed, but it left things in what iTunes interpreted as a corrupted state, which was something the 'Restore' routine could handle. Finally, after nearly two hours of trying, I had the iPod restored to a usable state and better than new.

In the end, the physical upgrade took me about 40 minutes and well over an hour and a half to get it restored, and I ended up spending about $10 more on the Mini that I upgraded myself than I did on the one I bought already upgraded, but the knowledge gained and the satisfaction of making it work are priceless.

Oh, and my old iPod? the battery isn't what it once was but it's still got sufficient life left in it that I chose not to replace it at this time. I'll just let it roll for now.