Fixing the iPod Nano Crash

Posted by AtariBoy | Filed under Geeky

If you own an iPod nano you’ll know this crash well, if you plug it into a windows PC while it’s in sleep-mode it doesn’t wake up properly and crashes. None of the buttons work and it seems like it’s completely broken, but there is a away to do a hard reset on your ipod, in fact this should work for any newish ipod if it crashes:

  1. Check that hold switch is in the off position,
  2. Hold down both the menu and then the middle button (in that order), for about 10 secs, this should reboot the ipod.
  3. Once it starts up again its works like normal.

This doesn’t delete any of your music or settings either, its a completely safe way of resetting your ipod.

I believe that the newest firmware update (1.1.1) has fixed this bug as well, but its still very useful to know.

Comments (143) | April 21st, 2006

143 Responses to “Fixing the iPod Nano Crash”

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  1. Sarah fox Says:
    April 17, 2009 at 7:49 am

    thankyooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou! was about to burst into girlie tears that my ipod (only purchased y’day) was broken forever as my mate told me to ‘bin it as it’s f**ked’ YAY!!!!! thankyooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!

  2. sterren Says:
    May 8, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    Wow. This is the way to go!

  3. pierced Says:
    June 13, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    I freaken luv you!!! (In a brotherly way)

  4. Elise Says:
    June 15, 2009 at 11:06 am

    thankyou so much this fixed my mums ipod after my brother sat on it and it froze :/

  5. lee Says:
    June 20, 2009 at 9:55 am

    thanks alot i almost died wen myn went off 2 mins ago

  6. Ricky Says:
    June 30, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    Thanks this really helped i had to keep it on overnight for the battery to run out.

  7. Yvonne Says:
    July 6, 2009 at 6:07 am

    Thanks loads, it took me 3 seconds to find you after I googled Ipod nano crash and exactly 10 seconds to fix my problem. Thank you very much xx

  8. morgan Says:
    July 13, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    thanks heaps, my ipods rather old and i definately thought it had passed its expiry date when it wouldnt turn on! thanks for saving me from buying a new one!! :)

  9. rherhe Says:
    July 20, 2009 at 9:43 am

    thanx so much this really helped me out :)

  10. Rachel Says:
    July 25, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Thanks I was freaking out but this really saved me. I would have had to listen to my parents music in the car :(

  11. reginalust Says:
    August 12, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    thanks soo much i did what it said and it did start over, i was looking online to find out who to send the ipod to at apple and it really did not have anyone apple sucks

  12. lee Says:
    September 3, 2009 at 7:00 am

    Thought my ipod was done for, worked like a charm cheers!!

  13. Toby Says:
    October 8, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    cheers mate, i forgot it, i kept pressing middle button and the play/pause button

  14. Joe F Says:
    December 16, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    cheers m8 worked for me so ur blog is very good well done!

  15. Chloe Says:
    December 17, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    Hey, Wow thanks so much this happend to me i really started to think it was broke. would of got me in big trouble. your so amazing x

  16. guild Says:
    January 9, 2010 at 11:08 pm

    Thanks that was a good article!

  17. Jonathan Says:
    January 11, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    Thx mate. i literally only brought it two days ago and i was worried it was broken

  18. Leanne Says:
    January 20, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    Thanks :)

  19. free beats and instrumentals music Says:
    March 2, 2010 at 8:04 am

    Im I the only one who finds this article truly intresting. The fact of the matter is poeple have so many difrent outlooks on the subject it kind of hard to tell who is right or wrong.

  20. Hennrik Q. Hansen Says:
    March 12, 2010 at 2:09 am

    Hi there! How are you today? It’s just that i enjoy your blog so much, and that i believe you could start earning a bunch of money from it. I have a couple of successful sites that i started earning some cash from recently. They are using a thing called a content revealer widget, it makes guests fill out a survey to get access to premium content or to download programs or tools that they want. And each time they do a easy quiz i make about a dollar. Really cool eh..? Been making much more from this than adsense! Feel free to email me, or you can check it out through my refferal link. http://www.tinyurl.com/yevwfst, Best Regards, Hennrik Q. Hansen

  21. aaron Says:
    April 6, 2010 at 4:51 am

    thanks

  22. aaron Says:
    April 6, 2010 at 4:53 am

    :putnam:

  23. awesome stuff Says:
    May 16, 2010 at 4:00 am

    THANK YOU SO MUCH! I had just bought new headphones, and was really impressed by them, only to wake up to my ipod failing. Thanks

  24. Katy Says:
    June 11, 2010 at 1:01 am

    THANKS SO MUCH seriously you’ve just saved my family from getting the wrath of Katy (hate it when things go wrong!)

    Cheers xx

  25. Kiowa Morgan Says:
    June 27, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    Omg i love love love this website i was so sad i thought my ipodwas dead foreva and then i looked at this website and it worked who ever made this website i love them soo much thank you very very much :) ;) xxx

  26. Eleanor Coughlan Says:
    July 20, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    Omg that was ssooo helpfull i wanted to cry when it rebooted

  27. Eleanor Coughlan Says:
    July 20, 2010 at 12:30 pm

    Thank you soooo much! who eva wrote that!!! i was soo scared my dad was gonna kill me! but you helped me fix it before he found out! ;)

  28. money with email marketing Says:
    September 2, 2010 at 7:44 pm

    It uses a different sensor and there’s no flash. It’s also incapable of working with the new HDR camera feature being rolled out for the iPhone.

  29. ngs Says:
    September 17, 2010 at 8:36 am

    just wanted to say THANK YOU!!! am about to go on a LONG train journey when my ipod crashed and thought I was never going to get it fixed. amazing :)

  30. Bernard Barrie Says:
    September 21, 2010 at 12:42 am

    Hey! Just wanted to tell you that you own a wonderful little site and I would like you are aware how nice it looks. Will be back often.

  31. jim from maghull Says:
    October 4, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    dude, you da man! you should have a donate buttonat the bottom of the page and request £$€, cheers. kudos.

  32. francesca gordon Says:
    October 7, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    yey life saver! i thought i would of had to wait untill it ran out of battery!

  33. Princess Says:
    November 30, 2010 at 6:05 am

    u guys that ipod nano thing didn’t work i think i am done for bye bye ipod

  34. smile Says:
    January 19, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    OMYGOSHHH … my ipod is about 3 in a half years old so when it wouldnt charge or turn on i started to panik … i thought it was broken and too old … but IT WORKED THANK YOUUU (:

  35. smile Says:
    January 19, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    OMYGOSSHHH … my ipod is about 3 1/2 years old so when it wouldnt charge or turn on i started to panik … i thought it was broken and too old … but u helped … IT WORKED THANKKK YOUUU (:

  36. subz)0( Says:
    February 2, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    thankyou

  37. cfkingen Says:
    February 8, 2011 at 7:22 am

    Thanks! I hate iTunes but the iPod design can’t be beaten.

  38. Imsety Says:
    February 18, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    Thank you…I was enroute to Wal*Mart for an exhange!

  39. Jess Says:
    May 6, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH<3

  40. Jen Says:
    June 1, 2011 at 10:44 am

    Please help.. my new Ipod namo crashed on me. I tried restoring but nthing is happening, just plain white screen that says OK to disconnect with a check mark. I can’t even turn it off either.. please help!!!!

  41. adelina Says:
    June 13, 2011 at 12:14 am

    thanks a million mate :)

  42. Reece Says:
    December 2, 2011 at 11:56 am

    Awesome – My Ipod crashed when i was charging it from a lap top with a dead battery

    Nice Reset.. Cheers

  43. Sarah Says:
    January 18, 2012 at 11:05 am

    Hi i tried doing what you sugested by turning off my ipod and holding down the menu and select button but my ipod nano 4th generation still wont turn on. I was listening to my fully charged ipod when all of a sudden it switched off in the middle of a song. My screen is black and non of the buttons are responsive. When i pluged it into my computer and ipod docing station it would not pick up my ipod. I noticed that my ipod was also a lot hotter that usual! does this mean that something has burned out in my ipod?
    Please help my ipod is my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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