It depends on the individual case. Here’s my story .

It still works - I have Tiger installed on it as an emergency emergency boot drive. If I run iTunes from it, it recognises itself as an iPod. Bizarre. But cool. And the battery lasts about 24 hours.

Did your grandson like it?

He didn’t get it in the end - I kept it for myself! (I’m such a sod - anyway his PC doesn’t have a FW connection)

Grandsons usually like it when you give them fashionnable electronic gizmos like that. You know what I did when I got my 1G iPod and my Mac didn’t have a FireWire connection, don’t you? I got a new mac. The 6100/60av was getting old, anyway… You know, that Chris Oaten mmight really be coaten . You realise that all of it is just blind speculation?  Back to topic: I’m on holiday in Texas righ tnow and I went to ask for iPod battery kits at CompUSA. They didn’t have it. Wasn’t too sure what to expect.

Went to several computer stores including the Apple Store, they don’t have the kits. I don’t expect i’ll be able to find it in retail stores.

HA! Got a new battery (no kit) replaced the old one in my iPod, cracked an (tkankfully old and useless) credit card and succesfully made a giant dent in the metal casing of the iPod by dropping it right after I finished the battery surgery. Talk about clumsy. Though the battery has a great life of 18 hours ( the old one held 30 min. by the time I changed it. I couldn’t help noticing how well the interior organisation of the iPod was.

This thread incidentally became the most popular of the ipod Observer.

Because you keep replying to yourself. I do the same to my thread in the Siberia forum.

You’re right: half the replies are mine. Consider them as news updates.

Just curious, why do the songs start skipping again when I reformat the iPod?

That’s just wacky.  For the thing to function at all, but to continually have this skipping problem doesn’t make a lick of sense.

To be honest, I think your iPod has a specific flaw of some sort.

I agree. If you’ve re-ripped your CDs and they still skip, and your CDs are in good nick, then the problem resides on your iPod. Why it would be skipping though is a mystery. That’s usually a symptom of problems on a CD.

So, my suggestion: pick a track that is skipping on the iPod (assuming the skipping is continual and predictable). Put that CD in your PC. Play it in iTunes. If it plays OK, re-rip it and put it on the iPod. Play. Compare. If bad, cry.

Here’s what happened:

Part I:

I cried. Then went to a local Apple Store to talk to a genius. He recommended me to re-format the Hard Disk and go back to the original sofware and re-rip the CD’s (all that in french). So I did. And the skipping problems stopped (I’m starting to be lost in this whole thing.) though I’m now stuck with the periodical freezes (which were there before). The problem is: iTunes won’t let me buy music from the music store if I don’t update my version of iTunes, and that’s a bummer. Another detail: the iPod starts to get very hot when I turn it on, with frequent slow reactions. I think I was better off when I was running iTunes 4.7 and the 2004/11/15 software.

Part II:

Wait! I think I found the flaw! On the iPod Updater Read-me, it says that the sofware (3.0.2) is for iPod with ckick wheel. All this time i’ve been attemting to correctly run the wrong software on my iPod. I don’t remember where I got that iPod Updater from. The funny thing is that I don’t think I should be able to install software on my ipod that’s not supported by it. Strange.
It’s funny what the intro to the Updater Readme is: [quote author=“iPod Updater Readme”]The super-slim iPod once again redefines what a digital music player should be.  It’s lighter than 2 CDs, can hold up to 10,000 songs, and downloads music at blazing speeds. iPod mini is the world’s smallest 1000-song music player and with a choice of five colors, gives you the most stylish way to bring your music everywhere you go.  Automatically synchronize your music, On-The-Go playlists, and audiobooks from your iTunes library in a flash.

Part III:

Got the latest System Software for my iPod from Apple and installed it. Then the other iPod Updater (the one for new Click wheel iPods) tells me that that system needs to be Updated (apparently without noticing that the iPod in question is not a 4G click-wheel iPod).

Part IV:

As I reformated the iPod, I want to download my music into it again. The problem is that iTunes 4.7 does not recognise my iPod. I’m using Windows 2000 for my iPod and iTunes (my macs don’t have FireWire ports). As for the skipping or freezes, I just don’t know because I couldn’t get any songs into my iPod. Help!

(I put the 4 posts into one, just for fun)

Final solution: I got a new 20 GB iPod. Wicked.

It was the solution that had the highest probability of working. I just didn’t want to suggest it…