Hard Drive dying? 80gb iPod Classic

When syncing some new playlists and songs to my 80gb iPod Classic the other day I got an error message
"Attempting to copy to the disk failed. The disk could not be read from or written to"

A couple of google searches later, I restored the iPod and attempted to sync my music library again but after a few moments of copying. received the same error.
Only a very small number of songs/playlists will copy before the error interrupts the sync. This happens independent of what songs/playlists are being synced. I also put the same media onto my iPhone 4 without issue, eliminating the possibility of a corrupted file causing the problem. Also used two different sync cable.

Attempting to further troubleshoot, I ran a repair through Disk Utility, that came back saying that the drive appeared to be ok.

Next, also using Disk Utility, I formated the drive using the secure erase option to write zeros to the disk in an attempt to determine if part of the iPods hard drive could not be written to. This completed successfully but upon another restore through iTunes and another attempted sync I got the very same error and results.

Are there other troubleshooting steps I can attempt or is the drive shot ?

The hard drive is probably on it's way south. The folks at ifixit have some pretty good step by step instructions for changing one out yourself. Here's the LINK.

Changing one out is not difficult. The problem is the cost of a replacement drive. Here's one place that sells them: LINK

I had a feeling the hard drive was going. Having already looked over the ifixit guide, it's certainly doable, especially after replacing the screen on my old iPhone 3g with the help of their instructions. Thank you for the link to the drive, $99 is a pretty goof price.

I think I'd rather just pay the $129 for Apple to handle it.

portnoy said:

I think I'd rather just pay the $129 for Apple to handle it.

Click to expand...

Wow, I would never have thought that it's only $129 for Apple to replace the 80gb unit. Do you know if that comes with any sort of a warrantee ?

Note that they replace it with a refurbished unit not new. And yes, it would be warranted. Not sure how long though. You might be better off hunting around and find a HD replacement less expensive then $99.