In preparation for what’s-on-the-horizon, I set about trying to restore my 5th gen iPod to factory settings, thinking that I would try to sell it this week. That was not a pretty experience.

From both Doc Oc and The-Little-MacBook-That-Could, I consistently got an error message (#1418), indicating that this iPod could not be restored to defaults. Not a huge big deal…. until on the last attempt from the MacBook, my iPod apparently cratered. 🙁

Near as I can tell, it tries — real hard — to reboot itself every few seconds, only to fail, and repeat. Do while more electricity. The drive doesn’t appear to be bad — there’s no cute icon indicating a sad ipod, which might indicate a disk failure — the thing has just lost it’s brains, and doesn’t know what to do with itself.

Unfortunately, in that state, it can no longer be seen by iTunes as an iPod, or either Windows or Leopard as a mass-storage device, so I think it’s done.

That leaves my iPod Shuffle as the only functioning iPod in the Deauxmayne. RIP 5th gen iPod. You went before your time.