ipod 5.5G 80 GB is completly fubar

[nobrakes]

So I think I've met the perfect storm of errors and now my ipod is a brick. I installed rockbox on my ipod but when it loaded I noticed the center button and scroll wheel would not work. I knew the select button had been broken for some time and required a good deal of pressure to make it register but I figured something else was going on so I automatically uninstalled rockbox with the utility to see if it was rockbox or my ipod. Well, apparently the automatic installer did not uninstall the bootloader so i get suck on that screen where it tells you to reboot and then go into disk mode.


Ok, I try menu+select but no dice. "Crap.", I think, the select button must be totally off and after looking up a guide to open my ipod i see that the little mesh pad sitting on top of the select button is off and wouldn't allow me to push down on it from the outside button. I reposition it, reassemble my ipod and try to reboot again.

No dice. I can't reboot, period. For some reason the buttons do not work and I cannot get out of the rockbox boot loader. I have tried everything, switching the hold button (which the rockbox loader does recognize as on or off) into and out of position several times and then holding the menu+select for several minutes and nothing. I've tried disconnecting the power internally (since I can't do it anyother way) and trying the select+play on the apple logo before the bootloader error shows thinking it may just be the menu button but again, no deal.  Now, in desperation, I opened my ipod again to press the menu+select buttons directly on the circuit board and still nothing. So I am completely out of ideas. No computer will recognize the ipod because I cannot get into disk mode so there is no way to restore the ipod. If nobody has any solutions here the only thing I can do is but a broken ipod with a cracked screen and swap out the hard drives, that's it.


To clarify, before I loaded rockbox I am 100% sure the scroll wheel and the buttons were working. The select button was just mispositioned.

[soap]

Power on (insert USB if you can not power on via buttons.
IMMEDIATELY toggle the hold switch to the on (red) position.

[nobrakes]

Well that worked! Thank you!



But.......even after a factory restore from itunes (ugh) the scroll wheel and the buttons do not work. What the hell happened? Any other ideas?

[soap]

It is impossible for Rockbox to fubar your iPod's scrollwheel and other switches.
They were on the way out, they died.
End of story.