Technology
My iPod is many years old. It's black and white, click wheel with no video, it's so old. The battery has been perfect. Zero problems. I love it.

I was dismayed then when a couple weeks ago it just wouldn't boot up - gave a bad looking error message instead. Hopeful I could simply restore the software to factory settings and re-load the music, I hooked it up to the computer, but that didn't work out. It kept re-starting and stalling in a loop, telling me I needed to "restore the corrupt iPod" (I know!) but then wouldn't proceed - informing me that the "corrupt iPod" was "busy" and so couldn't be restored. Busy doing what, I thought? Just being corrupt?

For the last week or so I've tried to find a way to revive it, to bypass this loop, dreading the new iPod purchase that seemed imminent. I tried messing with iTunes settings, charging and letting die the iPod battery, whatever I could think of.

Finally, I Googled the exact error message (error 1416, as it turns out) I was getting from iTunes to see if anyone else had solved this mystery, and I landed on this Apple forum page, a discussion centering around the following advice:

I thought this was a joke, but after fiddling with it for days, i tried it, and it worked! I didn't drop it, I just held it in one hand and banged it against the palm of my other hand. I was getting error 1416 btw, with a 60GB photo ipod.

Then this:

I had the exact problem, and Idid as someone suggested, BANGED IT AGAINST MY HAND, and amazingly all my music was back, and the error message was gone.

And 3 or 4 others saying basically the same thing. So, tonight I banged the back of my corrupt, busy iPod against the palm of my hand as hard as I could, one time. Now it works beautifully.