If it fell in the toilet and you decide to send it in please do a nice job cleaning it. Generally, anytime a piece of electronics is completely submerged in water it's not good news. Water will short out every major component leaving you with a worthless, and most often, iPod that isn't worth fixing. However, this is only the case if the iPod was on at the time it was submerged. You have a good chance for survival but you have to be sure it drys completely before attempting to power it on. If it's just a few drops of water say from rain, a few drops might seep in through the clickwheel and can do some damage. This is typically not as severe as it being submerged and may just cause minor damage that is worthwhile to have repaired, but every situation is different. You can purchase cases that entirely cover the iPod while still allowing you to use it with the case on.

Depending on the height of the drop and which part of the iPod actually hit the ground, this could be a variety of issues. The most obvious and most common is that the LCD screen may crack. That could also be in combination with other issues. If the iPod still functions normally (syncs w/ itunes, charges, plays music) it just needs an LCD replacement. The other common issue with the hard disk drive model ipods (iPods >10GB) is hard drive failure. The hard disks are small and VERY fragile. An HDD (hard disk drive) issue is generally coupled with a sad face or folder icon. It can also be the case that your iPod will still play music but the songs frequently skip and the iPod sometimes freezes. This is also an indication of a bad hard drive. The final issue that could arise from a good fall is that a component from the main circuit board may have just broken off and needs to be replaced. Again these issues could occur together but if your lucky it'll only be one or the other.

A sad face icon is an indication that your hard drive is bad. It could also just be that your hard drive cable is bad, which is much cheaper. If it is the hard drive that's bad you can usually hear it clicking as it's trying to boot if you put your ear up to the back of it. A normal drive would spin smoothly. A folder icon is usually an indication that the logic board is bad or a component that plugs into the board, such as a clickwheel or headphone jack. It's hard to determine exactly what is wrong when these icons appear. The folder icon also sometimes shows up when there is an issue with the hard drive. When you send it in we let you know exactly what is wrong with it.

This generally means your battery is completely dead. At this point if it is not even showing a battery icon on the screen to let you know it needs a charge, the battery is completely drained. In this case you should leave it charge a few hours. If it doesn't power on then you may have other issues, probably water damage. It could also be possible that the battery is bad to the point where it won't hold any charge at all.

If you have given your battery a full charge and it lasts less than a couple hours you definitely could use a new battery. The lithium-ion batteries hold less and less of a charge as they age until they no longer hold any charge. See Tips to Lengthen iPod's battery life. The higher the mAh rating of a battery the longer it lasts per charge. We use only the highest rated batteries, actually an upgrade from the OEM battery. If you only use your iPod briefly each day and you notice that it appears to be dead after a couple days, it's no longer properly holding a charge and the battery needs to be replaced. A battery replacement is usually recommended in combination with other repairs because it's cheap and will only benefit your iPod's performance.

The first thing you want to do in this scenario is try another set of headphones and see if you get the same results. If you can only hear music from one side or hear nothing at all you need to have your headphone jack replaced. If you look at the tip of the headphones that plug into the jack you will notice two rings. These are what form a connection within the jack against two metal pins (one for each ear) that act as springs to hold the plug in place. Eventually after inserting and removing the jack for some time these pins get worn out and no longer form a solid connection against the headphone jack. This could also result from the plug being pulled violently from the jack and damaging it.

You obviously first want to make sure it's not stuck on hold, the padlock would be showing in the upper left of the screen. If it remains on hold even when you switch the hold off it could either be an issue with the hold switch or the main logic board, probably not the clickwheel. If your iPod works just fine aside from the clickwheel (sync w/ itunes, charges), and does not display the hold lock, it's pretty obvious that you have a bad clickwheel. A bad clickwheel is the best case scenario, it could also be an issue with the port that it plugs into on the logic board.