Reset and unfreeze iPod Touch 2G - Guide

By admin • Feb 8th, 2009 • Category: Apple iPod, iPod Touch, iPod Troubleshooting

After spending 3 hours yesterday trying to get my new iPod Touch 2G up and running after it froze completely following upgrade to iPod software 2.2.1, literally searching the whole internet for a simple guide as to how to do it, i decided to write my own description based on my experience about bringing my iPod Touch 2G back from its frozen state.

Last night i was uploading some new music to my iPod Touch 2G and at the same time installing the latest software upgrade. For some reason the software upgrade failed and i was left with a useless frozen iPod Touch that i desperately needed to revive. So i went to Google and searched for how to unfreeze and reset the iPod Touch, but althoug there were loads of pages that told what you should test doing, none of them described in good detail how to deal especially with the iPod Touch.

Here is step by step what i did to unfreeze and reset my iPod Touch 2G.

Step 1: 

Unfreeze and restore your iPod Touch 2GHold down the ‘power down’ button until the turn off slide appears at the top of the screen, and then turn off the iPod (see illustration).

Step 2: 

Then simultaneously hold down the ‘home button’ and the ‘power down’ button until the Apple logo appears. Once the Apple logo appears you can stop pushing the buttons and hopefully your iPod Touch should be working again. If not, please see the following steps.

Step 3: 

Reinstall iTunes on your computer with the latest version (even if you already have the latest version). You only have to do this if when you connect your iPod Touch to the computer and it is not found by iTunes to let you ‘restore’ factory settings.

Step 4:

Once you have reinstalled iTunes on your computer, start up iTunes and plug the USB cable into your computer. Then you need to hold down the ‘home button’ on your iPod Touch while you plug in the cable connector to your iPod Touch. After that you simultaneously hold down the ‘home button’ and the ‘power button’ on the iPod Touch until a message appears in iTunes asking you if you want to restore factory settings. Say yes to that and then iTunes will do the rest for you. Unfortunately this means that you will have to re-sync your iPod Touch completely with all content again once it has been restored.

I hope you find this tutorial useful should you happen to run into the same problem as i did. If not, please let me know so i can update it to reflect more ways to reset/restore/unfreeze the iPod Touch 2G.

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34 Responses »

  1. iPod Touch Mood on March 8th, 2009 at 1:53 am:

    Keep up the good work, great post here!

  2. Shelley Brant on March 17th, 2009 at 10:31 am:

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
    I just needed to go to step two and it worked!
    But I didnt know I needed to hold the power button and that middle home button so I totally appreciate your tutororial. I give you an A+++++

  3. Russ on April 1st, 2009 at 11:22 am:

    I had to use the whole tutorial. I was fine with the first gen iPod reset but the 2nd gen is different. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Lokiyo on April 4th, 2009 at 12:52 am:

    Thanks for help

  5. yay! on June 18th, 2009 at 11:09 pm:

    THANKS A BUNCHHHH

  6. eddie on July 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm:

    i have read your tutorial and i have a serious problem……my screen is blank…totally blank..the power on botton and home botton + the hold slide all work…i know this because they click…..but i have nothing else..no screen, no icons…nothing…..please help……i am on holiday in france and have no music and the kids are driving me mad!.

    hope you or somebody out there can help fast thanks

  7. admin on July 14th, 2009 at 2:58 am:

    Hmm, i have not come across that problem before, but will have a look around to see if anyone else has found a fix for your particular issue. Usually a combination of the above steps should work for resetting the iPod Touch to factory settings.

  8. annie on July 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am:

    Thank you so much xx

  9. Sagar on July 20th, 2009 at 2:54 pm:

    Hi
    I have a serious problem !!! I recently bought an Ipod touch 2g and had loaded some music & videos on it . While copying the contents of ipod back to my pc ( for backup purposes ) using a s/w called ‘CopyTrans’ , something weird happened …. all contents were copied,but whenever i connect my ipod to pc, iTunes starts & displays a message like ‘Cannot read the contents on Sagar’s iPod’ …….. and that I should restore it …. so,is this “restore” thing safe to do ? I read on sm other forums that ppl had faced a lot of problems doing that …. plus, all content on my ipod will be erased,right ? Isn’t that a problem …. there seems to be a problem with the OS…and then how do I reload everything as it was there earlier ?

    Please help me out !!! Hoping for your reply ASAP !!!! Thanks !

  10. admin on July 20th, 2009 at 3:08 pm:

    Restoring should be safe, especially as long as you have a recent backup on your iTunes so you have recent settings and content backed up. From what you write this might not be the case? This restore will erase all content on your iPod yes, so you need to make sure you got all the content available on iTunes or your computer. Was the transfer from the iPod successful?

  11. Sagar on July 20th, 2009 at 10:06 pm:

    First of all….thanks for the reply. I don’t know what you mean by recent backup on iTunes…..but yes,the transfer from iPod to pc was successful …. I now have the backup of my music,videos and photos on my hard disk …. maybe there was a problem with the s/w i used … I just wanna know whether my iPod will work as before after the ‘restore’ .

  12. crik on August 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 am:

    ciao o un grave preoble con il mio ipod touch…lo schermo mi e diventato verde e anche dopo il reset rimane cosi…cosa posso fare?help my please…

  13. Keith on August 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm:

    Hi - thanks for the very informative post. My ipod touch 1st gen and after installing v 3 update I can’t get anything on screen other than the usb/iTune logo. I’ve deleted and re-loaded itunes and tried the resets you suggest but no good. Any suggestions?

  14. Keith on August 23rd, 2009 at 3:23 am:

    Hi again. After umpteen reinstalls of iTunes and many resets I’ve finally been able to reset my iPod Touch. I think the problem may well have been the way the USB drivers were (or weren’t) installed. I re-installed them and after another bout of rebooting my PC the iTunes reset finally worked. Thanks for your info on re-setting - I wouldn’t have got very far without it! Cheers.

  15. jeremy on September 10th, 2009 at 9:16 pm:

    i have an ipod touch 2nd gen but it has a picture of a usb cord, then a arrow pointing up to the itunes logo appears. i have a passcode set so when i plug the ipod in a pop up comes up and says you must unlock ipod then plug it in.

    help please asap

  16. stephen on September 13th, 2009 at 9:47 am:

    Thank you so much, my frozen screen is fixed, you are great

  17. wayne on October 11th, 2009 at 6:03 am:

    Hi
    I have tried your suggestiom but when doing step 1 no power down button appears, thus on continuing with steps 2, 3, and 4 mty ipod is still not resetting or syncing,
    keith how did re installed the usb drivers

  18. Kristy on October 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm:

    Hey, you just helped me out a lot, bud. *phew*
    Thanks soo much!

  19. Jeke on December 16th, 2009 at 12:08 pm:

    I tried your tutorial and im sure this would work if you dont have a passcode lock on the ipod touch. This happened to me last night and I’ve tried everything but itunes pops up a message that it could not connect because i have a passcode lock and i need to unlock it for it to proceed. What can I do? Help!

  20. Alexis on January 6th, 2010 at 4:04 pm:

    If i do this, will i still have everything that was once on my iPod before or nothing? Because if i reinstall iTunes, it will erase everything I have purchased and downloaded right? Please reply to me.

  21. Arjun on January 9th, 2010 at 2:48 am:

    THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU FIXED MY FROZEN SCREEN. YOU ARE AMAZING!

  22. emma on January 12th, 2010 at 6:23 pm:

    hi i went through my settings to general and restore setting and ever since my screen just shows an apple and a loading sign then every now and again the screen goes blank then starts again with the same image it doesnt respond to me pushing any of the buttons please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    i dont know what to do HELP …………………

  23. Brad on February 8th, 2010 at 1:59 am:

    THANK YOU!
    I was resetting my ipod from settings>general>reset ipod to factory settings & erase data, (it said it would take 1 hour) and my girlfriend got impatient, so she held the home and power buttons down until the ipod screen reset and it stopped working, so i tried your solution and it worked! :D
    thanks again.

  24. daniel on February 11th, 2010 at 4:29 pm:

    help i tried to jailbreak my friends ipod so i restored it first but i lost all his apps

    what should i do please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  25. Mora on February 26th, 2010 at 1:41 am:

    Hey I think I have Gen. 2. Anyway, I hooked up my ipod touch one day to my macbook and it told me there was new software for it so I proceeded. After the software download my ipod has not restored and when I try to I keep getting an error message. UGH. It’s really annoying, any help anyone? I get ERROR (14).

  26. Ellyn Filipovic on February 27th, 2010 at 3:43 pm:

    My ipod device 1G is the essential iPod, Personal digital assistant and way more, and even has really been day that I gotten it. It also function the latest iPod system software, and any application I would need it to run. I’m using it to post this comment at the moment. I’d say it can be a lot more than just an “excellent hobbyist system” — you’ll find it an superior iPod

  27. Fixing "other files" eating up iPhone 3GS storage | iPod Republic on March 31st, 2010 at 7:25 am:

    […] Hope you find this guide as useful as our guide on unfreezing and restoring iPhone and iPod Touch. […]

  28. Bob Keene on April 8th, 2010 at 2:00 pm:

    Whew! Thought mine was a goner- accidently brushed my iPod Touch 2nd Gen on top of those magnets used at retail stores to open locked boxes. Device just shut down and would not power up! Figured I was dead. Fortunately the holding ‘home’ and ‘power’ switches rebooted my device- it’s fine!!!

  29. Mark on April 26th, 2010 at 12:23 am:

    Oh my dear Lord… After about 8 months of not having my iPod, this fixed it. You have no idea how deeply in your debt I am. A buddy of mine jail-broke my iPod without informing me, so when I went to update the iPod software, thing died. I was sooo mad. But this made it like new again! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

  30. Cary Borgeson on May 9th, 2010 at 11:05 pm:

    I agree with your conclusions and definitely will thirstily look onward on your future updates. Merely expressing cheers won’t simply be adequate, for the exceptional lucidity within your posting. I’ll directly grab the feed to keep informed with any posts. Great effort and much success with your internet business endeavors! Whatwhat!

  31. Dicky on May 15th, 2010 at 2:59 pm:

    Thanks a million, got me right out of a tight spot, thought my ipod was a brick but with your guide its back online, Thanks again.

  32. hedline on May 30th, 2010 at 6:59 pm:

    Hey!

    I’m frustrated. I have trying to restore my ipod touch 32gb for 6 hours now. I’ve tried everything but it doesn’t seem to get out of recovery mode.

    I only get this far: http://yfrog.com/jxipodstuckinrecoverymodej
    Can’t get those 2% or so to complete.

    Can anyone please help me?!

  33. OzkarsLola on June 19th, 2010 at 11:20 am:

    Thanks sooo much. It works!!!

  34. Noah on June 24th, 2010 at 10:28 pm:

    Hey i was just having a problem. i used an untethered jailbreak on my ipod touch 3.1.3 software 3g 32gb and i reset it because i was having some minor glitches with it, and just wanted to reset it to be able to delete the annoyance of the glitches, and when i reset it then all it shows is the apple logo.. and my computer isnt very responsive at the moment and im downloading the newest itunes, but it isnt downloading. it shows a loading circle when i try to do it… and it doesnt show up on itunes. what should i do?
    thanks. hope you can help me out.

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