This afternoon I decided to restore my iPod Mini back to default factory settings. During the process iTunes suggested that I “Upgrade my iPod to the latest software” so I went ahead and answered yes to the upgrade. After a couple seconds all I seen was a little “plug iPod into the wall charger” icon thing.

After doing some research, apparently to complete a software upgrade on most iPods you have to plug your iPod into the wall charger. This is so the iPod doesn’t die mid-firmware flash, in result turning your iPod into nothing but an expensive paperweight. Probably a good call on Apple’s part, but what if you don’t have a wall charger handy? In most cases you would be out of luck.

Besides the obvious (borrowing a wall adapter) there is a surprisingly simple solution. If you’ve ever looked closely at a FireWire or USB cable you’ll notice that two of the pins stick out a little farther than the rest. Those are the pins that carry the electricity to charge the iPods while the other prongs are used for data transfer (right?).

The Fix:
Trick is if you plug in the USB or FirmWire (while the other end is connected to the iPod) into the computer just a little bit so only the two charging pins touch the accompanying pins on the computer, you should be able to fool the iPod into thinking it’s a wall charger. The firmware will update, and you’ll have a working iPod again.