Ellie Huxtable wrote on her website this week about how she upgraded her iPod Video with more battery life, more storage, a new casing, and a custom operating system that can run Doom.
iPod Video 2022
Apple released the first-generation iPod in 2001. It had an LCD display and a 5GB hard drive to be filled with “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Updates to the device added more capabilities and it wasn’t until the fifth-generation that it included a color QVGA display. This model is referred to as iPod Video. It had a 320 x 240 resolution display, H.264 support, and it was 30% thinner than the previous model.
Ms. Huxtable says she mostly followed instructions from iFixit for taking apart the device. She had purchased the 80Gb model, and replaced the HDD with two 512Gb SD cards using an iFlash Quad. The new battery she chose is a powerful 3,000mAh one, and she warns “The battery is one of the first things you need to unplug, as otherwise you can’t fully open the iPod. Attemping to open without unplugging will result in broken cables!”
She replaced the front casing with a new clear one, and a different rear casing to match its new 1Tb capacity. After restoring it on iTunes she installed Rockbox, with the FreshOS theme to control the device. This means iTunes is no longer needed, as the iPod mounts as external storage with easy transference of files.