Chosen Solution
I have an iPod classic 160gb, the hard drive has been removed as one of mine was broken and managed to salvage by using an SD adapter, the other is completely dismantled and I’m wondering is there a way to recover files and music on this hard drive?
There are adapters which you can use to convert the PATA or SATA ZIF connection the drive uses to a standard PATA or SATA connection or better yet a USB interface adapter. So the first step is to identify which drive you have and what style of ZIP it has. Then the fun of googling begins! As these tiny drives have long since stopped being made, most of the adapters once available are likewise hard to find. But, with some effort you should be able to get something worked out!
You could send it in for data recovery but it could get expensive. The same thing happened to my wifes ipad. The hard drive stopped working so I am rebuilding it with a iflash setup with 2 128gb sd cards. But if you want to retrieve the data I would check with Louis rossmann from rossmanngroup.com or jessa from ipad rehab ipadrehab.com they might be able to help you. Update (06/16/2020) It sounds like the hard drive failed. You can’t just plug it in to something and it will give you the data. You have to take the hard drive apart and move the plate into a good hard drive. I don’t know how to do this. But I do know you need to know what you are doing or you will just get a bunch of jumbled data that makes no sense.
