iPod click of death & results of deploying "whack-an-iPod" fix on it

We’ve commented on the Internet based myth regarding the iPod “click of death” several times before. According to Internet lore, you can “whack” your iPod on the edge of a table or desk in order to fix a clicking hard drive problem. We’ve always felt that this was a bad idea, and could result in further damage to the very iPod you were trying to help. Details on this rumor have been few and far between, but we’re happy to say that we’ve finally seen what can happen when you whack your iPod hard on a table.
See the following pictures:

As you can see the iPod’s hard drive platter has shattered. We were wondering what was up with this iPod, as it failed the shake test when it came into the shop. The iPod’s owner revealed that he had read about “whack-a-mole” iPod fix on-line and wailed away on it.
Why do people think that banging their iPod on a table works? We think it has to do with a loose hard drive cable, dead battery, and maybe a corrupt hard drive. When the iPod is banged around the hard drive cable may get enough movement to re-seat it. Also, based on our very unscientific iPod study, it appears that this seems to be based mostly in the 4th Generation and Photo iPods. Based on the same informal poll it also appears that more clients with Windows formatted iPods find themselves in this situation than Macintosh formatted iPods. If you think you’ve got the click of death with your iPod, send it in to us at ipodmedics.com, and we’ll figure out if it really does or not. It’s free for us to check, and the repair (if it DOES NOT need a new hard drive) is very inexpensive. Also if your unit has a major problem, and you don’t want to invest in a repair, we’ll likely buy your sick iPod from you as well.