I just left the ribbon connector attached to the logic board, peeled back the tape on the sides of the drive and unplugged it.

Instead of gouging the end caps out with the flat screwdriver, try hot gluing a piece of wood (I used a tongue depressor-like ‘craft stick’) to the end cap, then just lever the cap out without damaging the aluminum. Removing the stick and the glue from the end caps takes a little patience but can be done without leaving a mark.

Rather than pry the ends of the clip out, insert the flat screwdriver as shown ( maybe a little more straight up) and slide it toward the open end, lifting as you go, and the corner of the clip will pop right out.

I finally got the iPod back to full functionality. I had to attempt to reformat the CF card in Disk Utility at the root level instead of at the iPod level and then when I went into iTunes, I got a dialog box saying that my iPod appeared to be corrupted and then followed the prompts to restore it yet again, which finally worked.

Time to install the CF card and battery: about 40 minutes.

Time to get the iPod to work properly after completing the installation: almost two hours.

Bottom line: Success is success, no matter how long it takes.

So I completed the hard drive upgrade (and replaced the battery while I was at it) but when I plugged the device into my MacBook Pro, to restore it, I received an error message (1432) that the iPod could not be restored due to an unknown error. Oddly enough, iTunes recognizes the iPod Mini’s presence and properly recognizes its upgraded storage capacity. I can even copy music over to it and play that music from the iPod using iTunes. What it won’t do is properly eject from iTunes. When I try to eject it, the device immediately reappears. If I quit iTunes, I can eject it from the finder, but then I get a file folder icon on the screen and a reference to Apple’s iPod site. I even tried running Disk First Aid from the Disk Utility but that did nothing. Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

It helps if you mark the holes where the long screws go so you can easily find them when the time comes to button things up. Also, a little dish or custard cup to hold those tiny screws is essential.

These screws are unbelievably tiny. I highly recommend having a small saucer or ashtray to catch them so they won't get lost. If they go on the floor, it's all over but the crying.