I just bought a 1st Generation 5GB iPod for $50 and everything works great except the menu button. For the most part it's still 100% useable but not being able to back out of stuff can get annoying. So if anybody has just the wheel or a dead iPod lying arround. Or perhaps if this may be an easy fix it has no waretee so I don't mind cracking it open.
The wheel is built into the logic board. You can't replace the wheel or the buttons without replacing the whole logic board.
And good luck finding a replacement logic board at a decent price -- they're starting to get scarce. I've been looking for a good replacement board for 6 months now.
I've got a 1st gen ipod with a dead hard drive, I was going to do a 20GB hard drive hack to it, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I might be willing to let it go for the right price.
I'd take it apart and check for a mechanical problem, perhaps a cracker crumb under the button or something.
If that's not the problem, the switch itself can be replaced. A swirl through digikey's catalog should find a near-as-dammit replacement part.
dan k
What do you have in mind?