Category Archives: Furby

Fix a 1998 Furby that won’t wake up or start up (without disassembly)

166 Replies
  • 12/2014 Update: I keep planning to take some pics of the “screw thing” to post with this, but keep forgetting. Sorry about that.
  • 11/2015 Update: This is the most viewed article on my site. Who knew there were so many folks out there with bad Furbys!
  • 12/2016 Update: A year later, and folks are still finding this article. There were about 300 views of it on Christmas day. Retro presents, I guess?
  • 01/24/2017 Update: Commenter Samuel submitted a photo of the gear. It doesn’t look like the spiral gear I remember, so either there is another gear I missed, or there was a variation of the Furby
  • 3/5/2026 Update: Today I shut down my old appleause.com blog and moved the content here. Welcome, Furby rescuers!

If your old Furby won’t wake up or won’t start up and appears dead, you may be able to fix it in a few seconds without having to take it apart.

I recently tried to get my original 1998 Furby to work, and found that it was dead. I spent some time doing unsuccessful web searches, with none of the tips (“try new batteries”, “press the reset button”) helping. A second Furby has the same issue, and it looked like it might be related to a jammed motor, per this tutorial:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Push-Start-a-Comatose-Furby/

This procedure involved all kinds of disassembly, sewing things back together and hot glue. A similar YouTube video shed more light on the problem off the stuck motor:

http://youtu.be/fNaNM4_fKTo

I suspected you could just get to the motor using a small screwdriver and going in around the eye or beak, and indeed, it works. I was able to use a tiny flathead screwdriver, inserted above the beak and in to the left to gently rotate the corkscrew spiral connected to the motor a few times and within seconds, the Furby was alive again. Both units were fixed this easy, with no disassembly required.

Update: Thanks to Samuel (http://twitter.com/samsearight), we now have a photo. On my Furby, there is a corkscrew spiral gear I moved, and not this normal gear. I don’t know if the gear is also in mine or if this is a different revision. It looks easier to work with than the gear I found in mine. Thanks, Samuel!