What could happen if I upgrade an iPod to iOS 5 and what is the likelihood it will happen? I've been nagged to update an iPod to iOS 5 for weeks now. Since it's not mine, I want to be as careful as I can. I'll follow the procedure exactly as Apple recommends, and the device has never been jailbroken. For all intents and purposes, a normal iPod.

However, I'd like to inform this person of all the possible risks that this could have. Since I've never done this upgrade before, I have no idea how it'll go.

So, my question to you: What could happen and what is the likelihood that it will?

(I don't need impossible-to-find statistics, though they might be helpful; I'd just like something like 'Oh yeah, I updated 150 devices and 3 were xyz')

BTW, this is the second-latest iPod and it currently has iOS 4.latest.
Don’t worry about it, nothing will happen.

In the off chance that something does go wrong, you’ll always be able to reset the iPod to factory settings and start over with a fresh iOS 5 install.

It’s virtually impossible to break an iPod just by upgrading it the recommended way.