Completely hosed iPod now

[BigJohn]

Well let this be a lesson for you boys. Next time that little voice in your head says don't do something, DON"T DO IT. I finally got my iPod updater to find the ipod. So I said great, I will just restore it to factory settings and I should be good to go. Well that little voice said don't do it cause then you will be worse off. My ipod has gotten an error on it and I could not put anything on or take anything off it. Just showed up in my computer as removable drive g. Well I did it and now all my music is gone from the ipod, and it still does not recognize it. Now I have a completly useless iPod. Oh well guess I will have to send it back to apple for sure now. I won' re-hash all I have don to it, you can see in my other posts the ordeal I have gone through. I guess that is what you get when you get in the middle of Microsoft and Apple

[OlsonBW]

While I'm a Mac user (but I support Windows for a living) most of my friends with iPods use Windows and have very few problems (with their iPods - Windows is another issue).

I haven't read your previous posts about you iPod. Just this one.

Try rebooting your iPod by holding in the center button and top of the wheel (where is says "menu") at the same time for several seconds. Your iPod shold reboot and show the Apple logo and come back up to your iPod menu. Once you've done that, connect it back up to your computer. Make sure you ALWAYS connect it up to the same USB slot. Once Windows recognizes it, it should automatically start up iTunes. If not, start it yourself. When they happens it should see the iPod and download all your songs again.

Note that Windows is far pickier about USB ports than Macs. It's not the hardware but how Windows is written. Any device that you plug into a USB port is best plugged back into the same port from then on.

Oh, and you should always "eject" devices before you unplug them. There will be an icon in the bottom right of Windows near where it displays the time. If you aren't ejecting before disconnecting this could easily be causing some of the problems.

[rixchard]

I am curious regarding your rationale for making sure the ipod is always connected to the same usb port. Would you go into a bit more detail about this?

[kip]

I am curious regarding your rationale for making sure the ipod is always connected to the same usb port. Would you go into a bit more detail about this?

i guess id be interested in understanding that too!

:)

[Texas42]

OlsenBW seems to be right about how Windows remembers what port a device has been connected. Sometimes when you reconnect a device to the same port and you cancelled the install you will have to connect it to a different USB port to get it to install or even be recognized. Also I have noticed if I connect my phone to a different port I will have to reset the active sync connection, however if I connect it to the same port each time no such problem occurs. gOK! (Gates Only Knows) :)

My iPod, finally reached the point where I had to send it back, it was very painless, it did take about 20 days, but the new one arrived and is working fine. It actually had a hard drive failure, I think that since yours still shows up as a drive that there is hope.

[OlsonBW]

I am curious regarding your rationale for making sure the ipod is always connected to the same usb port. Would you go into a bit more detail about this?

Every operating system has drivers to be able to use hardware. Each USB port has an address specific to that port.

When running Linux or OS/2 or Windows on literally the exact same hardware I have FAR fewing problems with USB devices on Linux and OS/2 than I do with Windows. Neither of the others care which USB port I plug things into. Windows does and there is an easy way to test or prove this.

If you have a USB memory card you can plug the memory card into a USB slot. Then go to the Windows Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and then Computer Management. In there find Disk management. You will find your USB device and the drive letter it is currently assigned. You can Right click on the USB device and choose "Change Drive letter and paths" and change the drive letter from, say, the E: or F: drive to say M:. It will now show up in Windows as the M: drive whenever you plug that USB devices into THAT particular USB port.

Now, disconnect the USB memory card and plug it into another USB slot. Guess what. It isn't showing up as the M: drive but as the drive letter it defaulted to before. This is because in a different USB port it sees your memory card as a completely different piece of hardware. Or more correctly, the combination of address of the USB port and the memory card = a different address which is the same as being totally different.

Does that make sense?

Now, how Windows handles this seems to be different than OS/2 and Linux, and Macs for that matter. These other OSs don't seem to care or they adjust things when you plug in your USB memory card so the OS treats it the same no matter which USB port you plug it into.

The above is from 1st hand (my) experience.

[BigJohn]

I have done that more times than I care to remember. I have reset it both while connected to the computer and while disconnected. NO GO.

[MarkEngland]

While I'm a Mac user (but I support Windows for a living) most of my friends with iPods use Windows and have very few problems (with their iPods - Windows is another issue).

I haven't read your previous posts about you iPod. Just this one.

Try rebooting your iPod by holding in the center button and top of the wheel (where is says "menu") at the same time for several seconds. Your iPod shold reboot and show the Apple logo and come back up to your iPod menu. Once you've done that, connect it back up to your computer. Make sure you ALWAYS connect it up to the same USB slot. Once Windows recognizes it, it should automatically start up iTunes. If not, start it yourself. When they happens it should see the iPod and download all your songs again.

Note that Windows is far pickier about USB ports than Macs. It's not the hardware but how Windows is written. Any device that you plug into a USB port is best plugged back into the same port from then on.

Oh, and you should always "eject" devices before you unplug them. There will be an icon in the bottom right of Windows near where it displays the time. If you aren't ejecting before disconnecting this could easily be causing some of the problems.
Um... I do not have all these little problems and plug and unplug USB and bluetooth devices dozens of times a day incluidng using differrent ports on different Windows machines. Also, I never "eject" before removing (a PNP concept).

Of course, all my systems are up to date using Windows and Office update. In fact my laptop is rebooted only a few times a month because I simply put it too sleep instead of shutting down, etc. (I hate waiting for a system to boot). The only time I reboot is because an anti-virus update (or other update) requires it.