What’s wrong with my iPod? iTunes 7.0!
Father forgive me, for I have sinned: I spent a lot of my hard-earned on an iPod hi-fi (fans of geek porn, see the 360° view here), a new oPod case… oh, and an iPod Video, 80GB. Well, you know how it is: I ran out of space on my 40GB after only about 1500 tracks because they were all in Apple Lossless format, and iTunes is downloading new podcasts every week for me to find space and ear-time for.
I’m running iTunes Version 7.0.1.8 and so far have had two brand new 80GB iPod Videos, both purchased from the same New Zealand reseller. Each was apparently defective.
Both iPods successfully loaded my music library and played podcasts and music perfectly, both on headphones and on my iPod hi-fi. But when I subsequently plugged the iPods into any of the four USB 2 ports on my laptop, they failed to show up as devices in My Computer (a Toshiba P20 laptop on which I’m running Windows XP, Service Pack 2) or, just as worryingly, in iTunes.
The problem also occurs on a second PC — the iPod refuses to show as a device in My Computer, Windows File Explorer or in iTunes. However, it does show up in Device Manager, and the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon shows on the Windows status bar as soon as the iPod is connected. Even so, when the iPod is safely ejected, the iPod screen continues to show ‘Do Not Disconnect’. So the only way to safely eject it is to reset the iPod — the Apple equivalent of a forced reboot.
I’ve tried restarting the computer, putting the iPod into ‘disk mode’, as well as the rest of the time-consuming remedies listed on the Apple website. Unfortunately, none of them helps because I can’t get the iPod to appear as a device on my computer. It’s therefore impossible to rename the Drive Volume (to another letter instead of ‘E:’) or restore the iPod to factory settings.
I can’t help thinking Apple has created a Catch-22 situation by removing the iPod Updater option in iTunes 7. None of the previous versions of iPod Updater is compatible with iTunes 7, meaning people who have a disk mount problem can’t restore their iPods: if you can’t get the iPod to show up in either iTunes or My Computer, you’re stuck.
The only solution seems to be a downgrade to iTunes 6.x or another, previous version of iTunes, but even this maddening workaround is fraught with problems.
So why isn’t there a ‘restore’ option in the iPod’s own diagnostics menu, some combination of click-wheel buttons that will allow you to reformat and restore the drive to factory settings? Why has Apple chosen to go down this dark and lonely software cul-de-sac?
My previous (40GB) Fourth-Generation iPod mounts perfectly on both my laptop and another PC, suggesting it’s the new iPods that are the problem and not my computer. And, as I said, the new iPod also fails to mount on a second PC, which would tend to underscore this theory.
Both faulty iPods have been set to ‘manually update’ and I also ticked the ‘Enable Disk Use’ option and removed the checkmark from ‘Automatically open iTunes’.
I have no complaints about TotallyMac.com, the New Zealand reseller from which I bought my iPod and which supplied me with the replacement when the first device proved to be defective. The after-sales service was prompt and courteous and both iPods were replaced by TotallyMac.com’s Sean Carmichael without question. He also spent around 30 minutes above and beyond the call of duty going through a range of possible fixes over the phone with me, all to no avail.
There is clearly a more serious compatibility conflict between the new iPods, iTunes 7.0 and iTunes 7.1. There are a lot of worthy suggested fixes to be found online, but none of them solves my particular problem. While I’m by no means an übergeek, neither am I an iPod newbie nor a computing novice. I’ve spent far too many hours researching this frustrating problem when all I want to do is listen to music on my new hi-fi and download the latest podcasts.
On the recommendation of Sean from TotallyMac.com I took the first of the apparently defective iPods in to the friendly folks at Magnum Mac on Newton Road in Auckland, and the service tech there said, “If you’d bought this iPod from us, we’d replace it — we can’t get it to show up on our PCs.” There was nothing in it for them, so I was grateful for their attention and honest assessment.
I never had any problems with my previous iPod, so I’m hoping my experience with the iPod Video to date will be nothing worse than an ugly and expensive interlude — I’ve spent over $30 on courier fees, taxi fares and toll calls, not to mention the high price I paid for the iPod in the first place.
It’s all put rather a large bruise in my idealised view of Apple and its products. It would be good to hear from someone out there who has experienced similar difficulties and who might be able to explain what the problem is.
And if mine is a problem already known to the folks at Apple, some reassurance that it will be dealt with in future iTunes updates would be nice.
I’m running iTunes Version 7.0.1.8 and so far have had two brand new 80GB iPod Videos, both purchased from the same New Zealand reseller. Each was apparently defective.
Both iPods successfully loaded my music library and played podcasts and music perfectly, both on headphones and on my iPod hi-fi. But when I subsequently plugged the iPods into any of the four USB 2 ports on my laptop, they failed to show up as devices in My Computer (a Toshiba P20 laptop on which I’m running Windows XP, Service Pack 2) or, just as worryingly, in iTunes.
The problem also occurs on a second PC — the iPod refuses to show as a device in My Computer, Windows File Explorer or in iTunes. However, it does show up in Device Manager, and the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon shows on the Windows status bar as soon as the iPod is connected. Even so, when the iPod is safely ejected, the iPod screen continues to show ‘Do Not Disconnect’. So the only way to safely eject it is to reset the iPod — the Apple equivalent of a forced reboot.
I’ve tried restarting the computer, putting the iPod into ‘disk mode’, as well as the rest of the time-consuming remedies listed on the Apple website. Unfortunately, none of them helps because I can’t get the iPod to appear as a device on my computer. It’s therefore impossible to rename the Drive Volume (to another letter instead of ‘E:’) or restore the iPod to factory settings.
I can’t help thinking Apple has created a Catch-22 situation by removing the iPod Updater option in iTunes 7. None of the previous versions of iPod Updater is compatible with iTunes 7, meaning people who have a disk mount problem can’t restore their iPods: if you can’t get the iPod to show up in either iTunes or My Computer, you’re stuck.
The only solution seems to be a downgrade to iTunes 6.x or another, previous version of iTunes, but even this maddening workaround is fraught with problems.
So why isn’t there a ‘restore’ option in the iPod’s own diagnostics menu, some combination of click-wheel buttons that will allow you to reformat and restore the drive to factory settings? Why has Apple chosen to go down this dark and lonely software cul-de-sac?
My previous (40GB) Fourth-Generation iPod mounts perfectly on both my laptop and another PC, suggesting it’s the new iPods that are the problem and not my computer. And, as I said, the new iPod also fails to mount on a second PC, which would tend to underscore this theory.
Both faulty iPods have been set to ‘manually update’ and I also ticked the ‘Enable Disk Use’ option and removed the checkmark from ‘Automatically open iTunes’.
I have no complaints about TotallyMac.com, the New Zealand reseller from which I bought my iPod and which supplied me with the replacement when the first device proved to be defective. The after-sales service was prompt and courteous and both iPods were replaced by TotallyMac.com’s Sean Carmichael without question. He also spent around 30 minutes above and beyond the call of duty going through a range of possible fixes over the phone with me, all to no avail.
There is clearly a more serious compatibility conflict between the new iPods, iTunes 7.0 and iTunes 7.1. There are a lot of worthy suggested fixes to be found online, but none of them solves my particular problem. While I’m by no means an übergeek, neither am I an iPod newbie nor a computing novice. I’ve spent far too many hours researching this frustrating problem when all I want to do is listen to music on my new hi-fi and download the latest podcasts.
On the recommendation of Sean from TotallyMac.com I took the first of the apparently defective iPods in to the friendly folks at Magnum Mac on Newton Road in Auckland, and the service tech there said, “If you’d bought this iPod from us, we’d replace it — we can’t get it to show up on our PCs.” There was nothing in it for them, so I was grateful for their attention and honest assessment.
I never had any problems with my previous iPod, so I’m hoping my experience with the iPod Video to date will be nothing worse than an ugly and expensive interlude — I’ve spent over $30 on courier fees, taxi fares and toll calls, not to mention the high price I paid for the iPod in the first place.
It’s all put rather a large bruise in my idealised view of Apple and its products. It would be good to hear from someone out there who has experienced similar difficulties and who might be able to explain what the problem is.
And if mine is a problem already known to the folks at Apple, some reassurance that it will be dealt with in future iTunes updates would be nice.
posted by Chris Bell at 9:34 PM
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