"The iPod cannot be synced. The required disk cannot be found."

Try press and hold the centre and Menu buttons for 10 seconds. That reset the iPod software. Then plug in the iPod to your computer.

Try this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304996

i have a 160gb classic that i've had since it came out and tonight i downloaded the newest version of itunes when it asked me and no i can't sync my ipod to my computer. it always says usb device not recognize. i've tried resetting the ipod and not sure what to do

Okay I Just started Having the same problem
Ive tried everythng including, restoring the ipod, restting the ipod, restarting my computer, and everything i pulled out of apple
No Dice
Currently, my ipod will sync until about song 750 (of 4000) and i will get the "cannot read disk" error message
anyone have any solutions? its really getting frusterating

...Same exact issue dude. Anyone at all have any advice that actually makes sense?

I am having the exact same problem with my Classic 160. Every time I try to synch I get the message "The iPod cannot be synced. The required disk cannot be found." Does anyone have a fix for this? In any case, the hard disk also makes whistling and scratching noises so my iPod is clearly defective anyway. Despite all this and the fact that I have an Apple Care Protection Plan, when I sent it in for repair Apple just returned my iPod without fixing it saying they couldn't find any trouble with it. So I have a top of the line iPod with 160 GB of free space which does not have a single song or video clip on it and Apple refuse to fix or replace it. I'm sending it back again today. Lets hope they have more respect for their loyal customers (I've bought 6 ipods over the years) this time around.

I have just registered my new classic 80 Gb, and had this exact problem. You can re-sync, without disconnecting, and watch to see what song is loading when the error message comes up. Then go to the Itunes library, delete that song (it will still be in the music library and you can easily re-install it later), re-sync the ipod and it should continue loading.
However, after about 6 repeats of this I got irritated, and decided to connect direct to my computers USB port, missing out the USB hub that I had been using. This cured the problem totally, and the remaining 10 Gb of music loaded without a hitch.
Hope this helps, Grahamsc

I had the same problem with an 80GB Classic I bought back on Sunday. Tried for the past 4 days to get it to sync properly, but it would get through 3/4 of the songs and then error out with the same message. Thinking it was a hard drive issue, I returned it for a new unit at BB, and the new one synced perfectly, 20Gb of audio and 25GB of video on it now.

I also noticed that the new ipod I got from BB was already loaded with firmware version 1.0.2, whereas the first one I got on Sunday was not and I had to update it. So if there are HDD issues with the older classics, they might have addressed them with the newer ones.

oh my god i swear i'm going to throw this thing against the wall. nothing works!!!! rebooted, restored, reinstalled, put in different ports and the same thing pops up every time. what have the folk at apple done to the ipod? never had any problems with my beloved mini except the battery's gone now. grrrrr.

My 80 synced perfectly for the last month until I restored it one night because it wasn't playing songs. I'm confused and am trying everything possible.

Please can someone from Apple let us know if this problem is being looked into and when/how we can expect some sort of fix?

Here's my latest update on this issue. Bottom line is I no longer get the "iPod cannot be synced" message but I still have a problem with 50% of syncs, particularly syncing photos. Last night, being totally tired of getting the "iPod cannot be synced" message, I synced my iPod to a different computer than the one I had been using to which I had copied my iTunes library. It automatically downloaded an iPod software update that I didn't previously have. When it had finished doing that it started syncing and everything was looking great until iTunes froze halfway through (note, I have iTunes 7.5 on both computers so it isn't true that 7.5 fixes all the problems, just some). So then I went back to my original computer and the sync worked fine the first time, which was just a music/video sync (no photos). When I later tried syncing the photos, the first time iTunes froze and the second time it worked. So I can only claim to be able to sync 50% of the time but it's better than zero. Pretty ridiculous that I'm happy about this having bought a top of the line device only 2 months ago but I'm out of options. I'm just going to avoid syncing as much as possible and pray that a software update will come out to correct these bugs.

Almost the same exact problem except that my iPod was syncing fine for a month and now it's giving me the same error message. 80gb Classic. Now I have no music cause I tried restoring it. It won't sync any songs AT ALL. Nothing. Nada.

I am having the exact same problem with my brand new iPod Classic 160 on a rather new Toshiba running on Windows XP. It synced right for a few days. Since a few days, every time I try to synch I get the message "The iPod cannot be synced. The required disk cannot be found.", although the iPod is shown in the left pane of iTunes. The iPod is not shown in the explorer.
Meanwhile I have undertaken various attempts to get it functioning again (losing the contents of the iPod in the process):
- I have tried the various USB ports, with an with and without other USB gear attached to the laptop.
- I restarted the laptop.
- Next step: reset the iPod.
- I changed the registry settings as shown in http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304996.
- I have re-installed iTunes 7.5.
- I have re-installed the iPod software.
- Finally I restored the iPod.

Nothing seemed to work. By now, I ran out of ideas how to solve the problem. Software problem in iTunes and/or iPod after all?? Any valuable suggestion to try other solutions?

WinAmp
After suffering the problems described above without a solution within range, I decided to try to bypass iTunes. Thus, I just installed WinAmp 5.5 and ... I transferred 2274 tracks successfully.

iTunes
Afterwards I connected the iPod again and tried to sync through iTunes. Just to see what would happen. I was somewhat puzzled as iTunes started to sync after pressing the sync button! All 2274 tracks were transferred again.

Conclusion
This shows clearly, in my opinion, that there is a software instability in iTunes and/or the iPod.