ERROR MESSAGE "The Ipod cannot be synced!The required disk cannot be found"

Microsoft seems to think this is a registry problem... I was reading their article, but have not tried deleting the registry values. After 3 hours of being on the phone with tech support (and countless hours of searching web sites) their solution was to replace 3 out of 4 shuffles, but now I am afraid that won't solve the problem. Has anyone tried the Microsoft fix?

thank you very much,i spent time for 48hrs to solve this Error msg problem but it didt work anymore. i did restore my ipod so many many time,called to An apple call service center,and blah blah...i tried to do everything to solve it.
i had never thought that this apple discussion would help me anymore. finally,i had no hopes then just click for chill on these But unbelievable that there are many ppl got da same problem as me!!! moreover i found the solution to make my ipod work as bfore and it works already.... so >>>> Dimitrij Posts:3 <<<<
u give me a wonderful day,im soooooo happpy. thank u

I had the same problems as many here and have posts all over this site trying to get help. I didn't get so was going to try the Winamp plug in and whilst on their forum it was suggested I undo some of my usb connections, reboot and try again.

My trouble was when attaching the shuffle it would show in the XP explorer hard drive list, but as soon as itunes loaded it would change to 'Removable drive' then disappear altogether.

I undid one of my usb drives (I have 5) and downloaded and opened Winamp. It asked what type of disc I had and I chose the Shuffle option.

I rebooted with my shuffle plugged in and it showed in Explorer and when itunes loaded, it stayed there.

Since I have loaded and reloaded in itunes and it is still okay however after the days of frustration and no apple help, I am still prepared to go the winamp otion if need be. There seems to be loads on the forum who have had bad and hair tearing experiences with the new shuffle.

It is a great little gizmo, but apple need to accept there are some unfriendly problems and at least offer some real alternatives. Their '5 R' suggestions became a joke whilst in the midst of my problem.

Good luck all and Happy New Year.

oz

Still can't get it to work. Tried it all and fed up with rebooting. Taking it back to the shop and getting my money back. It shouldn't be this hard.

I have been watching this thread as I have the same problems as everyone else. I don't have a usb mouse. I do have other usb devices (PDA, DVD drive, digital camera) but unplugging these does nothing. I'm going to try the WinAmp plugin. I really wish Apple would do something about this.

Yes ad one more to the list. I bought shuffles for both my children too for xmas and am having the same error message on one of them, but not the other..........

I too had and have this problem, the only way I can get it to sync is by restoring it and when its about to restore, to plug it in and out over and over until it is recognized before I get the dreaded error. Then when it restores it loads all the songs I previously checked. I hope this isn't the best of what apple has to offer because I was able to load up and run a Zen, a Sansa and even an old Dell DJ with no problems. The new shuffle is nothign but problems.

I too had/have the same problem. I tried several: uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes and QuickTime Player, installed and used iPod Reset Utility on Windows also found reference to making a appleipod.bat to insure 10 XXX.dll files recognized and removing the USB mouse(in my case my mouse is an USB plug but plugged in and adapter to plug in the normal round plug on all computers).
The solution that worked for me that is found these posting is a little cryptic, so to expand on it:
1.Open iTunes and connect your iPod shuffle make sure the iPod icon is present have your window open to LIBRARY>Music and the files load and checked.
2. Open Device Manager (there maybe more then one way to do this)Start>Control Panel>System (Its open System Properties)>Hardware (Tab)left click on Device Manager (this open the Device Manger window) Minimize it.
3.Now back in iTunes windows high light all your files and left click your high lighted files and drag your files to the iPod icon and release the left mouse key at this point a sync should be trying to start.
4. Quickly open the Device Manger window and have the top icon for your computer high lighted by a lift click or your mouse and the left click the Action button and click on Scan for hardware changes. At this point in your iTunes window the sync really kick in and start transferring your files to the iPod make sure you wait till all files are copied.

Thank you so so so much Wilhel met, we too have been trying to solve this problem for over a week, working ok on another pc but not on the laptop we normally use.

After scanning over all of the posts against this topic we were still feeling bewildered and a bit lost with all the technical jargon until reading yours, understanding what we had to do and trying it.

It works absolutely brilliantly and we actually let out a big whoop of joy when it starting syncing!

We had to register with apple just to say thank you because before reading your post we were ready to chuck the **** thing in the bin!!!!

The suggestion about opening the device manager under the control panel worked for me. I have tried everything else. I truly appreciate the advice. I was estatic to get it to work. It has been so frustrating!!!

Wow, this bug is a 'show stopper' which should be fixed, ASAP. Someone who is not computer literate, will never get the shuffle to work.

Do I drag the song into the main folder or do I open iPod folder and drag it to bin? I dragged mine into bin, unplugged, plugged in and nothing happened. I'm losing my mind trying to figure this out! Thank you for any help that you can give me!!!!!

-Heather

You are Godsent! I have every other suggestion. Nothing has worked! I only tested it on one song b/c I was so frustrated already. Do I need to always do that to load my iPod?

Well I guess we're all doing whatever it takes to make these things work.
I downloaded the latest version of WinAmp, which has the ability to sync to Ipods. Ironically, this was the first time that the shuffle showed up as a removable disk in My Computer. However, I could not get my shuffle to sync with WinAmp, either.
So what I did was reboot, manually launch WinAmp, then place the shuffle in its dock (which automatically launches Itunes), and poof, it works!
So if any of these other fixes has not worked for you, try this one.

Good Luck!

Glad I found this. I happened to have a USB thumbdrive connected as well. As soon as I removed it, the Shuffle started syncing. C'mon Apple.