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

Holy Crap!!!! I don't know how you figured this out but WOW. I can't believe that this is what we have to go through to sync an ipod. It appears from this string that this problem has existed for almost 2 years and still no solution from Apple. WELL DONE APPLE!?!?!?!?! Thanks to whoever discovered this "fix".

I'm having the same problem! I've had my shuffle for a little over 4 months now and it's been working perfect! I left my shuffle connected to the computer all night long, this morning when I came on I started playing my music on my computer using my shuffle which was connected to iTunes. Once I did that this message popped up "The Ipod cannot be synced! The required disk cannot be found". The songs were still showing up and playing, everything seemed to be working. I tried to drag and drop a song from my library and the same error msg came up. I unplugged my shuffle and now my shuffle won't even turn on and I know it's not dead, it was working fine and fully charged lastnight.

I've been reading through this thread and nothing seems to be working! =/

Update:
It's now working. I toggled the on/off button them plugged it into the usb, the error msg never popped up, it's displaying in iTunes, and I can now sync it! After 4 hrs I'm happy to have my shuffle back! (=

Dimitrij, IndustrialG33k and Humphrey B, I take my hat off to you for finding the USB power problem. If that's not thinking outside the square I don't know what is. To everyone else who expanded the solution, many thanks.

Had the same problem until I used an eSound dock which is battery powered. Select "battery" as the power source on the dock (USB is the alternative position on the switch). It effectively makes the dock a powered USB hub and I was finally able to sync the little sh*t.

PEOPLE, APPLE HAS FIXED THIS PROBLEM: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1539 I had this problem with a 2nd gen shuffle and not even the plug/unplug usb trick worked. As soon as I followed Apple's instrux on the dlls, worked like a charm. Done and Done.

What I found as a solution is that the Windows Device Manager didn't recognize the ipod correctly.
I had to uninstall the USB driver for the Ipod and then let the computer check for hardware changes.

On the IPOD I got better results checking the box allowing for disk use.

I hope that this helps

Amazing - it worked great for my 3rd gen nano and 2nd gen shuffle.

With iTunes 8.1, I press the SYNC button, unplug the mouse, then it syncs instantly! Both my mouse and iPod are plugged into a powered USB hub (hub has its own power brick).

The Problem is iTUNES!!! after months of quiet desperation I tried winamp and voila! I can sync all my music FINALLY!!!

OMG... Thank you so much!!! At the beginning did not work, because my mouse has no USB port but when I disconnected my printer and webcam it worked... Thank you benmcl for the aclaration... And Dimitrij. U R a genius!!!!

****!!!! U R A GENIUS!!! I SPEND ONE ENTIRE DAY TRYING TO FIX THAT PROBLEM!! AND LOOKING FOR HELP!AND NOTHING WORKED! BUT THANKFULLY I FOUND UR MSG!! AND IT WORK!!!! PERFECTLY FINE!!! I JUST UNPLUG AND PLUG THE MOUSE!! AND THE IPOD STARTED SYNCING!! I DID IT ON A WINDOWS XP, PC........... THANK U SO MUCH!!! 😀

unplug and plug iPOD after clicking Sync iPOD until it recognizes it.
no clue why this works....

I guess what I'm curious is, what folder is itunes/ipod looking for?
Apple stuff is infamous for giving you just enough error information to drive you nuts.
I've just recently run into this issue and it's driving me nuts.

Mine goes to syncing mode for less than one second then ejects again.

WoW lol teh usb "trick" or the device manager "trick" lols worthy I looked at this for an hour lmao. I went in deleted the only file windows nativeley sees and got it to restore to the basic model and it right off the bat started uploading all of my songs sure i cant have an updated model but hay i got it working

huaaaa!!! it worked.

I don't understand why we need itunes either, maybe because nobody wants to waste time in syncing some stupid songs into their stupid little devices, and itunes makes it fast and easy.

Maybe someday there will be a FREE OPEN SOURCE TOOL that works as itunes should (and don't need to do magic tricks like umpluggin the mouse).

Anyway... thank you very much, you are genious.