Changing iPod drive letter fixes "could not mount ipod"

So the problem I was having is that although my Windows XP SP2 machine could see my iPod nano as a drive, whenever I tried to use iPod Updater or iTunes, they could not connect/recognize the device. iTunes would simply not see that I had the device, while the updater would freeze for a good 5 - 10 minutes before giving me the "could not mount ipod" error. I tried everything, selective startup, windows update, made sure that I did indeed have USB 2.0 hardware, made sure that when I connected the ipod that Windows Device Manager said it was a "Standard ENHANCED USB Hub," restarted ipodservice, formatted ipod using windows, and probably a few other things. Still, although Windows could see the ipod just fine, apple's software just could not. I could even copy files to and from the device just fine! If only we didn't need iTunes to copy music. :P

Well, one thing I suspected it could be is that with my computer, my primary hard drive (and I only have one) is mysteriously drive letter "D" while when I plugged in my iPod it took on the holy "C" drive letter. Could this be a problem? Possibly, but not likely I thought. So I tried some 3rd party software which emulated the ipod software and I got an error message. First that it appeared my ipod was not formatted (which it was) and second that it "could not create :\ipod_control". First thing I thought was, where is the drive letter? The software isn't even looking for the ipod in C:\, it's looking nowhere! So what I did it changed the ipod's drive letter from C to something else and viola, it worked.

So it seems the iPod may not like it when it is named C, or there was some conflict with the iPod using the C drive letter since, I'll admit, I used to have two hard drives and the other one used to be C. Could also be a bug, who knows.

Posted on Sep 13, 2005 10:23 PM

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4 replies

Sep 18, 2005 8:38 PM in response to Robert Lowrey

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

Ah, the Drive Letter C problem again.

The iPod software and iTunes will not recognize the iPod if it is assigned to drive C. Changing the drive letter to a higher one not used by other drives will solve the problem.

Instructions on how to change the drive letter: Strange iPod behaviour when Windows confuses iPod with network drive

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Changing iPod drive letter fixes "could not mount ipod"

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