My iPod has served me for many years ( or a few, I should say) and now I think it is suffering a head crash in the HDD. When I was syncing it, it wouldn't finish syncing the Mythbusters episode " Swimming in Syrup", and would start a clicking noise from the HDD. After a bit it becomes a buzzing instead of a click. iTunes stops recognizing it after a while, and it constantly shows the 'do not connect' screen! Please help! I use this iPod almost every day and it would be a loss to have my first iPod die.
Intel 20" iMac (late 2008), iPhone 3G 8GB iPod video ( 5th Gen) 30GB,
Mac OS X (10.5.6)
You should use the
Restore button in iTunes to erase the iPod's hard drive and initialize its software. If data corruption is causing the problem, a
Restore should resolve it. After the
Restore completes, you can re-sync the iPod from your iTunes library as desired.
If the iPod is not able to
Restore or if the problem recurs after the
Restore, it is possible that the iPod's hard drive has become faulty.
You should use the
Restore button in iTunes to erase the iPod's hard drive and initialize its software. If data corruption is causing the problem, a
Restore should resolve it. After the
Restore completes, you can re-sync the iPod from your iTunes library as desired.
If the iPod is not able to
Restore or if the problem recurs after the
Restore, it is possible that the iPod's hard drive has become faulty.
I have a feeling that I have a faulty drive... I did a restore, and all was good until I believe it got stuck on Swimming in Syrup again. Now iTunes is showing the message 'Attempting to copy to the disk " Jamie's iPod" failed. You do not have enough access privileges for this operation.
iTunes could not save to your iTunes Music folder because you do not have write access. Check the permissions on your Music folder and folders in your Music folder, then try copying this file again.'
Then, it stopped recognizing my iPod and it is stuck on the Do not disconnect screen until I reset it. I think it is the episode's file that is corrupted, even though it plays fine on the computer. The clicking has ceased ( and the buzzing afterwards). It played fine when I listened to it, after reseting it and not re-syncing it. I'll just uncheck the video and see from there.
After attempting to uncheck the video, and re-sync from that, I got an error message about device removal , even though I didn't even touch the iPod or the cord. My cord is a bit tattered, even though it is under a year old because it came with my iPhone 3G, and has never had a problem with that.. I'm just thinking that if I don't sync my Mythbusters episodes, that this problem won't reoccur. It synced Twilight good though, no problems with that or my music. Just Mythbusters. I'm not doing any more trial and error with it, and just leaving it at that, but I would like to know some more about the problem with the information I have given. Thanks for your help, anyway.
The docking cable is important, so you should get a new one if it has visible damage.
If you are having problems with a particular video (and not any other items), and it was a paid-for iTunes download, you can use iTunes to report it as a problem. You do so by going to your iTunes Store account info view (click on your iTunes Store ID at the upper right corner of the iTunes window). On your account summary view, click on +Purchase History+.
Find the specific purchase and click the little arrow next to the purchase. It will show the specific items in that purchase. Click on the +Report a Problem+ button. A link that says +Report a Problem+ should appear on the specific item line. Click on the link for the that video and you should see a form to explain the problem. You should either ask for a refund or ask if you can download it again.
If this item was a free download, I would delete the current video and try downloading it again.
Ok, as I am trying to do some more trial and error with seeing which video(s) is/are causing the problem, i got the device removal error a few minutes later, and then the error about not having permission to copy the files to my iPod. Then, the iPod froze, as in the screen is frozen on the do not disconnect ( the don't symbol isn't there because it must have frozen during the blinking), and the 'waiting for iPod' has come up twice on itunes. The drive is still spinning, as when I lean down to listen to it to see if it was just spinning or doing something that I can't here from about a foot and a half away. I did change out the cord, and it got stuck on another video, but it syncs fine with my iPhone and it synced fine a couple of weeks ago. I'll leave it alone, ( no ejecting it, no moving it, etc.) for now.
If the problem seems to be more random (but perhaps caused with larger files such as videos), it may in fact be caused by the hard drive. If you cannot get it resolved by doing a
Restore or finding issues with specific videos, you can try doing the following.
In iTunes, on the iPod's
Summary tab, set it to +Enable disk use+ if it is not already set that way.
Quit iTunes and run Disk Utility. First, select the iPod's hard drive (not the volume indented under the drive) in the Disk Utility sidebar and go to the +First Aid+ tab. Click on +Repair Disk+. This will check for and attempt to repair disk data corruption issues. Note if any issues are reported and if there are any errors reported, if Disk Utility was able to repair them.
If errors were reported and repaired, quit Disk Utility and go back to iTunes. See if those problems still recur.
If there were no reported errors, or if the problems still recur in iTunes, run Disk Utility again. Select the iPod's hard drive in the sidebar again, and go to the
Erase tab. You will be using Disk Utility to erase (reformat) the iPod's hard drive. Note: If there is a physical problem with the drive, this procedure may stall or error out. Set the format type to +Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The name does not matter. Click on
Erase.
If the erase process completes successfully, quit Disk Utility. Run iTunes. iTunes should treat the iPod as a new device and offer to sync. Do not sync for now. Once iTunes opens, select the iPod in the iTunes sidebar and use the
Restore button to install and initialize the iPod's software. Then, you can set it up to sync as desired. Try those video files again.
NOTE: There is a small possibility that if the iPod is partially working now but the hard drive is becoming faulty for a physical (not data corruption) reason, attempting to erase (reformat) it in Disk Utility may fail. If it fails, the iPod may no longer function as an iPod, if its internal software is no longer on the drive. Because the reformat failed, doing a
Restore in iTunes may also fail for the same reason.
I clicked the 'repair disc' and it comes up with this ( Note: I have followed all your instructions up to this.): The disc " Jamie's iPod" could not be unmounted'
