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Starting itunes disconnects ipod mini

My ipod mini connects and shows up as a usb drive, but when i subsequently open itunes the ipod disappears. If itunes is already open before i connect the ipod then the ipod is not discovered in itunes and does not show up as a drive.

With itunes not open:

Connect my ipod mini to USB cable. It appears as a removable drive under Computer. In the device manager it appears under "disk drive" as "ipod", in "removable devices", and under the USB section as a "USB mass storage device."

Great. i can click on the ipod in explorer and see the contacts folder, etc.
The little "safely disconnect hardware" icon thingy lists the ipod.

When i open itunes the USB drivers and entries for disk drive and removable device disappear. The USB mass storage device entry changes to a yellow triangle and !, saying windows is removing device, code 21.
The little "safely disconnect hardware" icon thingy does not list the ipod.

If I start with itunes open, and then connect the ipod mini:
itunes does not detect the ipod. The usb mass storage device entry in device manager is the yellow triangle with the ! The other usb entries never appear. (if they do it is for 1 second then they disappear, TBC)
The little "safely disconnect hardware" icon thingy does not list the ipod.

The ipod plays the music and pod casts just fine. It charges up on the usb cable.
When i plug in or disconnect i get a "be-bo" windows usb device sound. Even if no device is shown in the "safely disconnect hardware" icon thingy.


The ipod mini was working just fine for 5+ months with windows7 and itunes 8/9.
Two weeks ago it just stopped working, itunes 9.

Things i have tried:
I tried installing from itunes 9 to itunes 10.1.
Uninstalling itunes, and fresh install of itunes 10.1
Uninstalling USB mass storage device driver. re-installed when i next connect ipod.
re-booted ipod.
alternate cable.
alternate usb port, on back and front of machine.
all other usb devices unplugged except essential keyboard+mouse combo.
The ipod/itunes service is running and automatic
None of these things changed the behavior, as described above.

Just before it all stopped working, for 3 consecutive times i connected and sync the ipod to itunes there would be a windows and itunes error. Windows said there was something wrong with the usb drive, offering to fix it. The last time i said yes fix it. Windows reported that the drive was fixed. It opened and showed the empty contacts folders etc. There are example contacts in there.

We use an iphone 3GS with the same cable and USB port and itunes just fine. We use different itunes libraries (start itunes, press shift, select the library).

All suggestion to resolve this are most welcome. I have tried everything i can think of 😟 Cheers, Jonny.


[it doesn't seem to make any difference, but i have not let the itunes helper thing run at start up for 4 years or so]

ipod mini, Windows 7, itunes 9, 10.1

Posted on Nov 30, 2010 5:57 AM

Reply
1 reply

Dec 28, 2010 6:46 PM in response to Jonny_F

FIXED IT 🙂
No response or help from apple to this question though.

I got the ipod updater from 2006, googled it and found it on the apple support web site. I turned itunes off, connected the ipod that showed up as a usb drive. I used the ipod updater to re-set the firmware. first time it said "can not mount ipod". Next time i ran it it found the ipod and reset the firmware. Next time i started it it said "can not mount ipod".

Then i used windows to re-format the ipod's 'disk". I re formatted the entire disk of the ipod, the full reformat not the quick format.

One of those two tings, or both fixed the problem. I then started itunes which reported it had found a new ipod. It let me name the ipod and put back my music and podcats etc just fine.

I assume it was the re formating of the disk that did it. I got those two tips from the rockbox ipod faq (well the ipod could never link to itunes so i was looking for a way to get the ipod to do something 🙂 ipod working and communicating with itunes just fine now.

Cheers, good luck. J.

Starting itunes disconnects ipod mini

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