ipod nano "corrupt" on XP, fine on Vista

Some research indicates this problem (or, at least, the symptoms) isn't unique to XP, nano 6th gen or this version of itunes, as this from 2009 indicates:

http://forums.ilounge.com/ipod-classic-ipod-5g-video/246551-ipod-corrupt-vista-n ot-xp.html#post1328650

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Symptoms:

- Explorer shows the iPod in the file tree

- I am able to eject the ipod using iTunes

- In Device Manager, when I connect the ipod I see two items show up:The iPod AND a USB Mass Storage Device. There are NO exclamation pointsor flags.

- If I plug in the external hard drive, it works just fine

- When I restore, it appears to go through the process, but it doesn'ttake very long, as if it is trying to, but doesn't actually do anything.

- I've checked in diagnostic mode on the iPod and all is well, so no issue with the iPod

It appears everything works fine, however, my laptop seems to think the iPod is corrupt."

I've found similar stories in various help forums, but no fix suggested anywhere.

Another example of the symptoms, from Feb 2010 - though in this case the devices work on XP but not on Vista (the reverse of my problem). Perhaps something to do with FAT formatting? Any ideas?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/plug-in- ipod-and-vista-says-must-format-itunes/74fd7195-b017-4816-a593-19b613c6d1b5

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The Ipods all work great on XP on multiple different computers. When Iplug any into the new Inspiron powerhouse with Vista Ultimate 64, I geta microsoft box that says I have to format the drive to use it. Secondly Itunes pops up and says the device is corrupt and needsrepair. When I repair it, it shows a successful repair in Itunes butonce the computer gets to detecting the now repaired Ipod, the cyclestarts over and windows says it must be formatted and itunes says it'scorrupt again.

My flash drives also required formatting going from XP to Vista andI found they were FAT32 which Vista doesn't like. NTFS seems to workon all my computers, XP, Mac, and Vista. I've formatted a couple flashdrives to NTFS so they work on Vista. I tried formatting the Ipod toNTFS and it was successful. Vista allowed it as a flash drive, butItunes detected it as in the process of repair. So I repaired itagain, and again it finished successfully. But after it was done, andwindows re-detected it, Bam, start at square one with Vista requiringformatting and then Itunes saying corrupt."

The 'itunes thinks my ipod is corrupted (and can't restore it), but it's clearly not' problem seems to be one encountered by lots of people over several [Windows] OSs, different versions of itunes and different devices. Has anybody encountered a fix?

Further piece of information: in My Computer folder on my XP laptop, the device is listed as simply "Removable Disk (F:)", and 'isn't formatted' when I try to open it. The properties tab claims "File System: RAW". I'm very wary of formatting the device - partly paranoia about it making matters worse, and partly because it does work on my Vista desktop without formatting.

Any advice?

Some progress: I've determined it's a problem with my laptop. The ipod works perfectly when plugged into other PCs (Vista and XP), syncs with itunes and shows up as a FAT32 formatted ipod in explorer.

Restoring ipod fom these PCs fails to fix problem. My laptop still sees ipod as a "RAW" formatted removable disk.

Any ideas about how to sort this out?