My 30Gb Ipod suddenly is no longer recognized in iTunes on my MacBook Pro. And all the music on it appears to have been wiped clean. However when I plug it into a PC, the device is recognized as a portable hard drive that it wants to reformat. And iTunes does still sync fine with my iPhone and iPod Nano. Can anyone help with this please?
iPod 5th Generation (Late 2006), iOS 1.x
The PC needs to reformat it because it is currently formatted for Mac OS X, and Windows cannot use that format. The same thing would happen if you connected any iPod being used (and set up) on a Mac to a Windows PC (except for the shuffle). So that (by itself) does not mean there is a problem on the iPod.
Since this problem occurred, have you shut down (powered off) the MacBook, and started it back up?
Were you using the same USB docking cable when you connected it to the PC?
Be sure to connect the iPod to a direct USB port, if you were using a hub. Try more than one USB port. If other USB devices are connected, try it after disconnecting all other devices.
The PC needs to reformat it because it is currently formatted for Mac OS X, and Windows cannot use that format. The same thing would happen if you connected any iPod being used (and set up) on a Mac to a Windows PC (except for the shuffle). So that (by itself) does not mean there is a problem on the iPod.
Since this problem occurred, have you shut down (powered off) the MacBook, and started it back up?
Were you using the same USB docking cable when you connected it to the PC?
Be sure to connect the iPod to a direct USB port, if you were using a hub. Try more than one USB port. If other USB devices are connected, try it after disconnecting all other devices.
Thanks Kenichi, that explains why the PC wanted to reformat it. I did try rebooting the Mac, and connected the iPod directly to both USB ports on my Mac, and disconnected my USB wireless mouse at the time. None of that worked unfortunately 😟
I've read that there may be a problem with the latest version of iTunes not syncing with older iPods, which surely is an absurd situation if true. If that is the case, I can't imagine why Apple hasn't fixed the problem yet.
Well, my 3rd gen iPod (that's so old it has to connect using FireWire), my 4th gen iPod (2004 model), and my 1st gen iPod shuffle (from 2005) all still work fine on my iMac with the latest iTunes. Can't believe everything on the Internet... 🙂
If it looks like the iPod currently has no songs on it when you look on the iPod, you should probably do a Restore on the iPod using iTunes. There may be data corruption on the iPod's hard drive. This is done from the iPod's Summary tab in iTunes. This will erase the iPod's hard drive, re-install its software, and set it to default setting.
Since the iPod is not being recognized by iTunes when connected, put the iPod into Disk Mode first
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1363
Hopefully, iTunes will now see it. It may say the iPod is in "Recovery Mode." Try doing a Restore, if possible.
Woohoo!!!! Thank you so much Kenichi. You are a genius. You are a giant among men! I am so appreciative of you taking the time to help, and I learned a lot in the process too. Now if only I knew how I messed it up in the first place so as not to do it again - lol.
Thank you again and have a great day!
Tim M. in Florida
Glad it works again, and it wasn't something like a faulty hard drive. I don't think you did anything in particular to cause the problem. That iPod has a small hard drive inside (with tiny moving parts), and like all hard drives, it can occasionally get data corruption from normal use, which for an iPod can mean movement and "bumps." So treat it gently... 😉
iPod classic suddenly not recognized by iTunes
