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iPod Shuffle Error 1418: discovering more, let's try new ways

I tried to fix my iPod without success, reading every single message of this board or in googgle... and I found a interesting thing: the iPod Shuffle has the same behaviour of a DAMAGED pen drive or memory stick. Let's not focus on iTunes7, iTunes6, restore it, update it, etc.. it won't work. Let's focus instead on HOW to force Windows to recognize that there is a 1GB disk inside the pen drive we are attaching. The goal then is to format it via an utility like "HP Format tool" or via "Command": afterwards I think it would be a game to restore it in iTunes. We can try also with utilities for pen drives data recovery, I don't know
And about the cause of the problem, I found it could be that the iPod Shuffle can fail when removed without clicking on "Secure Hardware Remove" in windows
Ok, I tried to pull out some ideas, only alltogether we can have success. Apple abandoned us, let's face this situation and let's try to recover this iPod Shuffle, cause I can't accept I have to trow it and buy a new player.
Thanks and good luck

Windows XP

Posted on Oct 3, 2006 12:15 AM

Reply
14 replies

Oct 5, 2006 9:19 AM in response to Moonfleet

I have three shuffles in my household, mine,son's and daughters and since downloading itunes 7 none of them work.
I have spent hours and days on here trying to find a solution to no avail. I still have the itunes library but all of the ipods come up as corrupt then when I try to restore I get the 1418 error message or the reformatt thing which just freezes and does nothing.
I have tried almost every suggestion on here but as I am not really computer literate, am scared of causing damage to other areas of my computer.
I am pig sick about this as we have only had these for just over a year. What a total waste of money. I am now thinking of just buying cheap run of the mill mp3 players. I won't ever buy apple products again.

qtech Windows XP

Oct 5, 2006 3:40 PM in response to PvtRyan

OK guys, after one week without sleeping, searching every corner of the web and every corner of dedicate forum (this site,iPodLounge,etc...), I have to give up. These are my final conclusions (I am an electronic engineering student here in Italy, I love music, I talked to a lot of collegues and friends, I asked for others opinions: I can't say I'm an expert, but I know where I'm putting my hands)

1) I tried the iPod Shuffle in Windows XP, MAC OS X & Linux. The computer can recognize that an iPod Shuffle is attached, but it's impossible to read what's inside (I/O error). That means it's impossible to see the CAPACITY of the disk, it's impossible to FORMAT it (failure of commands like fdisk, chkdisk, format, mount, etc...) or to use disk utilities programs like HP Format Tool, Disk Utility in the Mac, Windows USB, etc... With Linux we have the information that the operating system can't read the iPod Shuffle first memory block. And in Windows in fact we have the message "insert a disk"

2) For this reason it's impossible to fully restore the iPod with Apple utilities, just because we can't write on the flash memory of the iPod. This explains the 1418 error in iTunes 7 and the errors on the previous versions of iPod Updater. As I said before, iTunes recognize that the iPod is attached because it recognizes the hardware (as we can see in the Control Panel), but it doesn't recognize its flash memory and says it's corrupted (as we "cannot see" in the Disk Manager)

3) The iPod Shuffle has the same behaviour of a traditional USB pen drive with a damaged flash memory

4) I can assume that iTunes 7 has stressed the iPod Shuffle "burning some sectors" of the memory, it's just not a coincidence. Other reasons may be plugging out the device without clicking on "Remove securely hardware" on Windows taskbar, after the installation of iTunes 7. Anyway we must remember that iTunes7 incorporated the old iPod Updater, a new "iPod data usage" system, and a new volume limiter... Find your own conclusion..

5) For newbies, remember that the iPod Firmware is ON the flash memory (that's why in 1GB models you saw only 990 MB free). If we can't restore the firmware, it means we can't restore the flash memory.

So, if your warranty has expired, I suggest 2 conclusions:
1) Open your iPod and try to replace the flash memory with a new one.
2) Take your iPod with you, go to the nearest Apple Center, and stick it in the right place you can find there.... 🙂

Good luck to all of you and thanks for your attention!

PS: 2 years ago I bought an iPod shuffle in Singapore, only to found in Italy that the button was spoiled. The replacement served me till last week, when I had the idea to install iTunes 7.
But 4 years ago I bought a 20 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox 3. He's still here doing his job, and smiling to me when I need him. I used him even to djing in smoky and wet parties... and Creative is a Singapore brand...

Windows XP

Oct 5, 2006 8:44 PM in response to PvtRyan

Thanks for that, Private Ryan.

I've done everything I could with my Shuffle, but I kept thinking there was another solution out there. Unfortunately, I don't have access to other computer systems or disk utilities.

I'm glad to hear from someone who has some expertise and who has methodically tried everything and still has not been able to fix their Shuffle. That means I can finally give up on the thing and let it go...



Oct 7, 2006 8:20 AM in response to PvtRyan

Hi, To all my fellow sufferer's. After reading all the posts it appears to me that it's a windows download problem, my son updated the shuffle software on his windows desktop.
The shuffle has the 1418 error on his comp. but on my mac's it doe's not load anywhere. The strange thing is when I try the ipod updater it shows up, but after 2 hours of waiting for it to "become ready" I have given up.
I dare say apple will eventually own up to this fiasco.


imac 2GHz Duo Core 20" Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2 GHz Ram

Oct 11, 2006 4:09 PM in response to John Kelly1

Hello everyone,

I have never posted on these forums but I can tell you that over the past 2 or 3 days I have been struggling with my ipod shuffle and itunes 7.0.1 and error 1417, 1418 and -50.

Here is how I fixed it:

1. Uninstalled Itunes completely
2. Formatted shuffle using Windows with fat 32
3. Download ipod shuffle unleashed from here: http://agoraphobeus.free.fr/iShuffle/index.html
4. Unzipped and installed this to the root folder of my shuffle
5. Copied the music I wanted to the music folder
6. Double clicked the ishuffle icon and viola! I have a working ipod shuffle again.

I hope this has been helpful because I have been struggling with this for a couple nerve racking days and the folks at the apple store werent really much help. They blamed the problem on my computer. I knew my computer wasnt the problem because I could still use the shuffle as a memory stick this is a problem with Windows XP and itunes.
On a personal note, I blame Microsoft. They probably wrote in some incompatibility so that people would run out and buy their new media player.

Oct 12, 2006 8:42 PM in response to Dweebs

mmm that won't work, because the computer doesn't detect de device, so we can't use our shuffles as a flash memory anymore.

There are a few things that my ipod can do now

Charging
Play music (plese de aware that we can't add new music)

I think that the only way we can solve this problem is trying to force our computer to recognice our ipods

Some ideas =?

iPod Shuffle Error 1418: discovering more, let's try new ways

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