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User profile for user: Erik J Lundeen
Erik J Lundeen Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Can I sync my iPod with both Mac & Windows?

I have a Powerbook that I have been using for my iPod and iTunes. However, I also have a Windows desktop that a former employer bought for my home office, that has been sitting there pretty much collecting dust. I just got my wife her own iPod, and I'm wondering if there is a way to sync her iPod to both the Mac and Windows computer. I travel for business, and take my laptop with me, but I want my wife to be able to sync, charge and download new songs to her iPod while I'm gone. We have our entire music library on an external hard drive, so I thought it would be easy to just connect it to the desktop while I was gone, and use iTunes for Windows to access it. When I went to connect the iPod to the Windows, an error popped up telling me it was formatted for Mac and couldn't be read. Is there any way around this? Any help would be greatly appreciated... thanks!

Erik

iMac G3 Mac OS 9.2.x

Posted on Apr 3, 2007 9:36 AM

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2 replies
User profile for user: Zevoneer
Zevoneer
User level: Level 9
52,705 points

Apr 3, 2007 10:35 AM in response to Erik J Lundeen

If your iPod is formatted for Mac it won't run natively on a PC because the Windows OS does not support the HFS Plus file system and therefore will not see the drive: How to determine your iPod's disk format

Macs can read Windows drives so you could restore and format the iPod on the PC. iTunes will allow you to use an iPod formatted for Windows on a Mac but Apple currently only fully supports using the iPod shuffle in FAT32 format on Mac, in other words all future software updates for the iPod would have to be carried out in Windows to maintain the formatting. Alternatively there are third party programs that will allow you to use a Mac formatted iPod on Windows, this is one for instance gets good reviews: XPlay 2

You can read another user's experience of using XPlay at this link: iPod on Mac and Windows

One other thing, you can't "sync" that is automatically update an iPod to multiple libraries or computers. If you want to connect and use an iPod on more than one computer you need to change the update preference in the iPod Summary tab to "Manually manage music and videos" and click Apply.
Using iPod with Multiple computers
Managing content manually on iPod
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Can I sync my iPod with both Mac & Windows?

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