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Bloody iPod...

Ganesh

20:43 / 03.12.03

Cross-posting this from Music, as I'm hopeful that someone here will be able to shed some light on the problem.

Please give generously.

Ganesh

23:31 / 03.12.03

Right, I'm gonna give the other thread a break and ask a couple of my stupidly Luddite questions here.

Part of the problem, t'would appear, is that my laptop doesn't possess FireWire or equivalent (USB 2.0?) hi-speed doodahs - so my poor little iPod is becoming exhausted when I attempt to transfer music from iTunes.

If I want to add FireWire/USB enhancement to my PC, how do I go about it? It's never something I've done before. Is it a simple matter of buying the requisite card and getting my friendly neighbourhood Toshiba dealer to shove it in place for me? How do I go about this?

netbanshee

03:18 / 04.12.03

I haven't heard of iPod issues over general USB, so I don't have specifics. I know on a mac, the iPod gets a charge through the firewire port (or possibly the dock), so I'd imagine the same goes for a PC. I would recommend going over to Apple's Knowledge Base and Forums to have a look as it's official comments and poster reactions, etc. I've found some decent help over there when I had problems configuring an X-serve.

As far as an add-on, if you have a tower or pc box, you can throw a USB 2 card in it and attain that kind of port through a PCI expansion slot. Pretty much anywhere can hand you one and it'd be fairly easy to install. If you have a Toshiba, as in a laptop, there may be a compatible card if you have a slot on the side of your machine. I know there's bluetooth and modem modules for laptop expansion, so there may be USB and other interfaces available as well. I run macs for the most part so maybe someone else here may have more specifics.

netbanshee

03:28 / 04.12.03

Here's a doc on compatible cards, if the need arises. Be careful to find one that puts out enough to charge the iPod though. It may need to be charged with a power adapter or a USB2 port.

nedrichards is confused

21:50 / 04.12.03

Any joy so far? I know that there's an issue with charging the iPod when you use a non powered FireWire port (4 pins instead of 6, a converter to fir it on should come in the box) like the ones found on the side of video cameras and in Sony laptops. To my shame I've never used the thing via USB of any flavour but all I can say is that's highly unusual. Check out the Apple forums suggested above, they're usually very good.

Ganesh

22:17 / 04.12.03

Hooray! Yes! There were two main problems: firstly, I didn't have the correct USB connector, and had to buy one; secondly, I ignored the disc labelled 'MusicMatch', not realising it contained loads of other stuff necessary to register and drive the iPod itself. Did all that last night, and succeeded in transferring three albums to the iPod.

A relatively minor niggle:

Transfer from iTunes to iPod is now relatively quick. What isn't quick is importing music from CD to iTunes. It's sluggish, it seems to judder, sound-wise, and it occasionally fails to record songs altogether - meaning they're now on my iPod as '00.00' minutes long. Hmph.

Can I delete album tracks which haven't transferred properly and 're-record' them to iTunes then the iPod? Will they slot neatly into the correct place on the albums listings?

GogMickGog

12:01 / 18.04.07

*Bumpalicious*

Frustratingly simple query for all you tech-heads:

Is it possible for me to move music files from my ipod back into my itunes folder, so that I can then burn them onto a CD? I've had a bit of a policy of renting music, burning it onto the computer then deleting the files as soon as they've made the move to the Ipod, to clear up space. However, I can't quite work out how to move em' back.

Surely I'm missing something deeply obvious?

Evil Scientist

12:06 / 18.04.07

I have a feeling that you can't. I think it's designed to stop people using the iPod to acquire music from other sources. So you could, for instance, download a tune from someone else's iTunes onto the pod, but you couldn't transfer that onto your computer.

I could be wrong though, it's only a half-remembered fever-dream of looking through my iPod's manual in an opium den.

Spaniel

17:52 / 18.04.07

You can open up your ipod like a would a memory stick, though. Assuming you've got a PC, just go to My Computer and select it as you would a drive, then go to properties and click "display hidden". You'll then be able to dig around a few folders and in one of 'em will be all your tunes. Unfortunately they will all have funny names but you'll be able to copy them onto your computer nonetheless. It's better than nought.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:59 / 18.04.07

Then, once you have copied them, you can import them into iTunes. (file-import from folder- select the folder you dragged them into) - it will read the ID3 tags on the songs and recognise them with the right titles. They will all have been copied into the iTunes music folder, and the original dump from the iPod can be deleted.

Of course, this depends on having enough hard drive space to do all that. Alternatively, use floola (on your iPod, running in disk mode) or Yamipod/Ephpod, both of which, I think, allow you to transfer files from iPod interface to computer.

astrojax69

01:11 / 19.04.07

tann vennegoor scores another goal! i didn't know you could suck back from the pod. so whyn't mac-folk make it more obvious and easy then?

sheesh, 'puter things! luddites for eva!11!!

{grumbling 'cause my replacement mac trashed most - surprisingly not all. hmmm - of my toons and i have spent several frustrating hours over several frustrating evenings trying to re-establish my cd collection for my cycling pleasure...}

Spaniel

07:23 / 19.04.07

Thanks for the extra info, Haus. Now that my ipod is pretty much fucked (for no good reason) I'm gonna need to know what all those tracks I backed up are actually called.

Will be purchasing a new hard drive within the month, so we'll see how that turns out.

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