I downloaded a couple records the other day and then transferred them to my ipod nano. When I went to listen to them, however, I found that they weren’t there…that was odd. I hooked my ipod up to the computer, deleted those records, and then re-uploaded them. They still didn’t show up. Hmmm, they’re on my ipod when I open it as a removable drive, but not when I detach it from my comp to listen to it. After opening the files to see what was going on, I noticed that they had a file labeled “usbc.” It’s obviously some kind of virus that is preventing me from uploading anything new, but it can’t be deleted and a virus scan on my ipod did nothing. What should I do?
Try this
It sounds like a corrupted drive and not a virus.
I dunno…those links seem to just be able to recover lost files. I haven’t lost any (not yet, anyway), just not able to upload anything new to my ipod. I want to get rid of that damn usbc, whatever the hell it is.
Have you tried to rest the iPod? I have seen no evidence of a virus that effects the operation of an iPod, only viruses that effect the Windows machines they sync with.
The idea would be to get all your files off your iPod, reset it, and then copy them back.
Ah, yes, you were all correct: it was a corrupt file. I reformatted my ipod and then re-uploaded all my songs (including the new ones mentioned in the OP) and everything works fine now. Thanks to all.
Actually, it was probably part of the iPod’s content database being corrupted, rather than a music file. This is actually surprisingly common. Usually what happens is that the iPod will show up blank (either when disconnected alone, or even in iTunes) even though capacity is taken up by songs, but simple inconsistent behavior as you experienced is pretty usual. Not being able to play content you’ve copied is very likely if this happens. I’m talking about regular iPods, by the way - not iPhones and iPod touches, which work differently.
The only other reason I know of for copied content to disappear in this way (rather than just not play, if it’s a bad file, or not copy at all) is if you copy it wrong, such as by just dragging the files to the root directory of the iPod in Windows, which doesn’t work.
The good news is that a restore probably fixed it, and for most people this problem doesn’t happen often enough that you need to worry about it, but some software packages (my company makes one, which I won’t mention here, though anyone can PM me) can fix the database’s problems and thus recover missing music from the iPod. This is handier with devices that have a lot of content on them since the re-copy process takes a long time… or if, horror of horrors, you haven’t maintained a local copy of everything. This is actually an incidental feature of our product, I believe it was added just because it was so common to hear “OMG you wiped my iPod!!!” when really it was just that the more that you use the iPod, the more likely a problem can occur with the database, especially after a period of evaluating a bunch of third party tools. 
iOS 4 has a (rarely manifesting) content bug that sometimes results in content being synced to the device, but not showing up. Most of the time (but not all), it shows in the Capacity bar. Sometimes the fix is as simple as power cycling the device or rebooting it (hold power and home buttons until apple appears), but most often it requires you to restore to factory settings and resync your content.
This is what happened. I had to restore to original settings, get rid of all the content saved in my player, and then re-upload it all. A bit of a minor pain in the ass, but it all worked out. For now, anyway…