My ipod has started to go south on me, but I am not sure why. I start to play a song and for about 5 seconds it works fine then pauses then skips to the next song. Sometimes it doesn’t play at all and just scrolls from song to song without playing anything. Why is this happening and how do I fix it without having to totally reset my ipod (hard reset which would requier a wipe of my hard disc causing me to lose all my data). Anyone know what I can do, or failing that a good third party program that will allow me to transfer the music back to my PC so I don’t have to reburn everything when the hard drive is reset.
I don’t know for absolute certain, but I don’t think a hard reset of the iPod will affect the contents of the hard drive. It’s likely that it just restores the factory settings in the machine’s firmware. I’ve done it on mine, and I believe all I lost was the time setting. However, what you’re describing sounds a bit like a hardware malfunction. In which case, you may be about to learn a hard lesson about always backing up your software/music. (In general, you don’t want your only copy of music to be on a small, fragile, easily stolen device.)
It doesn’t sound like it’s the problem, but is it possible that you have some variable bit rate encoded MP3 files on there? My iPod is hit or miss with those. Sometimes it’ll skip a song after trying to play it for a second, but if I go back to it, it plays just fine. I’ve had it go the other way too - it’ll play fine, I’ll hit the skip back button to repeat it, and it will try for a few seconds and then give up and go on to the next one.
The apple support team is telling me that what I need to do is a resore, which will erase my hard disk. I DO have all the original CD’s for the music, but that is days and days worth of reburnign that I need to do. Sadl that may be my only choice. Now that I think about it I may have one or two variable bit rate files. so maybe that is the problem. I will keep searching for answers.
You can’t with an iPod, presumably to control music piracy. I believe there actually are ways to do so, but they’re difficult and require third-party software.
Personally, though, I have to say that it’s utterly bizarre that the OP deleted all this stuff from his hard drive.
It’s really not that difficult. Go to www.ipodlounge.com and look at their list of programs under “software”. There’s plenty of stuff there that will let you copy things over.
thanks for the link audiobottle, I knew there was stuff out there I am just not good at finding things like that, also I know that not all the software is created equally. And in my own defense, some of us don’t have the luxury of being able to keep 30+ gigs of music on our PC. I have 10 to 15 albums but had to delete the rest to accomidate my computers smallish hard drive. At this point I am not sure if I will even have the opportunity to back up my files temporarily as things have gone from bad to worse and it is looking like the ipod will need to be reset. Thanks anyway to those who tried to help.
And in our collective defensive, I think it’s reasonable to assume that anyone who has the luxury of owning a 30+ gig iPod also has the luxury of an adequately-sized hard drive.
The point I meant to make, but forgot, was that hard drives are so cheap, you might be able to buy one just to store your music on for less than it costs to fill up your car’s gas tank (check your local independent PC retailers for used/refurbished/returned items).
Yeah, go get a second hard drive first and you’ll skip the days and days of effort. (If your time has any monetary value to you - and presumably it should - then it’s probably a savings to go get a cheap hard drive for your computer.) It just seems like an iPod is a pretty expensive luxury item, really - so it surprises me that you wouldn’t have a big enough hard drive to store your music.
For a fee they will. The free way to do this (since you’re not doing this illegally and all of these songs are in your property) is as follows:
[ol]
[li]Go to Windows Explorer[/li][li]Go to “Tools”[/li][li]Go to “Folder Options”[/li][li]Click on the “View” tab[/li][li]Scroll down and click on “Show Hidden Files and Folders”[/li][li]Click “Apply”[/li][li]Click “OK”[/li][li]Now, in Windows Explore, go to the iPod drive (expand)[/li][li]Go to iPod Control[/li][li]You’ll see a number of folders, copy these to your PC’s hard drive, therein lies the music.[/li][/ol]
thanks STpauler thats very helpful, I am going to try that immediatly.
Sorry I got a bit defensive about the hard drive thing, the ipod was a gift (not something I would have ever splurged on myself) and my computer is a now 3 year old laptop that I got when I started college. Dell was running a deal at the time and it came with a 40 gig hard drive. I am saving up for a new computer (damn planned obsolescence) but in the mean time money is very tight. So that’s where I am coming from. I was a little touchy because a close friend had just given me the same lecture and doesn’t understand why getting a new computer (or at least an external hard drive) isn’t higher on my list of priorities.
Hey, don’t worry. I have the 4G 20 gig iPod that I got as a present, and my computer’s hard drive is only 18 gig as well. I’m in the same situation, so I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable for a person to have an iPod and an old computer.
Regarding copying the files over directly, the only reason I didn’t suggest this was because the iPod changes all the file names on the songs to its own code. I didn’t know if the number code it uses is something unique to each iPod or if it’s a universal thing. Besides, there are plenty of free programs on that list of software at ipodlounge.com anyway. Try iPod Agent. It will also sync your iPod to download RSS feeds so you can get weather, headlines, etc under your Notes section. It’s freeware as well.
Thanks anyway to those who tried to help.