Im Returning My iPod
I purchased a 30GB iPod expecting it to work the way the iPod works on a Mac. I did not want a new hobby, I wanted a working music jukebox. What I got was a nightmare.
I wasted nearly ten hours of my life trying to get this thing to work and got nothing but intense frustration. I'm done. Its going back. I want it to work. I wish it would work, but this is ridiculous.
I have a Thinkpad with an Adaptec Firewire PC Card, running Windows XP. All of my music is on a 120MB external firewire drive that I've never had any issues with. As soon as I plugged in the iPod I started getting "delayed write failed" issues. I tried plugging the iPod into a different part of the firewire bus (the back of the hard drive) and rebooting, and that seemed to help some, but this error popped up everyone once in a while throughout my testing.
I tried syncing my whole music collection. 20GB. I came back after an hour and my iPod battery was dead. I looked to see how much music had tranferred and the computer said 5GB, but the iPod seemed to show that only 3GB had transferred. I tried to do another transfer after charging and nothing moved across.
Thinking my iPod was corrupt, I reformatted it. Which took a couple of tries because the iPod ran out of batteries during the format the first two times.
I tried synching again. 5GB, that's it. Then it mysteriously stopped. Finally I *watched* it and saw the "iPod is full" message flash briefly on my screen. But wait, it says that the iPod has 22GB free. How can it be full?
I looked around online and most people seemed to suggest trying ephPod. I tried that. Version 2.70a. What a nightmare. First I couldn't create the iPod Control files. Then I got past that and ephPod crashed on me. Then I tried synching and got an error saying it couldn't write a file to the iPod. I got this error in a dialog box and a little bubble on the bottom right of my screen saying that the file is "corrupt". After this error appears once, it appears agin very quickly on subsequent attempts to sync. The error typically occurs after a hundred MB or so worth of transfer once its occurred once.
I tried "Restoring" the iPod and trying again. Same deal.
At this point I'm sick of this. I don't know how Apple can sell this thing and say it works with Windows. I don't have an odd, custom PC. I have a ThinkPad. I don't have an odd, super-cheap fireware card, I have an Adaptec. I'm done.
[2542 byte] By [
rourkem] at [2007-11-9 12:58:05]
# 1 Re: Im Returning My iPod
At any point did you ask any of us for help? Did you ask the store where you bought it for help? Oh, and how long did you charge the iPod before you decided to sync it? All of us here would have been happy to help you get your iPod running, but we aren't mind readers. No offense, but don't come complaining to us, unless we have totally failed in helping you to get you iPod running.
BTW I have no problems with people venting, but this is your first post, and you never came to any of us for help, right?
Bill McNair
# 2 Re: Im Returning My iPod
I wasn't complaining about this forum. I was complaining about Apple. I don't have the patience to troubleshoot this thing while going back and fourth with the folks on this forum. I did some reasearch here. Many of my problems were ones you folks have encountered.
In the end, it was too much. The iPod is cool, but I really don't have the time to devote to making it work. I thought Apple sold easy to use, intuitive products. There's noting easy or intuitive about my experience with the iPod.
Rourke
# 3 Re: Im Returning My iPod
Hi rourkem:
I can understand your frustration. You're situation exactly mirrors mine (see my Delayed Write Failure post in this forum). After approx 40 hours of experimenting with various setups i cannot get my iPod to sync consistantly.
I've returned it to Apple once and it came back showing no fault. I'm returning it again this weekend to allow Apple to attempt a large sync. I'm told they only test using Mac's so i'm expecting it to come back again with no fault found.
I'd be interested to know if anyone anywhere has ever managed to successfully sync more than 10GB in on go using the 30GB iPod on a Microsoft OS. Perhaps i have been unlucky and chosen 3 PC's and 4 firewire cards that do not work well with the device.
Unlike you i will be keeping my iPod even if it does not do this properly. Using either MC9 or EphPod i can scan the iPod for lost data and continue the sync. So once i've got the most of my music on there i should be ok.
I've owned both Creative's Zen and borrowed an Archos (don't laugh) and i'd choose the iPod over both of them.
Gaz at 2007-11-15 17:08:12 >
# 5 Re: Im Returning My iPod
Originally posted by Gaz
Hi rourkem:
I'd be interested to know if anyone anywhere has ever managed to successfully sync more than 10GB in on go using the 30GB iPod on a Microsoft OS. Perhaps i have been unlucky and chosen 3 PC's and 4 firewire cards that do not work well with the device.
I've done about 27G in one go on my 30GB iPod using Media Jukebox 9.
Love my iPOD.
Listening to: 'Radiohead - Karma Police' on Media Center 9.1
# 6 Re: Im Returning My iPod
I was going to say that the first thing I would have done to try and solve the problem is just have the iPod plugged in and not the HD.
If this was happening to me I would have copied some mp3's from the firewire HD to the computer, then unplugged the HD, then plugged in the iPod and copied the mp3's from the computer to the firewire. This way it rules out if the HD (or multiple firewire devices) is at anyway to blame.
ie: If it still doesn't work after doing the above then further investigation is required, if it does work then somehow it doesn't like the firewire HD plugged in at the same time.
It's the way you troubleshoot any problem really is try to narrow it down. Thats my approach anyways.
Good luck hope things work out for you.
mulgar at 2007-11-15 17:11:16 >
