Hello. As I have stated i'm a first time ipod owner and user. New to this forum as well. I'm hoping some of you more knowledgable than I can help me with my problems. I thought everything would be smooth sailing with my new U2 special edition 20 gb ipod. But alas this is not the case.

I'm a Windows XP (home) user and I read the instructions in the booklet and on the ipod software cd but nothing is happening like its supposed to be as it is described in the manual. First off when I installed the software and everything and connected my ipod, my ipod shows up as generic hard disk volume on my pc.

Now from what I understand when I connect my ipod to my computer, Itunes is supposed to automatically load, but yet it does not. For that matter the same thing happens each and every time I do try to connect my ipod. Even worse than that, my ipod doesnt show up AT ALL, in my itunes SOURCE list and i'm kinda wondering and scratching my head as to what is the deal here. Let me inform you that I have itunes 4.7.02 etc and I HAVE downloaded the newest ipod updater.

As a curiousity do you know WHAT does load automatically when I plug in my ipod? My Webshots wallpaper/screensaver program comes up automatically for some strange reason I dont understand.

Ipod updater is another matter completely. To be curt, it doesnt work, AT ALL. Every time I try to bring the program up it says "intializing" and thats about it. Just sits there and doesnt do much of anything. The update and the restore buttons are grayed out and I have to wind up closing it by ctrl-alt-delete.

I have other mp3 players such as Iriver H140 and they work fine. I dont understand why this is giving my so much problems. And why is my ipod listed under "USB Mass storage device" and then under that it says "Apple Ipod USB" under the sub diretory and then it says "generic volume, etc"

But like I said my ipod not appearing in the Itunes program, and the ipod updater not doing anything but sitting on my desktop are to date my main problems thus far. At least SOMETHING appears in the way of a generic drive icon that shows the device indeed IS there when I plug it in my usb port but other than that simply my ipod just doesnt exist anywhere else, most notably my itunes program.

If anyone has any ideas about my particular problems i'd love to hear from you. I really would. I'm new to the ipod thing so i'm counting on whoever to know these things better than I. Thank you all.:rolleyes: