iPod cani use a nano with both X and XP?

[Scarlet Fever]

My mum got a nano for free when she got a MBP, and she thought that she could use it as a memory stick on both her mac and her work pc. But when she plugs it into her peecee, it says it needs to be re-formatted. I thought the nanos were compatable with both platforms, being flash memory. Am i worng?

 

[Eraserhead]

My mum got a nano for free when she got a MBP, and she thought that she could use it as a memory stick on both her mac and her work pc. But when she plugs it into her peecee, it says it needs to be re-formatted. I thought the nanos were compatable with both platforms, being flash memory. Am i worng?

Yes, you are correct (sort of), any iPod is compatable with both Mac's and PC's if it is formatted on a PC, if it is formatted on a Mac it is Mac only, if she want's to use it on both she needs to format it with the iPod software updater on a PC.

 

[Chundles]

They are, however there is a caveat:

Windows can only read Windows formatted drives whereas Mac OSX can read both Mac and Windows drives (OSX can read/write to FAT32 and read-only to NTFS).

To use the nano on both systems, format it on the PC to Windows and then set it in the iPod preferences in iTunes to "manually manage songs and playlists."

This should enable disk mode - she will have to manually drag and drop songs and playlists from iTunes to the nano and manually unmount the drive when she wants to disconnect it but it will work just fine on both platforms.

She will also have to use the PC to do any firmware updates on the nano when Apple release them.

It would all be so much simpler if MS would decide to let Windows recognise some other file systems but that's unlikely to happen.

 

[Eraserhead]

It would all be so much simpler if MS would decide to let Windows recognise some other file systems but that's unlikely to happen.

That is very true, MS is bad at supporting other file systems. Though Apple could just allow the Mac iPod updater to format iPod's to FAT32 format like the windows version (or make it an option).

 

[Scarlet Fever]

ok... i didnt think flash memory needed to be formatted... hmm...

So if i format it for PC, will i be able to sync it with iTunes on the Mac? I remember doing that with a shuffle which was primarily used on a PC. I plugged it in, put more tracks on, and used iPodRip to take tracks off.

 

[Chundles]

ok... i didnt think flash memory needed to be formatted... hmm...

So if i format it for PC, will i be able to sync it with iTunes on the Mac? I remember doing that with a shuffle which was primarily used on a PC. I plugged it in, put more tracks on, and used iPodRip to take tracks off.

Using the iPod on two different computers (any type of computer) will require you to set it to "manually manage songs and playlists." This means you lose the ability for it to auto-sync but you can still transfer songs to (and from if you have the appropriate software on each computer, iPodRip or similar on Windows and Senuti on the Mac) just as you normally would. You will just have to manually drag songs to the iPod in iTunes.

It's really very easy, I use my 3G iPod on both Mac and Windows and it works seamlessly.

Flash does have to be formatted, the reason the shuffle doesn't is because it is MS-DOS formatted and is completely supported by both platforms, the features of the nano and the 5G require a more "robust" file structure and therefore need to be formatted.