iPod Easy Ipod reformat

[lemon714]

I like to say im somewhat savy but im having a hell of a time reformatting an ipod photo formatted for mac reformatted for windows...any ideas are greatly appreciated,and thanks in advance.

p.s. if i have to zero out/erase everything is totally fine i just want this issue resolved,i can always replace the music

 

[mad jew]

Umm, are you reformatting a Mac-formatted iPod to a Windows-formatted iPod? It's usually a simple case of installing the iPod Software Updater on the PC, plugging in the iPod and following the prompts. FWIW, some people have trouble when a Dock is involved so maybe use a direct connection.

Don't zero anything out, it's unnecessary and the small iPod hard drive wasn't designed for such strenuous use.

 

[lemon714]

when you refer to PC do you mean the non-mac? or just the comp in general?

yes im trying to format a mac ipod for windows...thanks

 

[tinydragon123]

when you refer to PC do you mean the non-mac? or just the comp in general?

yes im trying to format a mac ipod for windows...thanks

Use iPod-Updater if you want to reformat your iPod. It will delete everything on your iPod and the computer that you plug the iPod in for the first time, that's computer OS will be the format of your iPod.

By the way, are you going to reformat it so you can use them on both Macs and Windows?

I don't know if it's just me, but I have a 5G iPod and an iBook. I formatted my iPod as Windows, but when I hooked it up to my iBook, it took a while to read it. Also, the songs can be transferred easily but with Photos, my iPod had trouble with importing pictures from iPhoto and iTunes gave me a message that said something like "This iPod cannot be written on" each time I would transfer a new album from iPhoto to my iPod. Lastly, my iPod also took a while to get the next song when I'm shuffling.

I got tired of the slowness so I reformatted my iPod as Mac and it's quick and there's no problems with transferring pictures anymore.

But if you are going to format your iPod and use it on a PC from now on, then nevermind what I said above.

 

[mad jew]

Sorry, that was vague of me. I meant the Windows machine by PC.

FWIW, I have my 4G iPod (without photos) set up this way and apart from taking a bit longer to sync with the Mac, it works seamlessly.

 

[Rantipole]

... and the small iPod hard drive wasn't designed for such strenuous use.

Wait a sec... what do you mean by this exactly?

 

[mad jew]

Writing zeroes to the hard drive to securely erase it (among other reasons) puts a lot of strain on the hard drive because it is constantly being written to and erased from for an extended period of time. Whilst computer hard drives were designed to be able to withstand this, iPod hard drives (and particularly their heat dissipation techniques) were not. As such, an iPod should only be zeroed out as a last resort. I've had to do it once to a failing hard drive and at a guess, it probably gave me another fortnight of use.

 

[Rantipole]

Hmm... OK, the reason I ask is that I have an iPod mini, but way over 6gigs of music. I use a smart playlist to shuffle in "least played" songs. Would this constitute "strenuous use"? If so, I have to rethink my whole storage strategy!

 

[mad jew]

I also have more music than my iPod can handle so I use playlists (smart or otherwise) to sync across my music. This doesn't have anything to do with zeroing out the hard drive though. Erasing and reformatting is fine but writing zeroes across hard drive sectors will place a little too much unnecessary strain on the disk.