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802.11mac

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 16, 2010
74
2
Is there a way to connect an old iPod, it's the 5GB first generation, to modern PC or Mac like Macbook Air 2011? I would like to add more songs to it.
 
Just plug it into a firewire port. Unfortunately, Apple only considered this a "pro" feature, but you can easily get Firewire for a desktop PC, or even some laptops. There's no way (to my knowledge) that you can make it work with a Macbook Air though :(
 
If your Macbook Air has Thunderbolt, there might be a Thunderbolt docking station that would have a FireWire port.

Otherwise, yeah, you have quite the conundrum there.
 
If it has a 30 pin connector, it will hook up to your computer just fine. However, if it is only firewire, you have a bit of a problem if your computers do not have firewire ports. There are no firewire to USB adapters that I am aware of.
 
I think the big issue is that the more recent Macs have a Firewire 800 port, but that the first several iterations of the iPod were only Firewire 400. OP, if this is the issue you are running into, then you can either get a FW400-->800 adapter ($10-$15), or, if you happen to have an external hard drive with both types of ports on the back, just daisy chain your iPod through it. That's what I used to do with my 3rd gen iPod.

EDIT: Sorry, just looked at your signature and noticed that you have a MacBook Air, and thus no FW port. Not sure what to do in your case.
 
If you wanted to spend the money you can get from Sonnet a Thunderbolt ExpressCard dock (here) and then get a FireWire Express card (here)
 
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Thanks for all your replies.

I actually found out that there are 4-6 pin Firewire cables like the Apple Thin Firewire and the ones at ebay like this. I have a Windows laptop with a small firewire 400 port on it in which a 4-pin firewire cable should fit. Is this the one i should buy?
 
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