Ok, first I don’t use an Ipod. Never have…no clue about them. My wife has one though. She tried to remove everything on it and put some new files on it, but without using itunes or anything. She put it in the USB, and took off the mp3s and put some new ones on it. They show up when you put the ipod into any USB port, even on other computers. They are the ONLY files that show up.
However, when you actually listen to the ipod, the new files (that show up when you plug it in) do not play. The old ones (that do NOT show up) do play.
She needs to add them via iTunes. They won’t show up in the regular filesystem when you do that, but they’ll be accessible in the iPod.
It’s a deliberate measure to prevent iPods being used to copy MP3s from computer to computer, although there are lots of third party programs you can use to accomplish the same thing. Moving MP3s to the iPod via Explorer or whatever won’t let iTunes or the iPod see them, as you’re just using the iPod as a portable hard drive, not an MP3 player.
As he said, pretty much all ipod maintenance tasks need to be done through itunes. I only use the third party programs to move mp3’s/movies back from the itunes style storage, because they tend to be a bit unreliable if you rely on them 100%.
Depending on what she deleted, it may be best to reformat the ipod from within itunes before adding the tracks in, and you’ll probably want to delete them from where they are in “hard drive mode” in my computer right now. You know, so as not to waste space.
Actually, not to nitpick, but it’s actually a databasing system with a happy side effect of preventing you from copying them off. At least with filenames/directories intact.
It hashes the names and directories in order to be able to index all of the mp3s quickly, as opposed to having to read the directory tree and manually sort them every time you power on, and then maintain that list in memory.
You can find programs other than itunes which will allow you to copy on to the ipod using the same hashing rules.
I’m talking about mp3’s that are only on my ipod, such as CD’s I rip in other countries or whatever. The only way to copy them onto my computer/stereo is to use third party programs, unless you want to fish through the bizarro file organization itunes uses in hard drive mode.
Thanks for letting me know. Downloading itunes now…damn that server is slow!
Everything about itunes is slow. My favorite is when you upgrade to the latest version and it adds some feature I care nothing about that has to go through all 8000 of my mp3’s one by one.
I love my Ipod, but if it’s drag and drop functionality you want, you might want to get another MP3 player. I had a Creative Zen and liked it okay, but just couldn’t get the volume I liked. I’m a believer that good music is meant to be played loud!
I tried Anapod and a few other drag and drops, and always had problems in the long run. I stay with Itunes and an old copy of ipodcopy for the one function Itunes can’t cover (however clumsily), since I use that very infrequently.
I just want to scare you by saying that whenever I use a third party program to copy mp3s off my 4G ipod, the playlists gets screwed up or deleted.
And I wanna whine about the latest iTunes installing yet another mysterious Windows Service that listens to a port without saying anything about it. Stupid iphone!
My experience has been almost the opposite. There have been times when iTunes just wasn’t playing nicely, and Yamipod has come to the rescue. I keep iTunes on the computer, but rely on Yamipod a lot more often these days.
