Something very odd happened to me this morning...
To start with, after my iBook died this summer I was stuck with no way of updating the songs on my original (1st generation) 5GB iPod. To make matters worse, and I kid you not, just before my iBook gave up the ghost I thought 'How crazy would it be to put music I never listen to onto the iPod then listen to it?' So I selected the Least Played playlist from iTunes and transfered it to the iPod.
There I was, a dead iBook, no way to update the iPod and it's filled with really really bad music. After a month or so a friend took pity on me and we connected the iPod to his computer and reformatted it and he filled it with new music, mostly rap and hip hop. Not my cup of tea but entirely better than what I was listening to.
For the last three months I've been trying to get the iPod to work with XP, something websites say is possible, but only with 3rd party apps that will recognize the mac file system and transfer mp3's. Then I tried to get it to work with Linux and after reading two web sites of settings and directions on rebuilding the kernel I ran away from the computer and hid in a closet.
Alas was there no simple solution?
This morning I said what the hell and used Apple's iPod utility 1.4 to reformat the iPod. I vaguely remembered reports of this permanently killing the iPod, as I pressed OK. Then to my delight the iPod rebooted and acted normally, just as it did when I bought it, but now it was formatted for windows.
I had it plugged in while I downloaded ephpod, thinking I would need that program to use it but, before even completing the download, iTunes popped up a dialog asking me to name it! Presto, it works I coppied music to it and listened to Jimmy Buffett as I drove to work!
Now, am I just totally out of it or is there little mention on the net about reformating the original iPod? I can't say I stayed up nights the last three months trying to figure this out, in fact I mostly forgot about it and made lists of what I could sell to finance a new windows iPod.
I've searched google again and I can't find any clear reference to reformating an original iPod for windows, but it works!
If I am dense on this, don't rain on my parade because this week is looking awesome. I set the grade on three exams, got a great parking spot today and yesterday despite arriving late, my roomates did not eat all my pears so I had a delicious and juicy breakfast, I figured out how to get SUSE to work on my machine, with a whole night of practice I can now stick my pocket knife in the far wall with a light toss, at will, got an extra fortune cookie with my take out, and was able to listen to "Treetop Flyer" and "A Pirate Looks at Forty" on the way to class this morning.
That's a total 'woot!'