Apple ipod question

[Midland63]

Friend has just bought me an ipod nano 3G which she's loaded up from a Mac but mine's a Windows pc and it says we've got to "restore" which will delete everything on the ipod.

Anyone know a way round this?

Thanks in advance

[Background Noise]

You can't sync simultaneously on a mac and a PC - see apple support (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1202)

and more apple support (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329)

[Coconutty]

I had a similar problem, where my other half had a computer on which she had downloaded quite a lot of music for use on a non iPod type MP3 player.

That MP3 player packed up and she ended up with a new iPod, which was in MAC mode and had to be formatted to use on Windows.

Formatting, or "restoring" the iPod from the MAC version to Windows version will definitiely delete all music files, and any other files that have been uploaded to it.

We had problems trying to transfer some of the "protected" music files, to the iPod even though we had purchased the music legally and had the licences.

One workaround we found, was to burn the music to CD, then use the Import function into iTunes. You could try this from the MAC, onto CD, then use the CD to Import onto the PC formatted iPod. ( Quite a lengthy process if you have a LOT of music to transfer with each CD holding around 18 tracks ).

While this should technically work, you would still have to consider the copyrite issue - I do not condone any illegal sharing of music in any form.

There are alternatives you can try - there may be freeware or paid software that enable you to do this ( Google searching for "Transfer MAC iPod to Windows" should help ), and while I don't use it myself, I believe you can achieve this using Real Player with the iPod plug in, which will allow the content of your MAC formatted iPod to be downloaded onto your Windows PC. You can then format the iPod to Windows and reload it - NOTE : I haven't tried this so don't know whether it will work or not but is worth investigating.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

[sthaussiepilot]

Easy plug it in as a USB, then Do a search for hidden files,

Copy all the music etc paste it to a folder on desktop, restore the ipod, and then put it all back...

worked on my Nano, and Shuffle...

[Hasselhof]

I'm not 100% sure but I seem to remember that Mac formatted HDD based iPods (such as the 3rd gen) are formatted in the HFS+ format which is not readable by any flavour of windows. In which case the only way to use the iPod with the windows machine is to format it. There are plenty of utilities for both Windows (XP and Vista) and OS X that will allow you to copy files off another persons iPod, but thats only if the underlying format is compatible with the operating system in question.

[planecrazy.eu]

The best way i found is to...

Disable automatic sync in ITUNES...

Works on the several pcs i use...

I lost all my tunes once, and ever since have uncheck sync and all works fine now...