I am sure I have mentioned before that I am a Gadget Girl©. I lurve cool electronic gadgets -- whether or not they vibrate, I'll have you know. The latest cellphones, smartphones, PDAs, music players, pocket-sized cameras, GPS navigation stuff, computer accessories and, of course, all the cases, Bluetooth stereo headphones, en-bling'd earbuds, hoses, nozzles , and such stuff that goes along with 'em usually make their way into my arsenal.
While I don't have to be an Early Adopter -- my first iPod was a 5G (5th Generation) -- I do have a hankering for upgrading when something newer and shinier is released and vetted. So when the iPod Touch came out, after a time, I found I could not resist getting one.
The current economic crisis is not a result of my unwillingness to spend.
I am reluctant to get rid of an older device if it can still serve a purpose, however. So it was that when I was getting ready to go on a trip and wanted to travel light, I found that hanging on to the old 5G iPod turned out to be a good thing.
I have a reasonably large library of audio and video files in my iTunes. Large enough that I decided to move it to a roomy external hard drive so my aging laptop's somewhat smaller drive wouldn't choke. This presented a problem. I could not easily travel light if I had to pack the bulky drive. While I drool for one of those teensy but giga-spacious Western Digital Passport drives, I could not quite justify the pennies from my piggy to satisfy the yearning.
That's when I thought of my older 30G iPod, which had been relegated to becoming the more or less fixed jukebox in my bedroom. It doesn't have a very reliable drive when compared to, say, a Maxtor, but it is a tiny, portable and roomy hard drive provided at no additional cost to me.
I could store a copy of my library on the 30G iPod drive. It fits in my pocket. It's, well, free. Win-win-win.
Well, except for making that combination actually work proved problematic as iPods have firmware inside them that forever identify them as iPods when connected to a computer running iTunes. Yes, yes, they can be treated as a drive, but iTunes is just dumb enough that it had heartburn over having two iPod devices connected at the same time.
As well, the juice provided by a USB hub wasn't quite strong enough to handle both devices at the same time. Since I also have a wireless mouse and so need the use of more than the two USB ports provided by my laptop, I needed to find a way to work this. Took a bit of searching and asking questions of the fabulous folk who frequent iLounge, but I did make it work.
The instructions for doing this follow.
[Additional note: flash drives are way more reliable than the traditional disk drives, and Samsung is coming out with some pretty spacialicious Solid State Drives (SSD's) these days.]
Warning: You don't want to store your only copy of your music library on an iPod drive. See the warnings in the main article about unreliability. Keep it on a sturdier drive, one which you would replace every few years or more. Back it up on data DVDs which you likewise replace every few years or more.
Make iPod Appear as a Drive
- The details vary depending on your version of iTunes. This can be performed on the classic and 5G iPods.
- Connect the iPod and open iTunes
- Once iTunes is open, select the iPod device. On the Summary tab you should see "Options" and, beneath that title, checkboxes. I find it is best to make sure "Open iTunes when this iPod is connected" is unchecked. Check the boxes next to "Manually manage music" and "Enable Disk Use".
- Close iTunes.
- Disconnect and reconnect the iPod.
- Open Windows Explorer and explore "My Computer". You should see your iPod listed as one of the available drives.
- Warning: the iPod with a physical hard drive (as opposed to an iPod that uses flash memory) requires a connection to your computer's USB port or a powered USB hub. Unpowered USB hubs do not deliver enough current to support two iPods simultaneously.
Assign Unique Drive Letter
- Using Windows XP's Administrative Tools, select "Computer Management."
- Under "Storage", select "Disk Management"
- Locate your iPod drive, right-click and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
- Select "Change" or "Add", and choose a drive letter that is unique -- one that will not be in use when the iPod is connected. For grins, I chose the letter "I".
- Click "OK" and then close out of the Computer Management application.
- Disconnect and reconnect the iPod.
- If iTunes pops open again (it may do this as the software seems to be a bit braindead at times and has been known to ignore settings, because, after all, Apple really knows best and your wishes are meaningless), close it.
Copy your library to new storage device
- You may want to remove the songs, videos, etc. from your iPod drive to make sure you have space, but that's optional.
- Use Windows Explorer to drag/drop a copy of your iTunes library from its original location (default location is My Documents\My Music\iTunes) to the iPod.
Set iTunes to use new library)
- Find iTunes in your Start Menu. Hold down the shift key while launching iTunes
- iTunes will ask you to select a library. Navigate to the new folder you created on your iPod drive and select the "iTunes Library.itl" file you find.
Sync Music iPod with Drive iPod
- Finally, connect the iPod you plan to use as God and Apple intended.
- Remember that your drive iPod needs a powered USB connection -- either one of the ones that are part of your computer, or a powered USB hub. The music iPod does not need a powered USB port for this function, but it doesn't hurt if you connect to one.
- It's okay that iTunes shows both devices connected. Your iPod has firmware inside of it that will forever identify it as an iPod, even with "disk use" enabled. Doesn't hurt.
- Select Edit --> Preferences on the iTunes menu
- On the "Advanced" tab, change the iTunes library folder to the new one
- Sync your music iPod.
gekko: darned good walkies companion.
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