ipod keeps shutting down windows

HacksawEddie

hi
my ipod is killing me!
its an older version 20gig and i have windows xp with itunes 4.7 and firewire

basically, for months and months now, everytime i wanna update the ipod, it shuts downs windows! sometimes during an itunes update, but most times itunes wont even recognise the ipod and the computer usually restarts itself even if i didnt open itunes.
when it does restart, before windows opens again, it goes into that blue screen that says "....checking file system of drives for consistency .... (press any button within 10 seconds to cancel)"
i have obviously tried updating the software on the ipod a few times, formatting the ipod, reinstalling itunes, upgrading itunes (the problem happened in a previous version also) but to no avail!

why is the ipod shutting down windows all the time?

i might add, as a quesion, is it normal for the "safely remove hardware" icon to be in the systray? even when i plug in the ipod and dont open itunes, the ipod says do not disconnect until i click stop using the icon in the systray... (i know this happens with external drives & usb keys etc, but is this normal?)

thanks for any help

ZENER

Is the firewire port an add-on card ? Is it recognised properly by Windows ?

This guy had problems too, they turned out to be the firewire card.

Is it possible to connect a hard disk power connector to the firewire card so it doesn't need to pull power accross the bus ?

Good luck !

ZEN

HacksawEddie

hi,
yeah i'm using a firewire card, and i think it works fine, as sometimes windows recognises the ipod as drive f called "ipod"
and no, there's no power connector on the firewire card

HacksawEddie

i tried that: uninstalling the firewire card and reinstalling it, but same again:
when itunes starts to update songs, a bubble pops up saying "song name" is corrupt, use checkdisk. then the computer restarts and it all begins again.
when i turned on itunes again with ipod still connected, itunes said i need to update the ipod using the updater, but that never seems to work either

so is it my ipod? this keeps happening even after i constantly format it.

ZENER

Can you try it on a different computer, maybe a Mac - just to see if the problem goes with the iPod ? I'd guess you've probably tried this already though ! I've had wierd problems with filenames when bringing files from Macs to PCs over SMB shares. Usually because the filename had non standard ASCII characters in them. A filename being too long can also be a problem although I've never known it to shutdown a computer.

I'm inclined to suspect a hardware problem because of the way the computer just fails without pre-warning you of an error - perhaps the PSU is under-specced or the firewire card is faulty. Most Firewire cards I've seen have an aux power connector because devices can be powered from the card. An iPod can absorb several hundred milliamps while charging perhaps pushing the PSU a little too hard.

You say that sometimes the iPod doesn't appear in Windows when you connect it, does the iPods display acknowledge that it's connected in these instances ?

I think the best test would be to test it on a different PC.

ZEN

HacksawEddie

thanks zen
yes, i had it on a diff computer (windows also) during the summer and it worked fine i seem to remember. although i was connecting to that pc with usb at the time.
yes, the ipod always gets recognised as an extra drive by windows as its always in the systray as a drive to be dosconnected and the ipod always says "do not disconnect" when attached, but then itunes wont recognise it.
thanks for the help, i might try another firewire card

HacksawEddie

hi zener again
the firewire card does actualy have a 4 pin power connector but im not sure which cable from the psu should go there?
there is a white 4 socket cable coming from the psu and it fits the 4 pins but not perfectly...it kinda bends the pins down a bit, and the pc still keeps restarting, so i dont think its the right cable?
i cant see any other cables here that fit it

ZENER

Does figure 2 from this page resemble the connector on the firewire card. The picture shows the male part the card should have the female part.

If you were near Swords you could try it on my machine.

ZEN

HacksawEddie

no, this is a picture of the power cable i tried to connect.
it kinda fitted into a 4 pin male of the firewire card, but it wasnt perfect fit, so im sure its not meant for it.
any clues?

HacksawEddie

actually, i wa on maplin.co.uk looking up firewire cards and the following card has a 4 pin power socket like zener mentioned. my card has this same port, but i cant see a cable from my psu to match it?! (PSU: sharkoon SHA300-8P)

card: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37439&&source=14&doy=21m10

should i have a cable for this?

HacksawEddie

SUCCESS!
the ipod seems to be fine now, after about 8 months of problems!
turns out, i had to change the jumpers on the card so that both the internal and extrernal 12V's were both switched to ON
then i attached the power connector and its fine.
thanks Zener