80GB Classic not syncing to iTunes 9 on New MacBook Pro

Question

I have owned my new 15" MacBook Pro for one whole week since my previous iBook screen display went out on me a few months ago. Extremely excited about my new purchase I carefully transferred items from an older external hard drive to a new external hard drive. I then decided it was time to update my iPod. Little did I know the mistake I was about to make.
After a bit of finagling I was able to transfer my old playlists into my new iTunes 9.0.3. Once I had double checked everything, I was ready to sync my 80GB iPod Classic (approx 2.5 years old.) I plugged in my iPod and hit Sync.
The process seemed to speed along even faster than it had on my old computer. With a music collection nearing 10,000 songs, my iPod had sync'd nearly 2/3rds of the files in just under an hour. While the new computer sat alone with the external hard drive and iPod attached, my iPod randomly ejected itself.
"Odd," I thought, "I was nowhere near my computer." I clicked okay on the 2 or 3 random error screens that followed only to have iTunes tell me my iPod was now corrupted. "Maybe it's the new computer and I just need to Restore my older iPod." I clicked Restore and a few minutes later everything appeared to be okay.
With a few more attempts, my iPod syncing was going nowhere fast (or slow I should say.) Rather than become completely frustrated, I disconnected everything and waited a few hours before trying to sync again.
36 hours ago I began the sync process again. When I left the house this morning, I had about 3,100 files sync'd to my iPod. Now it's only transferring between 100-150 files over an 8 hour duration. I am now becoming concerned for my hard drives and wondering if there will be any hope that my iPod will actually finish syncing.
Can anyone give me any advice? Should I stop the sync process? Should I find another program to run my iPod? Should I just use my iPod as an overpriced paper weight?
I have been a loyal Apple customer for years and have never seen this many people have a problem with no response from Apple. I am becoming very disappointed in a company I have trusted with my digital world for about 10 years. An immediate fix would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

1. Your drive will retain the "dirty" status until it has been successfully scanned by a disk check utility.
2. While there are a number of threads concerning this issue, which I've not personally experienced, I suspect that in comparison to the number of users this represents a tiny fraction of the overall user base. This is not to diminish your right to be frustated, but to point out that, while the problem is readily apparent to you, it may not be sufficently widespread to have come to the attention of Apple's iTunes team or present with enough regularity for them to determine the cause and hence begin the process of creating a fix.
Between our family, for example, we have 3 iPod classics, (1 two years old, 2 brand new), a Nano & a 30Gb ipod Video all of which sync fine. Assuming you get no joy with the steps I outlined earlier it might still be worth checking the status of your iPod's hard drive to eliminate that as a possible cause of problems.
Press *SELECT & MENU* for 6 seconds to reset the iPod then press *SELECT & REWIND* to enter the diagnostics screen. Select *Manual Tests > IO > HardDrive > HDD > HDDSMARTData*.
For comparison here are my results:
Retracts: 861
Reallocs: 12
Pending Sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 2097
Starts/Stops: 856
Temp: Current 29C
Temp: Min 10C
Temp: Max 50C
When finished press SELECT & MENU for 6 seconds to reset the iPod again. If you have any pending secorts that might indicate that there is a fundemental problem with your iPod's hard drive that, while not preventing you using the menus, is hampering iTunes when it tries to update the iPod.
tt2