Do I have a bad Ipod?

Question

Ok, I bought a refurbished 160GB Ipod from a reputable vendor on ebay, but before I go ballistic and start complaining that they sent me a bad ipod I want to make sure.
First thing I want to make clear is that I still own a 60GB Gen5 and NEVER experienced ANY of the issues Im about to mention.
WHen I first hooked up the ipod it wouldnt restore. I just got an error that said the ipod was corrupt. Itunes was also going VERY slow and I have a very fast computer. eventually I was able to get windows to reformat the hard drive. iTunes then allowed me to supposedly copy all my songs. Once I unhooked it, I saw that NO songs had been copied, so I rehook the ipod and then itunes allows me to restore the ipod, which lead me to believe that everything was cool.
So I proceed to copy my entire 85GB library over to the Ipod. Itunes unfortunately did not make the process easy, because it was extremely difficult to get itunes to start copying all the music.
So once it starts copying i figure i will just wait it out. While all the copying is going on, itunes is going pitifully slow. every click was met with a long delay.
A while later I come to discover that not all of my music had copied only about 3/4. Then this is where it all went way downhill, because itunes seems to lock up every time I try to copy anything over. I also get error messages and everytime I rehook the ipod windows asks to scan the drive and finds errors.
Itunes just doesnt work well at all and IM getting EXTREMELY frustrated.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

First do a through check of the iPod's hard drive checking for unreliable sectors as well as the logical errors that often result from a crashed sync.
*Checking hard-drive for errors*
Hold Menu+Select for about 6 seconds until it resets, then hold Menu+Play as soon as the Apple logo appears, again for about 6 seconds to put the machine in disk mode. Connect to your computer, closing iTunes if it opens. Browse *My Computer* and right-click on the drive for the iPod, click Properties, then click Tools. Under Error-checking, click *Check Now*. Under Check disk options, select *Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors*. Click Start. Mac users should run *Disk Utility / Repair Disk* for the equivalent process. This should find and correct any errors in the logical & physical structures of your iPod's hard drive. Once these have been fixed you can reset the iPod (hold Menu+Select ) and should stand a better chance of a successful restore.
My experience suggests that trying to sync too manay songs in one go can crash the process, leaving errors on the iPod's hard drive. How many can reliably sync in a single session is probably a function of memory & processor speed, but this method should help you break up the process so that you can get all your media onto the iPod
*Break up large transfers*
In iTunes select the menu item *File... New Smart Playlist*. Change the first drop-down box to Playlist, the next to is and the next to Music. Tick against *Limit to*, type in say 20, then change the drop-down to GB, and set the last drop-down to artist. When you click OK you can enter a name for the playlist, e.g. Transfer. Now sync this playlist to your iPod rather than your entire library. When the sync is complete modify the rule ( *File... Edit playlist* ) to increase the size by your chosen amount, then sync and repeat. You can experiment with different size increments, if it doesn't work just choose something a bit smaller until it works each time. Before long you should have all your music on your iPod. Once that's done you can move on to other media such as podcasts, videos, photos etc.
tt2