Folder icon with exclamation mark and no comms with laptop whatsoever!!!

My mini ipod has taken me to my wits end. My ipod always opens with a folder icon with an exclamation mark. I can get it in to disk mode but my laptop doesn't see it whether I'm using itunes, explorer, or updater. When the mini ipod is plugged into my laptop it displays 'do not disconnect' and the circular arrows in the top left hand corner are displayed but they aren't moving. I've been all over the website but everything seems to assume I can communicate with the **** thing. Restore seems to be the preferred option but as I can't communicate with it that isn't possible as far as I can see. This happened when I tried to updated ipod software from version 1.3 to version 1.4. It's not possible to go back as I can't communicate with the ipod in order to perform this task. It's going to get lobbed out of a high building soon and replaced with a Sony......can any get me out of this hole???
mini ipod Windows XP

Further to what I've said I've been all over the discussion posts on this site, and the help pages, but I've been unable to find a suitable answer!!
My mini ipod has taken me to my wits end. My ipod
always opens with a folder icon with an exclamation
mark. I can get it in to disk mode but my laptop
doesn't see it whether I'm using itunes, explorer, or
updater. When the mini ipod is plugged into my
laptop it displays 'do not disconnect' and the
circular arrows in the top left hand corner are
displayed but they aren't moving. I've been all over
the website but everything seems to assume I can
communicate with the **** thing. Restore seems to be
the preferred option but as I can't communicate with
it that isn't possible as far as I can see. This
happened when I tried to updated ipod software from
version 1.3 to version 1.4. It's not possible to go
back as I can't communicate with the ipod in order to
perform this task. It's going to get lobbed out of a
high building soon and replaced with a Sony......can
any get me out of this hole???
mini ipod Windows XP

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File with exclamation mark and cannot connect

My ipod stopped working. I had a low battery so I charged it. Now when I try to turn it on, it just churns and churns and then the file with exclamation mark comes on the screen. Also, when I try to connect it to my computer, the computer doesn't recognize it.

Unbelieveable, since last Saturday, I needed to fix up 3 iPods with similar problems from family members and friends, 2 connected with PC and 1 with Mac. I guess it will be a good idea if I can share with you all and hope that it can give you some hints when you try to fix yours before sending it for repairing.
Before you do anything I suggest that you should read the following carefully..
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/index.html
Most problems came from the iPod not being recongzied by the computer (mainly PC and I find it less often with Mac). Second issue is iPod not being charged for quite some time.
I must say that I am not an expert but I did learn something during the past experience on fixing for more than 10 iPods but none of them are shuffle.
The first thing you need to do is plug your iPod directly to the AC charger not the USB of your computer, and leave it for 2-3 hours and most of the time you will able to wake up your iPod.
Secondly, do a reset of your iPod when it hangs, it is simple just press "Select"+"Menu" keys, which will not erase your data of your iPod.
In case the above both do not manage to fix your iPod problem then you may force to do the following, but it will erase all your data therefore it is always to be wise to have a backup before your iPod got problem.
1. Reinstall the latest iPod updater after the reset
If 1 still not able to recongize your iPod by the computer then you have to put your iPod to DiskMode i.e. plug your iPod to the AC charges, do a RESET and press "Select"+"Play" keys, you will see the message "Disk Mode" in few sec. Then you need to connect your iPod with your computer, and hope that it will be recongized. If you are lucky to reach this stage then you simply need to restore your iPod updater, and your iPod should be back to normal.Please note that You may need to plug and unplug few times in order to let your iPod to be recongized.
If your iPod still not able to be recongized then you have to format your iPod while it is in a Disk Mode, you need to use the Disk Utility software (for Mac - I am not sure about PC) to erase the Partition of your iPod then do a formatting and disk verify straight after. Then you should able to reach the final stage i.e. restore the latest iPod updater and sysc your iPod with your iTune.
Additional hints which may help your during the fixing ..
1. Try to do few attempts, which could take you as long as 1 hour
2. Try to exchange cables to connect with your computer i.e. USB and Firewire
3. If you fail to solve your iPod with your PC then try to fix it with Mac and vice versa. Surprisingly, I do have experience that the iPod got recognized by my Mac after I connected it with a PC
Above are my experience and I am glad that more than 90% chance I am able to solve the iPods' problem with only one iPod Mini needed to be repaired.
Good luck and hope it works in your case

I'm finding that songs that I have imported to Itunes are suddenly showing with "Exclamation" marks and Itunes tells me that the original file cannot be found. When I tell it to locate the file, it can't do it.

I'm finding that songs that I have imported into Itunes and played before are suddenly showing an"Exclamation" mark and Itunes tells me that the original file cannot be found. When I tell it to locate the file, it can't do it. I went to the Itunes help for locating files, but that still won't do it. It seems that somehow they are getting deleted, but not by me that I know of.
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Maybe you rename it. Somehow the path to the songs have changed if not deleted.
In Finder go to "Macintosh/Users/username/music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music" that's where all your songs located so if those songs are not there you get an exclamation mark. You can delete those entries in iTunes and re-import again.

Trying to create a new playlist but several songs are marked with exclamation mark and will not transfer into playlist - any advice?

I have never had trouble creating playlists before but quite a few songs will not transfer and ate marked at the side with an exclamation mark. I know ZERO about technology so if you can help me in very simple language, I would be very grateful! I am wondering if it may have something to do with the fact that I have had to start new accounts when I have moved countries, on order to be able to use the credit card of the new country in the Itunes store of that country... I am in Aus and have bought a lot of tunes here but last year I was living in Brunei and, in order to use my brunei credit card ( as it was the only one with money in it) , I had to set it up as different to my Aus account. Could this be the issue? prior to Aus my account was in Ireland. I have paid for all these songs but it seems I cannot now use some of them... Please help!!! Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer, Lisa

The exclamation mark next to a song means it is no longer where iTunes is looking for it. iTunes won't let you add such "missing" songs to a playlist. Possible reasons for a song going missing are that you or some third party software has moved or deleted it, or a folder that contained it, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter, or a configuration file has changed making iTunes look in a slightly different place from before.
Select one of the songs with an exclamation mark, press CTRL+I to Get Info, say no when prompted to locate it, then note down the location from the Summary tab that begins file://localhost/ - please post back this path as given. Hopefully you can find the file this entry in your library is supposed to be connected to. Assuming you can please post back this path as well. These two items of information may suggest a fix through folder manipulation or a configuration change.
If things have got a little more disorganized then, as long as the tracks still exist to be found, my FindTracks script should be able to reconnect them to iTunes. FindTracks uses some fuzzy matching routines and searches for multiple potential locations. For more details see this thread. Start by selecting the tracks of a single album and then run the script. Your media folder should normally be detected automatically, e.g. as C:\Users\<User>\iTunes\iTunes Media, but you can edit the path if it is wrong or a particular batch of lost files are stored at another path. If it works as expected you can then move on to fixing the rest of the library in bigger batches.
tt2

How to delete songs with exclamation mark and duplicates?

I have a large iTunes library, around 600GB. Due to a HDD failure some of the files are no longer in existance and so show up with a '!' in front of them. Is there a way to automatically find all of these and delete them?
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For the dead tracks, there is http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=removedeadsuper - I'm currently running it now.

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When I click on the iTunes icon in the dashboard, a window comes up that has a stopsign with an exclamation mark. This can't be good..... What does this mean and how can I get back my iTunes?
Help!
Thanks.
PS: I just did the last software update a few days ago and remember there was something regarding iTunes there. Not sure if that is relevant. I also had a system crash a couple of days ago and got nothing but the blue screen until I removed my battery and reinserted it....again, not certain if this is relevant either.....

Thanks for responding Chris. I repaired permissions (there were alot) but not sure how to run Disk First Aid as the repair permissions area is actually under the "first aid" button. If there is another step, can you walk me through it?
After I repaired permissions I rebooted but I still cannot open iTunes - the same stopsign with exclamation mark and iTunes logo come up....

Ipod nano shows icon of folder with exclamation mark on start nd then shuts

i just got a new ipod nano i tried to start it after charging it but it shows me an icon of a folder with an exclamation mark and then shuts off.can nybody pls tell me how to d the entire setup from the start to end please

All i can suggest is that you try and restore it on another computer (maybe a PC) and see if it fixes the problem. I am a service technician and I've done pretty much all the things you've tried on a iPod Video and still had to replace it so it looks like that'll be what you need to do.

Duplicates with "iCloud icon w/ exclamation mark"

What I did:
I have an iTunes library on my MacBook Pro and another on my home iMac. I ran iTunes Match on the MacBook Pro and re-downloaded all songs from iTunes so I can be sure I have the best quality files in my library. All works fine on the MacBook Pro.
Then I turned to iTunes on the iMac at home. Have most of my songs in an almost identical iTuns library on the iMac too. Since I activated iTunes Match on the MacBook Pro I also find the iTunes Match option in iTunes on my iMac. Great! I run iTunes Match on the iMac with the following result:
Number of songs on the iMac almost doubled. Searching for duplicates in iTunes revealed that most songs are now twice in my iTunes library: one as 256 kBit/s version and another as a "256kBit/s (VBR)". All of the latter ones with an iCloud symbol with an exclamation mark, telling me that the object was not added to iCloud due to a problem. All of the other songs do not show any symbol in the iCloud column.
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Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Don't worry about others asking the same question, that's fine!
Try these helpful articles/posts about the folder with exclamation point, and a "sad iPod". I suggest reading all three links, because the "sad iPod" is similar to the folder with exclamation point:
iPod displays a folder icon with an exclamation point
iPod displays sad iPod icon
Exclamation point and folder and nothing else
For right now, I wouldn't suggest restoring it. It could possibly create a situation of the iPod displaying that 3 gig has already been used when all the songsjust got wiped off by the restore.
On the other hand, if you've tried the above, I suggest doing the following:
Here's something that worked for lots of people on here, and even an Apple staff told someone this once.
Pick up your iPod, stand over a surface that’s not hard (like carpeted), hold the iPod vertically and so that the bottom (play/pause side) faces the ground, and drop it.
This will jerk your iPod’s inner disk “back to life”. I know it might sound silly, but it works for people with similar problems. That’s because you’re probably having a problem with the inner disk. So, give it a try!
Hope this answers the question!

In iMovie: I open a project that has been finalized. source fragment is missing. I see a yellow triangle with exclamation mark. Why is that and how do I solve the problem?

in iMovie:
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J. Aalbers

Shouldn't really be the MPE at fault here ... what is the codec of the footage/sequence/project?
Second, can you create a new project in PrPro, then in the media browser, import that sequence from the other project?

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Any help?
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Boot from a drive with Disk Warrior 4, or your emergency boot drive (FW or alternate) or if you lack that, use single user mode to run fsck command. The last option would be your Tiger DVD but that may be 10.4.3 or earlier and not your best.
I say that because it seems like it was more than just needing to reset the startup disk preference and may have a corrupt directory. It shutdown smoothly and fully?
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I'v downloaded a tv series,paid for it, its in my itunes but with exclamation marks next to it, every time it tries to download the series it says "part of the file seems to be corrupted" and tells me to redownload it.Tried that and it comes up the same.

I'v downloaded a tv series,paid for it, its in my itunes but with exclamation marks next to it, every time it tries to download the series it says "part of the file seems to be corrupted" and tells me to redownload it.Tried that 8 times and it comes up the same. What do I do?

Clear the contents of ...iTunes\iTunes Media\Download and try one more time.
If the problem recurs use the "report a problem" links in your account history and explain what has happened so far. There may be a problem with the source rather than your download of it.
tt2

When booting up get flashing apple folder with question mark and no sign, why?

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The cable connecting the HDD to the logic board may be faulty. If the internal HDD can boot the MBP when in an external enclosure, that will confirm this issue. If not, the HDD may need to be replaced.
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I upgraded the OS on my iMac to Lion from the App store; and after installation, it restarted and now the operating system won't start up.... it keeps displaying the apple/folder with a question mark and a circle with a line through it! Please help!

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Yellow triangle with exclamation mark under iPod Properties - Hardware

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Since you use Windows XP, see if this document and procedure related to the iPod's drive letter is applicable.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1493

Exclamation marks and duplicates

A while ago I messed up when copying my library to and exhd. Anyway I have cocked up again in a different way and I have 3 copies of songs in my itunes library, one of each has no tick next to it because I went through the whole library weeks ago and unchecked one of everything, these also have an exclamation mark next to them. Then some have exclamation marks and ticks.
Confused? I am!
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My ipod is on autosync so I daren't connect it incase I lose some things or end up with tthousands of duplicates on the ipod.
Any help appreciated....

iTunes Library.itl in the iTunes folder is the file where iTunes stores the information about your library, tracks, ratings, counts, playlists.
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Folder icon with exclamation mark and no comms with laptop whatsoever!!!

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