Solved "Attempting to copy to disk "ipod" failed. Could not be read from or

Question

Finally found a solution that worked for me when getting this error message on an 2nd Gen. iPod Nano.
There is a lot of discussion on this topic with no real answers coming back other than to read this article/topic. So, I wanted to share a solution that worked on mine.
The background: Computer running Windows XP Pro. Up-to-date iTunes and iPod software. I downloaded several CDs into iTunes and synced with no problem. I made a few purchases from iTunes Store and would get to one song that when I tried to sync, the following error message appeared; "Attempting to copy to the disk "ipod" failed. The disk could not be read from or written to." When I deleted the song, then I could sync without receiving the error message, but the purchased song would not be included. I restored my iPod, my iTunes was up-to-date, ran chk dsk, emailed support, searched the forums, followed instructions, re-downloaded the problem song from iTunes Store, BUT as long as that problem song was included, I could not sync without getting the error message.
The solution (this worked in my situation): After doing all of the above and not getting rid of this problem, I set the iPod to manually manage my music and synced the iPod (without the problem song, which was already deleted from iTunes). When I deleted the song from the iTunes library, I would always click the button to keep the song in the files instead of sending it to trash. I then went into the iTunes music folder where my songs were kept and opened the file for the problem song. I dragged the song back into my purchases folder in iTunes. From the purchases folder, I dragged the song over to my iPod in iTunes. Then synced. The problem song synced without any problems and the error message did not appear. Thinking that something was still not right, I went back and clicked on the button to NOT manually manage my music and then re-synced. Same good result. No error message. The problem song sings along just fine now with no more error message.
I haven't tried to download another song just yet, so this may not hold, but at least this worked and resolved this problem song. There may be some other factors through all of the work that I did above in trying to resolve this problem that contributed, but it wasn't until I set the iPod to manually manage the music and brought back in the problem song that the error message disappeared. Hopefully this might help. It worked for me so I'm happy now.
  Windows XP Pro  

Answer 1

I see you've stumbled upon the catch-all article for this incredibly generic error message. Note the phrasing of it: "DISK cannot be READ FROM or written to." Notice that the error doesn't specifically state that it's the iPod disk that cannot be read or written. I used to get this error all the time when I had my library stored on a remote server. The issue being that my machine couldn't access my songs fast enough to copy them to the iPod w/o timing out, and so the disk, in this case my file server, could not be read from. Since you mentioned previously that you're having some anomalies with your library, I would say concentrate on correcting that, rather than worrying that your iPod is kaput.
regards,
-c.