I'm having some big issues with a monochrome 20 gb 4th g ipod. Trust me, I've tried almost everything. The majority of the time (97%) it won't even mount. As I write, it is copying my itunes, but I don't really have high hopes.
It was originally formatted for windows, then in the process of formatting it for Mac, it wouldn't take the update, and it went to the exclamation screen. This morning, I reformatted for windows, which it did after the 4th try, then I reformatted for Mac. Now, every time I hook it up, itunes says there is (the same) update available for it, but it doesn't appear to be mounted. (right now is the second time it actually showed up to copy the music to).
I got into the diagnostics menu a couple of times, and everything was passing, but the last time I ran it the hdd failed. Problem is, I can't seem to get into the menu again.
I restored it, forced it into disc mode (after the hdd failed result). and grabbed a whole pile of stuff (16 gb worth), and it copied it over no problem, filling up most of the drive. Didn't seem too 'failed' to me.
It just finished copying itunes, and again the icon. Now what??
Works well as an external 20gb drive. Additionally, I'm wondering if ipod updater has got it wrong. The picture shows a 3rd gen, and it wants to install the update 2.3 (for that model), and correct me if I'm wrong, don't I need 3.1.1?
http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/