[amanmann]

I own a 5g ipod and have it synced with my iBook. But now while my ibook is away i want to charge my ipod through a windows based Laptop. Is that possible ?

[ghporter]

Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: it won't be easy, since your iPod is already set up for connecting with a Mac. That means that you'll have to change its "format" (which really doesn't mean anything to do with the internal storage, just what kind of computer it expects to sync to). Changing the iPod's format will basically wipe out all your music. Bummer? You bet!

Unfortunately I don't know how you might get a Mac-oriented iPod's music downloaded to your PC to save it while you changed it over to being PC-oriented. By the way, a PC-oriented iPod will work with BOTH PCs and Macs, so you don't need to worry about this later.

[mduell]

Since all you want to do is charge your iPod, I think you can ignore all of ghporter's advice. Plug your iPod in and charge away; you don't even need (or necessairly want) iTunes installed on the PC.

Originally Posted by ghporter

By the way, a PC-oriented iPod will work with BOTH PCs and Macs, so you don't need to worry about this later.

Not quite; you can't use a Mac to apply an update to a FAT32-formatted iPod. I tried with an iPod+HP and ended up having to reformat it for Mac.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by mduell

Since all you want to do is charge your iPod, I think you can ignore all of ghporter's advice. Plug your iPod in and charge away; you don't even need (or necessairly want) iTunes installed on the PC.

Originally Posted by ghporter

By the way, a PC-oriented iPod will work with BOTH PCs and Macs, so you don't need to worry about this later.

Not quite; you can't use a Mac to apply an update to a FAT32-formatted iPod. I tried with an iPod+HP and ended up having to reformat it for Mac.

Good points. I did leave out the fact that the PC needed the iPod software before it saw it as an iPod-and without that, it won't even try to update the iPod to match iTunes. My bad. ANY USB-capable computer will charge an iPod, and up through the Video iPod you can use a firewire port to charge it too (I may be off on "including" versus "up to" the Video iPod and firewire charging). I had gone through all that song and dance, but left out the bit about plugging an iPod into a computer with iTunes automatically (by default) triggering an update... I must have been in need of dinner at the time...

As I pointed out, the real difference between a PC "formatted" iPod and a Mac "formatted" iPod is just what it's set up to work with. I left out what "work with" meant, though. An iPod configured to work with a PC can accept music from either a PC or a Mac, while a Mac-configured iPod can only accept music from a Mac. Either MUST receive its software updates from the platform it's configured for.

I also don't really believe the internal storage on an iPod is FAT32 or any other common computer drive format, but I can't point out an authoritative source for that. It just doesn't take long enough to "format" an iPod, even a 60GB iPod, for that function to be actually formatting the hard drive. You do basically the same thing on flash-based iPods when you set them up, and flash memory doesn't conform to standard hard drive formats either.

[amanmann]

Thanks for your replies. I tried it and it did get charged through the PC. Also the PC recognised it as an Apple ipod and made no fuss about it..

[makad]

Is not there any method i can save my music files to be wiped out of my Ipod