As part of my weight loss plan, I decided I needed/deserved some form of MP3 player, and with my upcoming birthday, asked the wife that it would be a 20GB iPod. I reasoned that Apple makes excellent computer hardware that just works, it integrates well with iTunes, and it would just work.

Silly me.

I realized before it arrived that to use it on my cheapy HP laptop (2ghz AMD, 512M RAM, Combo Drive) that I’d need a firewire card. Rather than go with a
cheapy one, I decided to get an Adaptec DuoConnect card, which has ports for both Firewire and USB2.0.

The iPod arrived yesterday. The packaging is very cool. I installed the Updater software and iTunes (again), and tried to sync it up.

Here begins the total lack of fun. Upon connection, the little iPod whirs for a while, then I get a popup claiming that it needs to be restored since it isn’t responding. After doing so, it asks to be plugged back into the wall, so that it can finish reflashing itself.

Repeat three or four times. Cue Mark’s ire level.

It appears that PCMCIA firewire cards don’t put out power, and the iPod may not work reliably with Firewire adapters that don’t. Digging around on Adaptec’s website yielded this explanation.

Curiously enough, I did get the transfer to work once, so I do have a day and half of audio on my little iPod. This will tide me over until the $25 power supply gets here.

Why can’t things just work?