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Hi My son just gave me his old 6th gen 120GB iPod classic. I don’t have a Mac, nor do I use ITunes, but I have a boatload of music on my PC in a variety of formats: MP3 FLAC, WMA etc. that I would like to upload to this ipod and manage it from my PC. Can I do this please? I would assume I need to reformat the drive as it’s an actual hard drive, but would I need to use NTFS or FAT please? Unfortunately, knowing those acronyms is the extent of my computer knowledge - not even sure how I know those, lol. I understand from Mac users that ITunes is all-invasive, and tries to overwrite - oops, I mean Sync - every time you plug it in. I would assume I would not have that problem with a PC? What sort of software could I use to upload the music please? Any tips on this greatly appreciated Thanks very much Phil
Phil Moseley yes iTunes is a bit of a hog, but you can set it up so that your iPod does not sync automatically etc. After all it is free software and made for your iPod. To use it on a PC vs Mac, you will have to restore it. Again, easiest with iTunes. Restoring will erase and reformat the iPod’s hard drive, reload the software with the Windows version and put it back to default settings, so if you have songs on your iPod that aren’t on iTunes you will lose them if you have no back up. Restore your device: Connect your device to your computer using the cable that came with it. Select your iPod when it appears in iTunes. In the Summary panel, click Restore. Click Restore again to confirm that you want to restore your device to factory settings and delete all data and content. There are some iTunes alternatives, but that will be personal preference. So give it a try and see what you like.
With regard to using software other than iTunes I recommend Media Monkey Gold. It allows you to do numerous things to music files that I have not found iTunes to be good at doing. Additionally it is not iTunes and will not dominate the connection between you iPod and iTunes when you connect. Media Monkey Gold, in my opinion, allows you most flexibility with regard to loading and unloading music, archiving your collection, and in general looking into you iPod.
