USB 1 / 1.1 does indead have +5volt, on them, but if you read your apple mini ipod manual, it says it will only charge on a usb2 port :-\ so i dont know, tho i know i had it chargeing on my 1.1 usb port untill i installed the drivers for my usb2 port, after installing sp2 for winxp, and it still charges, only diffrece i see is that the songs transfer faster...... i do know some peoples psu(s) dont have a good enough +5v rail, so if they have alot of usb devices pluged in, ie that have 4+ on board usb ports, and there psu dosnt have an good enough +5v rail, that they will not get enough voltage to the usb port the ipod is pluged into to charge it..... and also the +5v rail, also power some other onboard componets....so this could be a contributing factor, as sometimes some usbports show in windows as working but dont work when u plug a device into it, this is down to the +5v rail's
Hope that was a decent explination for you ich.....
Yours Faithfully
Ben