Ipod as a 'portable' HDD

[icarus]

Hi all,

I'm about to purchase a 20GB 3rdG IPOD and investigating it's pros and cons.

I'm wondering if the 3rdG Ipod's auto-install themselves as a removable device in My Computer/Explorer upon connection WITHOUT the need to load ANY drivers? (like say one of those USB Flash keys)

Reason being....as well as an MP3 player it would be handy to be able to carry around doco's and applications and be able to plug into any laptop/pc with a firewire/usb port.
Obviously I dont need to sync MP3 collections from variable machines but the ability to copy to/from the file system would be an essential add-on.

If it requires iTunes or similar program loaded prior to connection on every machine then is not really viable to lug around a CD with all the drivers and my iPod + firewire cable.

Thanks in advance.
I

[scorpioz]

hi

i am a 1st Gen Ipod user...(not using itunes) - windows xp (ephpod user/music matchbox)

in the itunes software there is a 'enable harddrive mode' once you do that whenever you connect it to any computer it will be recognized as a removable harddrive....

it does not need any drivers for that...

ALSO USB keys/flash drives ALSO do not need any drivers...

the only problem that comes with removable USB drives of any kind is with Windows 98 (that requires usb drivers)

---

there is no USB cable available for 1Gen iPod but using a firewire on multiple computer i can use it as harddrive...though there are';nt to many computers with firewire...

.....

Another thing is that if for example you want to copy a song for a friends computer u can 'copy' 'paste' it into ur ipod harddrive but it won't be available on the ipod to be 'played' until it is added using a software such as 'itunes'

for that my solution is that i have installed 'ephpod' on my ipod harddrive...now i can connect to my roommates computer and run the ipod software...from the ipod harddrive and copy songs to my player from his computer...

hope this helps...

if using for too long ...remember that the USB is a NON-POWERED connection and that the ipod battery will be draining when using as a USB....on the other hand if connected with FIREwire the iPOD will be getting re-charged (6-pin firewire only - the 4 pin (small firewire like laptop) is also unpowered)..

personally bcoz 1G has no USB support i think it is not good as a portable harddrive...but you should be able to use it without any porblems...

hope this helps...

[icarus]

Thanks Scorpioz...you're a legend.

Now when you talk about the MP3 not being playable on other machines unless using iTunes sync, I understand that....but are normal files (say an XP service pack for example) able to be cut/paste from the ipod to other machines without any intermediary software?

...and I imagine the file system on the ipod is such that I can make a directory called "MISC" and put my non-mp3 files in there?

Thanks again.
I

[DarthV]

Yes, you can just use the ipod as a portable HD. It will get mapped as a drive letter once you plug it into your PC. As for drivers, WinXP will already have native support for USB and firewire removable drives, so no worries there. After that it's just drag and drop :) To play music files, you will need one of the programs that will interface with the ipod's internal database (itunes, ephpod, etc) to do the work.

I have a 20gb portable firewire/usb drive here at work that I used to use to bring files to/from work...but now that I have my new 3g 15gb ipod, I can just drop files onto the ipod and bring them back and forth.