Did my computer kill my iPod

[swipeys]

So, I upgraded my 4 G non photo iPod to an 80 gb a couple of weeks ago. Everything was peachy until last night when I came into my computer room to unplug the iPod. I expected to see the battery icon showing that it was ready to be unplugged. Instead it was the blinking do not disconnect sign. And the computer was no longer recognizing the iPod. I did not disconnect the iPod. I shut down and restarted the computer, expecting iTunes to recognize it and for all to be well.

Umm...not quite.

The computer never recognized the iPod. I restarted several times to no avail and then tried to force it into disk mode. Again, nothing. So I unplugged the iPod even though the red blinking slash sign was still there. And then came the sad iPod icon and a funky sound coming from the HDD when I put it up to my ear like a seashell.

I took it back to the Apple store and they gave me a new one with no fuss whatsoever.

My question is, is it possible for my computer to singlehandedly kill my iPod? I dock the iPod with the computer almost daily, and I have it set to automatically sync my library. I've never had the sad iPOd icon, but my last iPod had a HDD problem where the computer was paralyzed when I tried to dock it. It would allow me to do full restores but would die in the middle of uploading.

I am worried about putting my new iPod in harms way with a potentially unfriendly PC.

Should I chalk these separate incidents up to bad luck? Should I stop docking it to the computer so much and just recharge off the wall or in my car and just sync when I have a lot of songs to add? I am using a new cable since the last iPod took the dirt nap, so I don't think it's that. Could it be the PCI adapter I have connected to the computer?

Long story short--can the computer kill the HDD?

[Jesse Hollington]

It's definitely unlikely.... Theoretically if you have a USB port that was putting out excessive voltage it's certainly possible for it to damage the iPod, although that's more likely to fry some internal electronics than cause the hard drive itself to fail.

It's much more likely that the iPod was more or less due to fail, and if the hard drive was having problems, it's naturally likely to expect that it's going to fail during the period of the most activity -- while you're syncing it with your computer.

I have always docked my iPods regularly and left them connected to my computer's USB ports to charge with no incident whatsoever. I did receive a dud iPod once (my first 5G 60Gb) that behaved much like your first iPod (would freeze when updating a lot of songs onto it), but it had nothing to do with the computer, and Apple replaced it with a new unit that I have never had a single incident with, despite using the same computers and library to load it from.

[swipeys]

good stuff Jesse. Thanks for the detail. I was getting paranoid. I like having it on the computer since it updates my play counts and lets me tweak my playlists. I'm an iPOd geek, what can I say?