…or how I bought an iPod without technically buying one.

Here he is:

dsc01105.JPG

I’m still all about internet how-to’s lately – knowledge is power, as they say.

This time I wont do in vlog format, after being criticised by every man and his internet-enabled dog for my last attempt.

Hmmmpf.

Sidebar: I am still opposed to iPods in general, the circumstances in which I acquired this irresistibly cute blue Shuffle are complicated and boring. Most importantly, I didn’t buy it directly for myself, which still allows me to maintain my long-standing and highly-sane iBoycot.

Anyway, after I synced it at work, then tried to install it again at home, I got the infamous ‘1418 error‘. Super informative error message there Apple….

Here’s what I did to fix the error, when the standard ‘resetting’ options didn’t work: (took me a few hours to figure it out, so thought I would make a to-do)

  1. Download and install CCleaner
  2. Close iTunes and run CCleaner to fix any errors in your registry. While you’re there you may as well run the other clean-up options the program offers.
  3. Connect your 2nd gen shuffle without loading iTunes.
  4. Hopefully you will see the iPod mounted as a hard drive in My Computer. Right click on it and select Format.
  5. I both the quick and the short format (after trying just one didnt work in the next steps)
  6. Start iTunes, with Shuffle out of the dock.
  7. Dock that thing, leave the default name for the iPod as is for the time being.
  8. Let iTunes autofill the Shuffle with your music and don’t interrupt the first full sync
  9. Eject and re-dock
  10. Change name and other settings as you please

So there we go, fairly simple but worked for me. I think the main thing is to not interrupt the first full sync, the other things are more or less housekeeping items, but it wasnt untill I did all of them in this sequence that the error message went away and the iPod was recognised and sucessfully synced.

Now I can happily join the great iPodded throng!