The iPod as an External Hard Disk

To set up the iPod as an external hard disk, you don’t have to jump through complicated technical hoops. The days of installing disk drivers, fiddling with jumper switches, SCSI-chain termination, and IRQ settings are long gone.

Tip

Even though they’re tiny in comparison, the flash-memory iPod Shuffles can get into the external drive game, too. Flip back to Section 3.3 for the details on turning your Shuffle into a USB flash drive.

In iTunes for both the Mac and Windows systems, just follow the steps in Figure 9-1 to turn that simple music player into a music player and a portable hard drive for all your ginormous file-toting needs. (The look of this Preferences box may vary slightly, depending on which version of iTunes you’re using.)

Turning the iPod into an external hard drive is a matter of turning on a special checkbox in the iPod Preferences dialog box. Here’s how you do it in iTunes for Windows and Macintosh: Attach the iPod, open iTunes, select the iPod in the Source list, and click the small iPod icon at the bottom of the iTunes window. You’ve just opened the iPod Preferences dialog box (shown here in Mac OS X, top, and Windows, bottom). Finally, click the Music tab, turn on the “Enable disk use” checkbox, and then click OK.

Figure 9-1. Turning the iPod into an external hard drive is a matter of turning on a special checkbox in the iPod Preferences dialog box. Here’s how you do it in iTunes for Windows and Macintosh: Attach the iPod, open iTunes, select the iPod in the Source list, and click the small iPod icon at the bottom of the iTunes window. You’ve just opened the iPod Preferences dialog box (shown here in Mac OS X, top, and Windows, bottom). Finally, click the Music tab, turn on the “Enable disk use” checkbox, and then click OK.

Note

If you’ve disabled automatic synchronization, you may notice that the option to turn on the external mode ...

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