need help computer wont recongize my ipod

i have a dell computer and my bro in law gave me his 10gb ipod with touch wheel 3g....i used the usb to hook it up to my computer but i get a message in the taskbar that the device has malifunctioned or is not recongized...i dont have the software that came with the product...i did install itunes and quicktime(dont know if i need this program)....i dont know if there is something i am missing or if i am just over looking something...also the ipod has a file with an exclamation mark on the display i dont know what this means... and i did download the update march 2006 to my computer and i hooked up my ipod and the updater says it has an error....please help asap....thanks

 

Might want to post this in the iPod Forum here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/159

 

The file with the exclamation mark generally means that the harddrive is broken. The software that comes with the iPod is the updater and iTunes, which you said you downloaded so that shouldn't be a problem. Are you able to reset the iPod [hold down menu and the center button] if that works you may be able to force it into disk mode by holding center and play while the Apple logo is on the screen of the iPod.

 

do what i did I took the ipod to my bed with full battery while it had a broken hard drive and hit the right upper corner on the bed until the hard drive needle clicked into place you wont here it but youll see it back to the regular ipod menu. AGAIN hit it once really hard on the bed
then check to see if its working

have patients it took my brothers ipod 30 minutes to get back alive

 

to dark.........my bro in law gave it to me and when i got it it was already in disk mode....it says that when i leave it hooked up to the charger....i did what u told me to do hold down center and menu to reset but i hold menu and play and i think it resets itself but i dont know what else to do

 

okay i got my ipod recongized by my pc but my ipod does not show up on my itunes it is in disk mode right now what do i need to do now

 

I had that issue, my solution was using a USB cord instead of the firewire one that came with it. My firewire was/still is fine, but for some reason never worked right with my IPod (original w/o click buttons and buttons on wheel, and when it was plugged with the firewire all it'd do was charge). May work for you, may not but I'd say for the price of the cord you may as well give it a shot

 

Your computer recognizes the iPod which is certaintly a good thing. If you open the iPod updater it should be able to see your iPod connected to the computer. I would suggest trying to restore the firmware. Just on a side note, I'm not sure if you just got your words mixed up but to put the iPod into disk mode you hold [bold]center and play[/bold] buttons while the Apple logo is on the screen.

 

i actually just had this problem with my ipod nano black 2gb ... i fixed it.... i first followed apples long list of instructions http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93716 but i found that to fix mine one i used MS utility clean up softwarte whcich is free http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301 (scroll down to the bottom should be there) then run the program and then find itunes and quick time and anything that you installed that envolves that and then click remove....restart your computer..reinstall itunes with quicktime(use latest verion availble) and then if it asks you to register your ipod do it ( but idk if you can do it twice but my ipod wasnt registered so maybe that was my porblem)

rember that everyones computer can be different so go threw www.apple.com/support 's list of instructions...it wass long so make sure you have time and be patient
dont screw with anything that you dont know about and i am not liable for anything you do to you ipod computer yourself or anything you or some one else does...... me personaly i did stuff in between when my computer was restarting because it take so long so i fixed my ipod and finished my chours in one day