How to Use your iPod As Hard Drive

Your iPod is basically a hard drive. It has a big capacity and a lot more room left to accommodate several files from your computer if you are looking for a place to back up your files.

In this section I’ll explain how you can use your iPod as a hard drive.

Earlier iPods were made for the Mac only meaning they could be formatted only via a Mac but the newer ones are made both for the Mac and Windows and so the hard drive could be formatted to match each computer.

…Check out the 'Settings > About > iPod information' from the main menu on your iPod and it will display information about the format type of the hard drive in your iPod.

If it reads some serial number you have a Mac-formatted iPod and if it reads something like 'Format Windows' then it is Windows formatted.

You can also find out this information even if your iPod is connected to your computer via the 'Summary' tab in iTunes.

Simply click on your iPod under 'Devices' on the left-hand side of your iTunes interface. This also reads 'Format: Windows' under the 'Serial Number'

Note that your windows formatted iPod will be recognized by a Mac but a Mac formatted iPod will not be recognized by a Windows PC. Therefore if you have a Mac and a Windows PC it is better to have your iPod Windows formatted so that you can use it with both machines.

To ensure your iPod can be also used as a hard disk when it is connected to your computer, open iTunes and click your connected iPod in the source pane. The details of your iPod are displayed in the pane on the right as in the graphic below.

Under the 'Summary' tab ensure that the 'Enable disk use' checkbox is checked.

Note: If the 'Manually manage music and videos' option is selected the 'Enable disk use' checkbox is automatically turned on.

That is all to it. Once this is done your iPod will appear as a hard disk in your windows explorer on your PC or as a separate drive on the desktop of your Mac.

Note that all files dropped into the hard disk reside in a separate location away from your music files and other data on your iPod.

The more data you fill in the hard disk the lesser the space for your music and other media files and vice-versa.

To delete files that you have dropped in your hard disk …iPod’s hard disk… follow the same procedures of deletion that you would do on your computer.

Important Note: Do not use third party utilities such as Norton’s utilities such as Partition Disk/Partition Magic to clean up your iPod’s hard disk. This may render your iPod completely incapable of playing your music and in such situations you will have to format the entire hard disk using the installer program for your iPod and fill in the songs and videos all over again.

To disconnect the disk drive of your iPod from your computer there are two safe methods...

The first is from iTunes using the unmount hard disk icon that appears at the bottom of the iTunes window or beside your connected iPod in the Source pane. It looks like an eject button…

The other method to disconnect your iPod is using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon as in the Windows Task bar below.

Final Note How to Use your iPod As Hard Drive: Use commonsense practices to disconnect your iPod. It is a safe bet to allow a process such as sync and upadation to stop before doing a disconnect or an unmount of your iPod. In any case never disconnect your iPod by detaching the cord connections from your computer.