USB Shorts

From time to time we get called out to our CD ripping clients to help out with computer problems, which is where I've been this morning. The problem sounded simple, after years of normal service our client had plugged in his iPod and his PC had promptly died.

It's something he'd done, well, hundreds of times with no problems. Naturally he assumed that something in iTunes had corrupted his computer and Windows Vista. When I got there the PC was completely dead, as if the power supply had failed. So I checked the power cable, tried the cable from their kettle, no problem in the mains. Screen worked OK, just when you hit the on button absolutely nothing happened. My line of thinking was that this was a dead PC and the only way forward would be a new machine.

The client asked if the iPod had killed the PC or if, even worse, the failure had blown up the iPod. I should explain it was sitting unhappily on his desk. I thought I'd try it in my MacBook just to be sure so I lifted it up to unplug it. As I moved the iPod there was a flicker from the cooling fan inside the PC. I unplugged the iPod (which was undamaged), then unplugged the sync cable. Each move caused a tiny burst from the box. Having unplugged the sync cable I got a real burst of power so I tipped the box up and had a look at the front USB ports.

At that point I could see the cause of the problem. The tiny piece of plastic in the USB connector had broken, exposing the metal prongs that allow data and electricity to flow down the cable. Then, I'd guess when our client put the cable into the port, the prongs had been bent resulting in one of the prongs touching the metal surround.

A dead short.

I dug out my trusty metal comb which was slim enough to be able to lift the offending prong from the surround. At which point the PC burst into life. One happy client.

iTunes, Hard Drives and The Joys of Windows

Several of our clients (www.podserve.co.uk) have reached the stage where their music libraries are larger than their hard drive on their laptop or PC. So, more and more people are looking to store their music on a separate hard drive, and it particularly suits people with second homes as it allows them to take their msuic with them.

Music library on a USB connected hard drive is a simple system on our Macs. Just plug the disc in, no problems. Leave the drive unplugged, no problem.

Windows? Oh, no. If you open iTunes even once without your hard drive being connected it loses all links between its internal libraries (the itl and itx files) and the real location of your music. You see a swathe of grey exclamation marks, against every track. You can't play your music, your iPod doesn't synch properly. The 'cure' is to reload all your tracks. Not only does this take time, but it means you lose the contents of all your (simple) playlists. Small consolation in that smart playlists rebuild themselves.

Twice in the last few days we've had to fix this problem for clients, neither of whom were happy that their hard built playlists had gone.

So, if your music is on a free standing hard drive - you must hae your drive connected and powered on BEFORE you open iTunes. Each and every time. Please don't blame podServe, Apple or iTunes. This is down to Microsoft and I'm afraid I don't know a work-around.