iMac restart freezes with iPod connected

[apetrovic]

Hello
For some reason my iMac 24" imac6,1 gets stuck during restart or start up when my ipod is connected.

If the ipod is connected and enable disk use is checked the computer freezes on the white startup screen and will not go any further. If I unplug the ipod then it will continue the restart and start up like normal.

If the ipod is connected and enable disk use is unchecked then the computer restarts normally.

Why does this happen? I would prefer being able to keep disk use enabled. What do I need to do to prevent the hang up?

Thanks.

 

[JediMeister]

iMac's can boot from an external hard drive. Because the iPod is treated as such while the computer is starting up it tries to run Disk Utility to determine whether the system should try to boot using it. It will not do this with an external hard drive that has a Time Machine backup because it will have already been flagged as non-usable by the computer as a bootable drive. You've already isolated the issue to being your iPod. To avoid this issue just start up without the iPod connected, and then reconnect after the computer's booted into the operating system. There is no benefit to leaving the iPod connected while the computer is off or booting up, even if you have enabled disk mode on it.

 

[apetrovic]

Thanks for the reply.

I've disabled the disk mode because of this issue and the computer starts up fine. It's too bad that this is the only way around the problem. I would hope that I could keep the ipod in disk mode (nice to have when you need to upload files on the run etc) and have it connect to the mac without issue. I thought these issues were only specific to PCs...that's why I switched to macs last month.

I am finding it is not just the ipod thats an issue. When I have my external FW800 drive connected, cell phone with memory card and even sometimes my GPS device connected the computer freezes during startup. Is there a way to apply the time machine type setting so the mac ignores these drives during startup? I tried the select drive at startup option but does not make a difference.

Thanks again.