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iPod Tricking iTunes into thinking an external hard drive is an iPod? Possible?

N

nick_harambee

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 20, 2005
118
0
Hi

There is a lot of info out there about using your iPod as a hard drive, but I am wanting to the opposite, namely use my external portable hard drive as an iPod (this says something of my contrary nature).

The reason being that my iTunes library is made up of Apple Lossless files, and I would like to take advantage of the "convert higher bit rate songs to 128kbps" feature in iTunes, but by syncing to a portable external hard drive rather than an iPod.

I am aware that there are various methods of converting all my Apple Lossless files for use on an external hard drive, but none of these (as far as I am aware) synchronize with iTunes (i.e. update tags/ratings in the converted files if changes are made in iTunes). Because I would need this feature, I am wondering if there is a way of tricking iTunes into thinking that my external hard drive is an iPod (here my devious nature comes to the fore), or some other method of achieving what I am looking for?

Thanks for reading

Nick
 
The only way this could be done is if you change the hard drive's USB Product and Vendor ID. This is impossible to do.
 
Ah, thanks for letting me know. Are you aware of any other way of achieving the desired result?
 
Ah, yes, a slightly strange response on my part. Not sure what I was getting at there.

I can now say that there is another way of achieving this result, with J River Media Center on Windows run on Parallels. There you can sync and convert Apple Lossless to MP3 files in a folder/on a drive as you would with an iPod

Just wish there was a way of doing this in iTunes/in Mac OS X

Nick
 
Have you tried getting the resulting files off an iPod? I think even if what you asked was easily possible, you won't be too impressed to find you don't simply end up with a folder of 128kbps files.

If that's ok, you could try tinkering with some hardware;
If you were to get an iPod which uses disk-based media (ie. a classic or mini), you can 'upgrade' the drive. Here, I'm assuming it no longer needs to be portable, and direct IDE connection to the iPod gubbins rather than USB is ok.
Main problem with this AFAIK is that the OS is also installed to the disk, so you can't just plug in and go; it'll need installing (and formatting) first.
 
Regarding converting;
Could you not run another instance of iTunes (another account or iTunes library), using import settings as the desired 128kbps? (Keeps the converted in a separate library folder to your main one, unlike a playlist)

From Apple;
If you haven't imported some songs into iTunes yet, you can import and convert them at the same time. This will create a converted copy of the file in your iTunes Library based on your iTunes preferences. To convert all the songs in a folder or on a disk, hold down the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Windows) and choose Advanced > Convert Import preference setting. The Import preference setting will match what you chose in step 3. iTunes will prompt you for the location of the folder or disk you want to import and convert. All the songs in the folder or on the disk will be converted.
Click to expand...
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1550
 
Googlyhead said:
If you were to get an iPod which uses disk-based media (ie. a classic or mini), you can 'upgrade' the drive. Here, I'm assuming it no longer needs to be portable, and direct IDE connection to the iPod gubbins rather than USB is ok.
Main problem with this AFAIK is that the OS is also installed to the disk, so you can't just plug in and go; it'll need installing (and formatting) first.
Click to expand...

This will not work on the Mini. The mini uses a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive for internal storage, which uses a compact flash interface. You can change it for a large CompactFlash. I have changed the Microdrive in mine for a CompactFlash card and it works well.

It probably doesn't work on a full size iPod either for the same reason. But I don't know for sure.

If you did go this route, restoring the iPod from within iTunes would re-install the iPod OS... so you can just upgrade the drive and connect it to iTunes, restore, then let it do its thing.
 
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