2. Use Your iPod As A Disk On A PC

To use your iPod as a portable disk drive, you must enable disk use.

Follow these steps:

Plug your iPod into the computer that you usually synchronize it with, and then, if necessary, launch iTunes. A flashing international "No" signal (a circle with a diagonal line across it) appears on your iPod display as well as the words "Do not disconnect." On the shuffle, the Power Indicator light changes color when it's unsafe to disconnect. Open the iPod portion of the iTunes preferences, and click the General tab.

Figure 16 Use the General portion of the iPod preference pane to enable disk use.

Select the checkbox, "Enable disk use." iTunes displays the alert box shown below. Pay close attention to the warning - from now on you must manually unmount your iPod before you unplug it from your computer.

Figure 17 The dreaded warning message...

In the dialog box, click OK. If you use the shuffle, see the Note, previously, to learn more about the space allocation slider. Click OK to get out of Preferences. While your iPod is attached to your Windows PC, a disk drive icon appears in My Computer. That's your iPod. Double-click the icon to open the drive and you'll see at least three folders - Calendars, Contacts, and Notes. Just as with any other Windows disk drive, you can now create a new folder on that drive and drag items into it. This capability will become very useful as you read further in this ebook.