Computer crashes when I connect my iPod to iTunes?

Electronic devices + H20 = disaster. Sounds to me like water got inside your iPod and damaged it, which is why it’s playing havoc with your computer. I’m sure the Apple employee had no idea what was wrong with it. Perhaps Apple Repair (or someone local) can help you, but that doesn’t sound promising to me. Sorry.

If they opened it up, they would figure it out pretty quickly… and void your warranty

I’ll bet you the body part of your choice that it was damaged irreparably. Sorry!

Darn. Is there any way to save the music I have on it?

Take your ipod and dry it out thouroughly with a hot hair dryer. Do that several times. Get all the water out of the electronics by blowing the hot hair dryer up into the connections. That may work.

Unlikely. It’s probably dry already so the real problem is the corrosion and short circuits that resulted from the initial dunking. Like first aid on humans, there is a “golden hour”, and after that your options are severely limited. That, and dead is dead no matter how long it’s been dead for.

As for saving the music, I have my music library stored on my laptop and my desktop, not counting the mirror on my roommate’s Linux box. If you got your music via iTunes then it should be part of your account, and if you got it from CD rips then you should still have it on your computer.

I don’t keep my music on the computer, I’ve had this iPod for years and have gathered up over 4,000 songs… I have been recommended sites that can back up an iPod but my thing is that iTunes doesn’t recognize it’s even plugged in. It works when I play it but that’s all, minus some skipping on some songs.

I find that that is the least safe way to go. I treat my laptop gently enough that it’s unlikely to drop or get wet and the two desktops are safely in our respective bedrooms so only a fire is likely to take them out. The only real risk I face with the desktops is hard drive failure.

OTOH, my iPod is strapped to my bicep as I work in a machine shop with coolant spraying, hot metal chips flying, and the occasional heavy casting swinging on a chain hoist. I cracked the front cover of my Sansa e280 with a 95-pound pump impeller. One of my coworkers shattered the screen of his iPod Touch by dropping it on concrete. An absent-minded friend of mine has lost at least three MP3 players and two phones in teh laundry. Bad things happen, especially to portable electronics!

As you can see, portable electronics are far more likely to suffer catastrophic damage than most computers, so I rely on them for storage rather than something that may get killed at any moment.

Another thing is that all electronics wear out at some point, especially is they are used a lot. At best, the only thing that will go on an iPod is the battery (they have a limited lifespan, especially Lithium-ion batteries like those in an iPod) but repeated thermal stress can cause other parts to fail over time. Hard drives wear out. Everything dies eventually, and you have to do what you can to make sure you don’t lose any data when (not if, when) that happens. Even with the redundant hard drive storage, I stil burn the occasional DVD-R to make sure I keep my stuff.

And even the DVD-Rs have a limited lifespan!

@Rarebear True, but they tend to outlive my Windows installs. Maybe 7 is more robust, but I was doing a wipe-and-reinstall on XP at least once a year.

So you are saying there is no way to save my music then? :o(

@Kokoro Your music should be on your itunes. If your ipod is dead, and you get a new ipod, it should sync and your music should download.