As some may know, I am not an Apple fanboy, but have been inflicted with doing the admin for family members. With older iPods we got on OK, they used iTunes, and I avoided it like the plague, using SharePod instead.

My son has a new iPod Touch (IPT) 4th Gen and first he changed the passcode and forgot so I did a backup and restore, during which iOS was installed on the IPT and all was well. Then wifey tried to copy some tunes over from her laptop using SharePod but the tunes couldn't be seen on the IPT, and the IPT is not completely recognised by either wifey's laptop or another PC. IPT shows up in Windows 7 like a camera, so I can get at the pics/movies. iTunes recognises the "name" of the IPT, knows it has iOS 5.1.1 and reports the serial number, but says "n/a" for capacity and says "cannot read contents..go to.. Restore".

Restore then spends ages downloading 5.1.1 (again), the IPT reconnects, and then before the end, iTunes comes up with the same message "cannot read contents" and stops without reporting any error numbers of other messages. This is when trying to restore from the other PC that it was not synch-ed to originally (wifey's laptop was used originally IIRC, but she also synch-ed her own iPod to that and maybe the other son's iPod too).

I've tried to steer clear of the whole thing (I reluctantly got an iPod myself but synch-ed once with iTunes then deleted the crap and used SharePod) but have now got stuck. I've trawled through countless web pages of support and forums with solutions, including using ping and telnet, disabling antivirus stuff, stopping services, MSCONFIG, you name it...

Could SharePod have screwed it up somehow?

As you tell, I feel like I am drowning in my own excrement (or rather, Apple's very own brown stuff)

Help!

Right then, went back to wifey's laptop and did a restore from there, this time it just extracted the software (didn't try downloading first) and the IPT is now "restored". I could pick a backup on the laptop to restore from, but I want to synch it as new from the other PC, can I copy over the backup info from laptop to PC?

I've set all the iPods/iTunes up so that they don't synch automatically (have more songs than the capacity of some iPods so that seem daft) and anyway I want to be in control, not Apple

If I set up as a new iPod from the PC, will iTunes store know about the paid-for apps and tunes and offer to reinstall them, or are they lost unless I use the backup from the laptop?

Oh how I wish I didn't have to be writing this...

Quiet on here! OK, I've severed the synch connection to the laptop and am reinstalling the purchased apps one by one on the IPT Hopefully that will keep everyone happy.

I'd still like to use SharePod but I'll save that for later...

Yeah all apps etc are tied to your apple iTunes account NOT to the device.

Replacement for iTunes is coming, 11th June apparently... When iOS6 is announced.

Personally I use iTunes Match, for £22 all my songs are in the "Cloud" and are sent to me.

Have you set it up to:
1. Back up to iCloud
2. Back up to Computer

Whatever one you use, you should just be able to "restore to last backup".

It was set up to back up to PC but I wanted to tie it to a different PC.