Vista is just too smart for its own good. I spoke with a member friday evening that said after setting up Vista home premium his computer would give him an error to Scan and Fix his IPOD. However when he would plug his IPOD into his wife’s Windows XP machine there was no error.
I was able to recreate the error by forcibly ejecting my own ipod from a Windows XP machine. The reason for the error is that his IPOD was formatted FAT32 on Windows XP; this can affect thumbdrives, cameras, smart cards. What happens is the device was not properly dismounted by Windows XP and there is an archival bit set that Vista needs to reset before it will stop reporting there is an error.
At this point if you don’t read anything else read this: don’t click the “Scan and Fix” button.
Instead open up a command line prompt by clicking on the windows logo key and then clicking on the command prompt icon:
At the command prompt type the following command.
chkdsk (device drive letter): /f
for instance my ipod was mounted at drive l so I typed
chkdsk l : /f
Once the chkdsk process is completed you should not see the “Scan & Fix” dialog for your ipod or other device again.
- Mark Flavin


{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 159 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Mine will come up with the scan fix, i typed in the command and it will come up with the fat32 but will not but then it says “cannot read boot sector” Any ideas?
I can not open itunes when my ipod is plugged in. I also can not properly disconnect the ipod becuase it says that it is in use. I have throw other Ipods on this computer and it works fine. I also went to the apple store and of course my ipod worked fine there on both there mac and windows XP, I am running windows 7. Any help would be much appreciated
Yes, make sure that disk usage is enable. Otherwise, itunes unmounts the driver letter from windows
after a few weeks of getting the “scan and fix” message, I made the mistake of clicking yes.
now, windows recognizes my ipod but itunes doesn’t. i’ve tried restarting my ipod, reinstalling itunes, and have read a bunch of help forums online but nothing seems to be working. when I try to play a song on my ipod, it just stays at 0:00.
and, since itunes can’t recognize my ipod, I can’t restore it to factory settings. what should I do? thanks
hello i have a problem with my ipod photo 40gb with color when i plug the ipod the scan thingy comes up and my computer recognizes the ipod but when i try to open itunes it freezes when the ipod is connected and some times get blue screen thing my os is windows 7
Thanks for the post. i kept getting that on an ipod i was using and was told to fix. it worked a treat thank you
hi i keep getting a error 53 on my ipod and i have tried restarting my i pod counless of times , i restored twice and still i keep getting it
When I enter chkdsk into the command prompt I then get “Convert lost chains to files?”… Don’t want to mess anything up so should I type Y for yes or N for no? Any help would be nice
Hi guys.
Been working on this problem for days (professionally).
Vista (maybe XP or Win 7 too) sometimes sets a reserved bit (BS_Reserved1) in the FAT32 boot sector.
(Search for fatgen103 documentation.)
This can happen when some programs do a perfectly correct file write. The bit gets suddenly set for no reason at all.
Vista (not XP) is sensitive for this bit when plugging in a device.
So I have a program to reset it (no chkdsk needed) and the “Do you want to scan and fix” will not appear any more when plugging out and in again. However, next time some program writes, it might (or not) popup again. So my suggestion, sue Microsoft… Vista at least is real crap.
Mine keeps saying ”cannot open volume for direct access” when I use chkdsk on Commans Prompt. Are there any solutions to this?
← Previous Comments