Does A New Ipod Hard Drive Need To Be Formatted If So How Ipod 3Rd Generation

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I bought a hard drive for my iPod 3rd gen, but I think it needs to be formatted first. How do I go about it?

As I recall, when I replaced the hard drive on my 4th generation iPod, I just plugged the ipod with the new hard drive into my computer (a Mac) and used iTunes to restore the iPod.

When you put a new hard drive in an iPod, there’s no iPod software on it, so the iPod, if the mainboard is intact, will ask you to connect it to iTunes. From that point you can just restore it and it should work fine!

yeah, that makes sense - have you tried it?

iPod hard drive need to be formatted? If so, how? Update iPod 3rd gen 40gb A10440 hard drive need to be formatted? If so, how?

I am having this same problem – I put a new HDD in the iPod and it isn’t showing up in iTunes, on PC or on a Mac. I have charged it via FireWire (it’s all charged up). I can get to the diagnostics screen, but it freezes if I choose anything. It will stay in disk mode and my Windows partition can see it just fine. I just don’t know what to do to get iTunes to see it.