ipod freezes itunes

Hi all,

I've trawled through several threads and seen various things that look kinda like my issue but none of the solutions seem to do the business. So sorry if this on the wrong place, feel free to repost.

I bought a macbook at the start of the year, having been a PC user for many years. I know my way around windows and can normally sort stuff out but when it comes to a Mac I'm clueless - so frustrating.

I have a 160gb ipod classic, which just won't eject from itunes. It just causes itunes to freeze (spinning rainbow disc thing). If I force quit itunes, all is well but then my Macbook won't shut down. It just goes to a blue screen with a spinning disc and that's it. I keep having to hold the power button to close it down, which obviously ain't good.

I've tried disk repair, restored the macbook to an earlier point in time and uninstalled (i think) and reinstalled itunes, none of which has made any difference.

Any help gratefully received!

are you up to date? what version of OSX and itunes are using? what is the firmware version on the ipod? have you tried restoring it to factory settings through a pc?

Ok, OSX is 10.6.6. iTunes is 10.1.2. I restored the ipod earlier in the week on the mac but not tried it yet on PC, that's a good shout.

It may be related but (and excuse how basic this question is, like I said very new to Macs) can you actually close Finder? It always has the white dash underneath its icon in the dock and even if all other apps are closed, is still on the top of the screen (file, edit etc etc).

you can quit the finder through an app called Tinker tool (it adds the option to finder).

this is off (hidden) by default. people turn it off if they want more system resources or something along those lines. most of the time its not necessary.