OK... big long stoy here, mainly a frustrated vent, but I do have a couple of questions at the end...
Today, I decided I was going to start up my gym routine again and create a new playlist for my 1st-gen Shuffle ( I normally use WinAmp instead of iTunes, because I can't freaking STAND iTunes, but WinAmp couldn't locate the iPod for some reason). I removed it from the USB and turned it on to play it, to make sure the battery was fine or if it would play. Nothing. I looked at it and noticed the yellow & green light was alternating back and forth, an indication something was wrong. I haven't used iTunes or the Shuffle in nearly a year & haven't ever used iPod on this new computer since I got it last May. Vista and WinAmp wouldn't recognize the iPod, so I got out the install disc and and loaded it onto the computer. After installing the start-up disc, I still couldn't get Vista or WinAmp to find it for some reason. I let it charge for about an hour or so, disconnected it, but the lights were still flashing & it wouldn't play. The Apple support site suggested that it might need to have the most recent software upgrade or something and gave instructions on how to verify it through iTunes, so I started up iTunes. Support instructions then said that I needed to have the latest version of iTunes to verify the most recent iPod software, so I installed the latest iTunes. When it finished installing, I verified that the Shuffle has the most recent update. Support said that if it had the most recent update and still wouldn't play, that the Shuffle might need to be reset. So, I reset it, 120 songs wiped out, but they're backed up so no big deal. This cured the yellow/green light issue. I loaded up a partial playlist in iTunes to test it, and it played back fine with a happy little green light. So, I loaded up the full playlist and it works like a charm now. No clue really why or what caused it not to play after sitting on a shelf for a year, but whatever. It works now.
Here's the questions part:
1. I still can't get Vista or WinAmp to locate the iPod. When I say "not find", I mean that it will not show up in the computer directory like the other hard drives, CD/DVD burners, etc.
2. I updated to the latest version of iTunes. When it was complete, I had it load the new music from my computer that haven't been loaded since the last time I used iTunes (probably since last summer sometime). I figured it would take a while, so I let it load while I went to the gym and ran some errands for a couple of hours. 6 hours later, I sit back down at the computer to check on it, figuring it would be done. Nope. Still loading. OK, guess I have a LOT more music than I thought, but it looked like it was just about though loading everything. As it finished up, I started scrolling through the library and noticed just about every other song was a duplicate and had an exclamation point on the left on each duplicate track. I clicked on several of those duplicates without the exclamations played just fine. All of the ones with an exclamation bring back an error that says:
"The song (name of duplicate song) could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"
Since there is a duplicate track that works just fine, I figure there is no need to have a duplicate entry in my iTunes library, so you can right click/delete the line. No problem there, but... I don't want to go through and manually right click/delete 42978 songs, 117.7 days or 232.65GB worth of music one track at a time. Does anyone know if there is a way that you can sort and delete all of these unnecessary dupliactes at once?