If you own an pre-generation 3 iPod or even an early model of the gen3 here's a handy little tip for you.

When I first received my 40 gb iPod it wasn't long before I was ripping my entire CD collection onto it. CD collection, how quaint! ;-)

Over the course of 2 months, I ran into 4 or 5 disk related errors that would result in the occasionally long start-up-scan process.

I did the obligatory Googling on the matter but found no helpful information. Around this time, the new OS X 'Panther' was released and with it, a new "journaling" file system. Having used the Ext3 journaling filing system on Linux, I was well aware of its "self-healing" advantages.

With this, I figured, what the hell, let's use OS X's 'Disk Utility' app to convert my iPod's filing system to the new "journaled" type. After backing up the contents of my iPod with PodWorks, I was ready to start the conversion process.

Sure enough, enabling Journaling on my iPod did the trick. Since then, over 8 months later, I have yet to encounter a single disk error or startup-scan on my iPod.

:-)