Symptoms:

To Solve iTunes Crashing Problem:

When the device was first given to me I formatted it using FAT32 filesystem (iTunes would crash and I would not be able to use the restore button). I reformatted it using gparted in ubuntu because Windows 7 would only let me use exFAT – this is no good.

After formatting the device it would no longer crash iTunes so I could then try to restore it using the correct iTunes restore button. Unfortunately, the restore would fail and the following error would be given: iPod could not be restored. An unknown error occurred 1439.

To Solve iPod restore error (iPod could not be restored – An unknown error occurred 1439.)

The next step which took me ages to figure out was to use a windows XP virtual machine to install an old version of iTunes. After iTunes was installed on the XP box I was able to restore the iPod as normal.

My main computer was running windows 7 64bit and iTunes 10. – This configuration would not restore the iPod and would always have the 1439 error.

The windows XP computer was running 32bit windows and iTunes 9.2.1.5 – this worked correctly and the iPod appears to be fixed.