I updated my iPod and iTunes to their latest versions yesterday, wondering if I was going to have problems like I did a short while ago, where the process of trying to update my iPod caused iTunes and even the whole Mac to freeze up.
Sure enough, I had similar problems. Last time, I discovered that my Belkin 6-port FireWire hub's power supply wasn't plugged in all the way (a bad design I reported to Belkin without any reply from them — you'd think that if something is not plugged in properly, it wouldn't show a glowing green light!) and fixing that made the problems go away.
This time, I checked my connections, and the hub had gotten partly unplugged again. I pushed the adaptor, rebooted, and tried again. Did that fix things? No. So I took the hub out of the equation and plugged the iPod connector directly into the Mac. Another reboot, another try. Did that fix things? No!
Running out of ideas, I browsed the discussion lists at Apple's support site, and found this interesting thread: iPod and iTunes freeze during update Somebody suggested that the iSight and iPod can't be plugged into the computer at the same time, due to power usage problems. So I unplugged my iSight, and yipee, the iPod is happily transferring the almost 40 gigs of music to my iPod as I type this.
So ... if you are using an iSight and an iPod, unplug your iSight while you are using your iPod.