For months i had no issue with the ipod mounting and using it WITHOUT itunes in Windows 8, now all of a sudden the other day I plugged it in to charge and sync with MediaMonkey and Windows says "USB Device is not recognized" I have restarted the ipod, let the battery die then plugged it back in, I tried searching for services but NO apple services are running, I have restarted with it plugged into the usb hub and without, not to mention plugged directly in and plugging it is after. I plugged it into my Linux machine and have no issues what so ever, I plugged it into my windows 7 machine and have no issues. . . What in the sam moses is going on here. . Is it related to a recent update?

Should I try to re-install the apple device drivers? where are they?

I WILL NOT INSTALL ITUNES WHAT SO EVER and you should not have to for a simple mount/read.

So I did a little thinking and took a gander in the log, and came to the conclusion.

I recently plugged my Motorola Triumph phone into the computer via USB . . Windows 8 did its thing installing the device and mounting the device. I noticed a little tinkering to get the access to the USB drive. THE PHONE DOES NOT NEED TO BE MOUNTED.

Soooo while the phone was plugged in and the ipod was unplugged,

Entered Device Manager
Removed . . . at this point I 420'd so I aplogize I don't remember the name of the services.
I removed/uninstalled all Emulator/ROM Android related devices

Unplugged the phone before it tried to re-install the driver.
Then simply plugged the ipod in. . . refreshed the Device manager

And before you know it there it was magically back and syncing all perrtty and stuff. LOL >-- Reminder did this without ITUNES installed . . Boooyaaa

AS for plugging the phone back in. . . I have not done this yet.