Reformatted iPod on Windows 11 laptop and now says 0kb storage Refurbished iPod Nano 4th gen

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‼️FIXED‼️ thank you
bought a refurbished iPod nano 4th gen from China on ebay:

    Naïvely i thought i could just put mp3 files into the disc drive of the ipod when connected to my computer to add music. that didn't work of course no songs show up.
    After Reformatting the ipod drive while connected to my Windows 11 computer the iPod says it has 0KB storage even though on the computer it still says 7.41GB space. Formatting it back to Fat32 changes nothing.

is it still usable? can i fix this?
Any info on if i can put music on it without iTunes would be appreciated.

[lunar marlin]

hihi! so its probably fine, you will need to install iTunes/Apple Devices in order to repair the drive, but after that you can probably (not entirely sure) put rockbox onto it if you don't want to deal with iTunes

i will say that rockbox is Kind Of Annoying to set up though- and you most definitely can use iTunes offline/without any kind of account

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okie dokie 👌👍 tbh most of all i just wanted to make sure i didnt break it and have to send it back XD i saved to buy this mf for a month

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ah what a shame, rockbox doesn't work with 4th gen ipod nano