At first, here are the explanations for the flashing lights.
The primary functions are powering on, charging, syncing, and general feedback. Let's look at each.
When you turn on your iPod Shuffle, the light will indicate your current charge level:
green = 30-100% charge,
orange = 10-30% charge, low,
red = less than 10% charge,
no light = too late,
If you see an alternating pattern of green-orange-orange then your Shuffle's crashed or otherwise needs to be restored. Needless to say, that's not a good thing, but probably easy to fix when you hook it up to your PC or Mac.
When you're charging up your Shuffle, there are three possible light states:
orange = charging
green = fully charged, unplug whenever you're ready to go
flashing orange = busy, either syncing or in use as a remote disk
The amber light is probably flashing because you have it mounted as a drive and that is why it shows up as a USB device only.
Here is what apple has to say about that http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1369 number one try to reset
To reset your iPod shuffle:
- 1. Eject your iPod shuffle from iTunes, if connected.
- 2. Remove iPod shuffle from the USB dock.
- 3. Move the switch on the top of the iPod shuffle to the off position.
* Tip: When iPod shuffle is off, the green stripe by the switch is not visible.
- 5. Move the switch back to the ON position so the green strip is visible.
- iPod shuffle is now reset. If after resetting iPod shuffle you are going to attach it to your computer, be sure to place the switch in the off position.
The other problem that you're additionally encountering are the broken docking stations. I guess what i would be doing is to get a dock that is working for sure and try from there. These could of course be another reason why your computer does not recognize the iPod
Here are some links for a whole bunch of useful information
http://forums.appleinsider.com/archive/i...
tp://openp2p.com/pub/a/mac/2005/02/15/shuffle.html
http://forums.ilounge.com/ipod-shuffle/2...
I hope this will help you somewhat, i know it is confusing, sorry....Good luck