i have a mini, charge it up & you should see a battery in the back ground which means its charging, i suggest you use the firewire charger first mate, it will charge far more better than a USB, but when i first had my mini about 8 months ago, i installed i tunes first & then it said connect the ipod to the computer using the USB lead so it can get some data of i tunes & then you should be done, charge it after, then put some tunes on to it, remember ipods dont play WMA. files so only MP3's