Can you tell I'm a little bit hungry?

Housemate Jen has gone to pick up Mad Jake from the airport. We are both nervous about this. I intend to deal with this by watching the Spain match and drinking a lot of lager. Hurrah!

OK, computer minded people out there. Can anyone please explain to me why plugging my ipod in to charge/update makes my computer;

a) Force both IE and Firefox to close

or

b) Cause it to crash entirely, bringing up a screen gibbering about something to do with a 'physical memory dump' and then restart?

Added to this, if the thing is plugged in while I start my computer up it causes it to run a complete 'disk check' wherein it runs through all 2000+ songs on the device and then crash. Which, needless to say, is annoying.

Might it be something to do with the fact that it's an American ipod on a British computer? I had to buy Firewire hardware so that I could connect the ipod but it was installed in a proper computer shop so I know it's not my ineptitude that has it installed wrong.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received. And now, footy and lager. :D!