Syncing ipod touch

[pidget]

My son had an ipod touch for his birthday, have installed itunes on the laptop and trying to sync it but it wont get past step 2 of 7 (which says backing up) there isn't much stuff on it but it has been at this stage for about an hour now-any clues where i am going wrong please, have done this before on other laptop with 3 other devices and no problem???

[snags]

Can you restore the ipod via iTunes without it needing to be synced? Back up the contents first as restoring will erase everything.

[Gromit]

Instead of backing everything up at once, trying backing up just photos or just one playlist. I am assuming that the iPod is authorised as one of your 5 iTunes devices.

[pidget]

Thanks for those answers, how do I back up the stuff as thats what it says it is doing but not seeming to progress. It's the only ipod on there at the moment, do I need to do something to authorise it? Apologies for my lack of knowledge-am very technically challenged!!!