Ipod potential disaster

I hope someone out here can help me avert a potential IPOD disaster. Last week my hard drive crashed and died, taking with it some 783 "songs."

I got a new hard drive, and am slowly trying to ressurect my files and programs. The "dead" hard drive is in the shop where I'm hoping they will be successful in recovering my email and Itunes. But on the likely chance that it can not be done I ask if anyone had success moving the contents of their Ipod back to a new hard drive or new computer? How can I do this?

Probably 90% of this was from CDs where I personally own the actual CD, so I could reload them all but that would be sort of tedious. The newer stuff I bought and downloaded from Itunes. Does anyone know how to do this? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Martha

Do you use i-tunes?

I think there is a good chance that you can get the music off the ipod, but i-tunes can be a b-tch. I stopped using it a year ago cause it was...being mean ;)

I use Winamp (it's free), which took some getting used to, but it doesn't mess with the digital protection BS that i-tunes does. If you can't get the music off with i-tunes (and i don't think you can...), you may want to try Winamp (or similar media player).

If i remember correctly, I had to completely uninstall i-tunes from my laptop because it wanted to be in control ALWAYS thus wouldn't let Winamp do it's thing. But after that, I was able to get all my music off my ipod. HOWEVER, all the music that I BOUGHT from i-tunes will no longer play on my computer, nor can i burn them to CDs. They will still play on my ipod though :)

So this might be worth a try if your HD can't be recovered.

If you're using a PC, Lifehacker has this to say:
http://lifehacker.com/software/ipod/...-pc-105256.php

I would go further to say that if you're working from a fresh hard drive anyway, don't even install iTunes until you've already transferred your files onto the computer. That way, you avoid the whole first step.

I-Tunes s^cks. They need to get over that proprietary bs.

I think I just used the Lifehacker technique successfully!?! I am listening to the tunes through the computer...will have to see if I can burn CDs.

They're right, though, the organization of files is pretty wild. But, I think maybe it worked...

ETA: Oops...everything plays except the ones purchased from iTunes. I didn't purchase these, though. If I had, I think I could use the email account and password to add this computer to the list of 5 that they will let you play iTunes purchased stuff on. It appears, though, that I can listen to and burn all the stuff that came off disks, and maybe purchased through other sites.

I think we are in a similar situation. DH computer just crashed this weekend. We had an idea that it was coming and had purchased an external harddrive for him to back up his computer to, but we are unsure of our purchased i-tunes. Unfortunately, we have a lot because we have "i-tunes dates". We go get a $15 gift card and split it. We choose the music together. Basically, we spend an hour or so together looking at different music, but it is time together.

These ideas sound good. I should find out tomorrow if they will be able to recover anything from the hard disk. Fortunately I had backed up most of the important files, and figured there must be a way around the Ipod situation and once again TE comes to the rescue. I'll report back on what I end up doing and how well it works. Computers can be necessary evils sometimes.... Thanks for all the suggestions.

Martha

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Originally Posted by LainiePants

D

I use Winamp (it's free), which took some getting used to, but it doesn't mess with the digital protection BS that i-tunes does. If you can't get the music off with i-tunes (and i don't think you can...), you may want to try Winamp (or similar media player).

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iTunes is the suck. Winamp is GREAT. Plus it's free, drag and drop, no adds...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LainiePants

Do you use i-tunes?

I think there is a good chance that you can get the music off the ipod, but i-tunes can be a b-tch. I stopped using it a year ago cause it was...being mean ;)

I use Winamp (it's free), which took some getting used to, but it doesn't mess with the digital protection BS that i-tunes does.

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As a recording engineer who tried to make a living in the music business, with many friends trying to make a living in the music business, I take offense with calling protection of intellectual property "BS." Sorry.

If you go through the support on iTunes, they'll tell you how to transfer, or use a program called Senuti that will let you transfer your files.

Thanks for listening.

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Originally Posted by Pedal Wench

As a recording engineer who tried to make a living in the music business, with many friends trying to make a living in the music business, I take offense with calling protection of intellectual property "BS." Sorry.

If you go through the support on iTunes, they'll tell you how to transfer, or use a program called Senuti that will let you transfer your files.

Thanks for listening.

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I know many musicians, artists, writers, graphic designers, and so on. Some near and dear to my heart. One graphic designer had a piece of work "borrowed" and sees it on the side of delivery trucks, but never saw a penny for her work.

When someone you know gets their work ripped off, it really changes the way you see things.

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Originally Posted by KnottedYet

When someone you know gets their work ripped off, it really changes the way you see things.

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This happens a lot when people make copies of articles and use them for professional use, as opposed to ordering, and paying for, official reprints from the author(s), too.

there are a bunch of different programs out there (most freeware) that will allow you to copy the contents of your ipod back to your itunes library. I have about 10,000 songs in my library and was able to restore it after my HDD meltdown. you will lose your playlists, but retain the music.

google PC (or MAC) itunes transfer from ipod and you'll find some solutions.

fyi -- one of my best friends is the itunes pc software developer and he couldn't help me, but the web population knows what's going on.

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Originally Posted by Pedal Wench

I take offense with calling protection of intellectual property "BS." Sorry.

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We're not talking about PtP file sharing, we're talking about paying for downloads. If I pay the music company for a song I should be able to play it on any device.

That type of protectionism killed Betamax (which was technically a better format) and whatever DVD format that was that recently lost out.

I agree with zen.

I bought some downloaded music and found it wouldn't play on one of my devices.

I've gone back to wax cylinders.

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Originally Posted by zencentury

We're not talking about PtP file sharing, we're talking about paying for downloads. If I pay the music company for a song I should be able to play it on any device.

That type of protectionism killed Betamax (which was technically a better format) and whatever DVD format that was that recently lost out.

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You can play it on any device that supports AAC files, which, since you brought it up, is a better format than MP3, with a much better sound quality at the same bitrate than MP3.

You can also purchase even higher bitrate songs on iTunes that don't have any copy protection.