ipod.101

so my friend claire is having issues with her computer dying. =[

[something ive gone through a LOT in my days for those of you that know the whole story] and along with that shes lost all her music - major bummer! luckily ive always had my music backed up to my external harddrive, but for those of you that just have it on your ipod and dont know how to get it off, theres hope, and im here to help. i was inspired by her and a friend of her's dilema so i thought id lay it out pretty detailed for you guys - in hopes that you have some basic knowledge of your os.

so for those of you with pc's, heres how it works. [im afraid i dont have a mac, sadly, so im no help there, but maybe someday] theres a program you can download online, usually just from download.com and for pc users its called igadget. [or irobot, ipod transfer, etc. - they all do about the same thing]

1.download the free trial version and install it. now, theres a catch. they want you to actually use the software but with the trial versions they only let you transfer 1-3 songs at a time. ha, right! ive got 30 gigs on my ipod! so the trick is that it also installs a fix to your os for the ipod to let your computer recognize it as an external harddrive.  

2.open windows explorer and under your folder option youll need to turn on viewing hidden files, [for vista users click organize in your windows explorer, then folder options, then turn on viewing of hidden files - they moved this option after xp and i know it took me forever to find it in vista] and then open your ipod as a harddrive in windows explorer. 

3. now youll have to dig through the folders until you find the actual mp3's on the ipod. for my ipod the folder strings are as follows: ipod-control> music>[and then a number of folders numbered f00 - f50] now all of your song files are named bizarre stuff like FTH3 but they'll still have the .mp3 suffix, so you might not recognize them at first, but its the same mp3 i promise[my computer actually still displays all the artist info, etc in the folder, try turning on the details view in vista]. 

4.now then, grab all of these folders of mp3's [they may be broken up into a few dozen folders depending on how your ipod is organized and how much music you have] and copy/transfer all of those to your computer - i recommend putting them all in one folder on the desktop for easy finding.

5.now open itunes and go to: edit>options>advanced [if youre using the latest version of itunes anyway] then tell itunes to have it copy music into your itunes library folder and keep it organized. now save those preferences and clean out your library in itunes if there is one. 

6.then go to: file>add folder to library> and browse to find the location of all the oddly named files you just copied [to your desktop if you followed my advice]. now using the data embedded in the mp3, itunes will reload your library with fresh song info, album covers, you name it.  

7.when itunes is done copying everything over close it and you can now delete the original folder/folders [still on the desktop] with all the funky ipod named files and you SHOULD [i cant guarantee anything, technology is weird sometimes] retain all of the fresh copies in your itunes library. now open itunes and youre good to go!  

i know this all sounds a little complicated, but ive done it a couple of times and its worked perfectly for me. hopefully thats enough of a step by step instruction to get it done, but email me if you need more thorough info.

note:

i should warn you, that to do this the way ive described you will need to have at least twice the harddrive space as you have total gigs of music on your harddrive. i assume thats a given, but some people dont think about it before hand. if you dont have enough space then when itunes is adding to your library itll tell you youre out of room and screw the whole process up.

a fix for this is to actually place all the copied randomly named music directly into your itunes library in windows explorer [after cleaning it out first!] if youre doing it this way, DONT tell itunes to copy all the music into your itunes folder, but DO tell it to keep your music organized and then follow the same process for telling itunes where the music is [in your itunes library]. itunes SHOULD rename everything automatically and organize your library, but if the exess folders bug you, youll have to go delete them from the itunes folder in windows explorer.

well... i hope this helps you guys out. i dont claim to be any kind of ipod or computer guru, but i figured this out and thought it might help you guys if youre lost in despair and hopelessness over this conundrum.

good luck!