[April1983]

Hello - I was wondering if anybody could help me. I am OK technically, but no Bill Gates!

I am the proud lady owner of a 60GB IPOD which I have proudly amassed 8065 songs. All of these tunes are also backed up in I-Tunes on my Laptop.

This evening, the Laptop died its final death, leaving me with the IPOD, but now unable to access my collection of tunes.

Fortunately, we also have another PC in the house, and I installed I-Tunes off the internet this evening. However, when I plug the IPOD into the PC, the I-Tunes does not recognise the IPOD. With me so far?!

Could anybody please help me with the following:

1 - is there something really simple that I am not doing to make my IPOD compatible with the PC?

2 - can I add songs to the I-Tunes on the PC without having to lose everything that is already installed onto the IPOD?

3 - is it possible to put the tunes that are currently in the IPOD onto the PC?

Sorry if these questions are a little but remedial, but my level of expertise extends pretty much to operating the 'Shuffle' function!

Many thanks

April

[ghporter]

1) Use the iPod's installation CD to install the software-not just iTunes-on the PC. But DON'T PLUG THE iPOD IN UNTIL YOU HAVE RECOVERED YOUR SONGS!!! By default iTunes is set up to make the iPod match what iTunes has, so it will basically erase what's on your iPod unless you've recovered your songs.

2) Yes, but only after you've recovered your songs.

Now here's the hard part: you probably need to get the hard drive out of the dead laptop and mount it in some kind of external case you can plug into the other PC so you can recover the data. That may not be an easy task...

3) Yes, there is a way to get the songs out of your iPod, but it's a pain. You can use EphPod to download the songs, but you'll have to reorganize ALL of your songs, including arranging them in proper folders. With tons of songs, it gets to be a real pain.

[ort888]

You're not totally screwed... just a little screwed.

There are 3rd party applications that allow you to get the music on your iPod back onto a computer. HOWEVER. Once an iPod is formatted for Mac or PC you cannot get it to work with the other one without wiping the hard drive and reformatting it. Whatever you do, DO NOT reformat your iPod to work on the PC until you have retrieved your songs.

I'm not sure what your best bet will be here, but there is a solution out there. Do you know a nice person with a Mac, lots of Hard drive space, a DVD burner and some time? That's really what you need.

Extract all of the songs onto someone's Mac, burn them to DVD and transfer them to your PC. Then reformat the iPod and resync.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only way to do this. Otherwise, you might want to try and send in the laptop hard disk and see if the drive can be saved.

[ort888]

Are any of the songs from the online iTunes store? Because that could complicate things a little.

[icruise]

Ort888 -- I think you are mistakenly thinking that the iPod is Mac formatted. She didn't say anything about that.

ghporter -- Why would she need to manually reorganize her library if she used EphPod? Can't she just drag her songs into the new copy of iTunes and have iTunes copy everything neatly to new folders based on the ID3 tags? Of course, this will require enough hard disk space to hold the songs twice, but just temporarily.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Icruise

Ort888 -- I think you are mistakenly thinking that the iPod is Mac formatted. She didn't say anything about that.

She said that her PC isn't recognizing the iPod - the most likely reason for this would be the iPod being Mac-formatted.

April, where do you live? Perhaps if you don't know anyone else with a Mac and a large hard drive that could help you out, someone in here might be in the same area as you and could lend a hand.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

She said that her PC isn't recognizing the iPod - the most likely reason for this would be the iPod being Mac-formatted.

April, where do you live? Perhaps if you don't know anyone else with a Mac and a large hard drive that could help you out, someone in here might be in the same area as you and could lend a hand.

No, the most likely reason is that she hasn't installed the iPod software for her PC. If you don't install that software, nothing will happen when you plug in the iPod.

She never mentions the Mac anywhere in her post and even says "Fortunately, we also have another PC in the house..." Now it's possible to refer to a Mac as a PC, I guess. But I see no reason to assume that her laptop was a Mac.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Icruise

She never mentions the Mac anywhere in her post and even says "Fortunately, we also have another PC in the house..." Now it's possible to refer to a Mac as a PC, I guess. But I see no reason to assume that her laptop was a Mac.

Well, she is posting in a Mac forum...

[icruise]

Let's just wait and see, shall we?

[April1983]

I think 'I Cruise' is getting at it. Neither the laptop or PCs are Macs - just standard computers.

I-Tunes is installed on both, but when the IPOD is plugged into the back of the PC it is not recognised. All I really want to be able to do is:

1 - get the PC to recognise the IPOD (in normal speak!)

2 - as the laptop is dead, use the PC to add / delete songs from the IPOD without having to lose everything that is currently on the IPOD.

As you can probably tell, I am absoltely paranoid about pressing the wrong button and losing everything!

Thanks for all your help (so far!!)

April

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by April1983

I think 'I Cruise' is getting at it. Neither the laptop or PCs are Macs - just standard computers.

Ah, my bad. I guess I should have made the connection when you said the laptop was dead.

I don't do this kind of Windows driver hassle, so someone else is going to have to help you get your iPod to show up...

[icruise]

Originally Posted by April1983

I-Tunes is installed on both, but when the IPOD is plugged into the back of the PC it is not recognised. All I really want to be able to do is:

Before I start, it's an iPod, and not an IPOD.

1 - get the PC to recognise the IPOD (in normal speak!)

On the mac, you just need to have iTunes installed to use the iPod, but on Windows you need both iTunes and the iPod setup software. I believe this is what you need. Once you've installed this and restarted the computer, you can plug in your iPod and iTunes will start up. A message will appear saying that the iPod is linked to another music library, and asking if you want to change the link over to this computer. You want to press NO, because pressing YES will erase your iPod.

2 - as the laptop is dead, use the PC to add / delete songs from the IPOD without having to lose everything that is currently on the IPOD.

Next download Ephpod and install it. This program allows you to access the songs on your iPod without using iTunes. You can use it to copy all of the songs off of the iPod and on to your other PC's hard disk. Of course, you'll need enough room to store them all.

It would probably be simplest to just copy them to the default location for iTunes music, which is Documents and Settings/USERNAME/My Documents/My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/. Just remember that adding music to this folder isn't enough to get it to show up in iTunes. You will also have to add the music to your iTunes library. To do this, just drag the "iTunes Music" folder into the iTunes window. All the songs should then appear in your iTunes library. I'd test this process out with a few artists first to make sure you understand how it works, then copy all your music.

Once you have definitely copied all the music off of the iPod and into iTunes, you can then plug it back into your computer and say YES when it asks you if you want to pair it with the new computer. But don't do this until you're sure you've got everything. I think that's basically the whole process right there. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Randman]

iPod.
iTunes.
Mac (PCs is a term almost solely used for computers running Windows, which led to the confusion).
Finally, it's not a matter of life and death. Nowhere close.

icruise advice's above is sound. Just don't reformat before getting your music files back.

And when you get them back, get an external drive and backup all of the music. And, burn the music to DVDs (4.7GB per disc which a good amount of music). You can never have too many backups. Anything that isn't backed up should be something that you have no problem with if it were to be lost forever.

[Screwball]

Hi guys,

There is a U2 Special Edition iPod, i'd like to copy text on.How does the story go??
If something is as urgent as life or death, then this is it

[ort888]

The iLounge.com forums have a specific area for Windows help. If the above advice doesn't work out for ya, I suggest trying them out. We're a bunch of Mac guys over here. That's why we (I) assumed you also had a Mac.

[wowway1]

Great thread, should be stuck in my opinion, thanks for the help!

[tooki]

Originally Posted by ort888

...Once an iPod is formatted for Mac or PC you cannot get it to work with the other one without wiping the hard drive and reformatting it...

Correction: a Mac-formatted iPod cannot be read readily by Windows. Macs can use Windows- and Mac-formatted iPods with no configuration.

tooki