[Gee4orce]

I don't know what happened, but I opened iTunes last night to import a CD and - whoa ! - my whole library was GONE! I still have the actual .AAC and .MP3 files, but the whole iTunes library - playlists, song ratings, play counts, that kind of thing is all gone :0

I don't want to loose all that - many of my smart playlists depend on song ratings and play counts. I was wondering if there's any way of getting that meta data - not the songs, but the info about the songs - back from my iPod and re-installing it into iTunes ?

I'm guessing if I just try to synch my iPod with iTunes now it will tell me that I've never synched this one before, and wipe all the files on it.

I think the cause of this was because someone force-rebooted the machine whilst I was logged in under multi-users. Does anyone know if there's a possiblity the old libary file has been saved somewhere else ?

[wataru]

I have a first generation iPod, and everything I have ever seen or read about how it handles songs leads me to believe that ratings, playcounts, and last played dates are NOT stored on the iPod.

[Gee4orce]

Originally posted by wataru:
I have a first generation iPod, and everything I have ever seen or read about how it handles songs leads me to believe that ratings, playcounts, and last played dates are NOT stored on the iPod.

No, I have a second generation iPod and it DEFINATELY stores things like ratings (because you can change them on the iPod) and play counts (because they increment back in iTunes when you do a synch), and play dates (because I can see when I listened to whilst I drove to work) !

[Graymalkin]

Ratings and playcount are stored in the iTunes/iPod library files.

[Tsilou B.]

If your song ratings are worth $29 to you, you could buy this application:

iPod.iTunes

It will restore your complete library, but I think it's really expensive.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
No, I have a second generation iPod and it DEFINATELY stores things like ratings (because you can change them on the iPod) and play counts (because they increment back in iTunes when you do a synch), and play dates (because I can see when I listened to whilst I drove to work) !

I was only talking about the first generation iPods. I have no experience with newer ones.

[iBean]

Try PodWorks
Works like a charm. Good luck!