iPod Touch Recovery

June 4, 2009 9:31 AM

How to recover videos from an iPod Touch?

My video files were kept on an external HD, which has now bitten the dust. Does anyone have any experience with getting the videos back off the iPod and onto my PC?

posted by Kiwi to computers & internet (7 comments total)

PhoneView works for me.
posted by unixrat at 9:48 AM on June 4

Oops, just saw the 'PC' bit. Never mind.
posted by unixrat at 9:49 AM on June 4

On a regular iPod you can enable use as a drive, then browse the hidden directories with Windows explorer. Everything will have 4 letter names, but you can probably tell by file size which are videos. Just copy them off with explorer. You will need to change your explorer preferences to enable hidden and system files. I don't have a Touch, but hopefully it's the same.
posted by rfs at 11:52 AM on June 4

rfs: The Touch & iPhone don't present themselves like that.

The first way that comes to mind is jailbreaking then using rsync/ssh to copy everything. Though there are Windows utilities to view the Touch files, those didn't work for me.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:50 PM on June 4

There are probably much more elegant ways of doing this but if all else fails:

Google up on how to jailbreak the device and find a tutorial on how to SHH with WinSCP (you need to use the same wifi network with both your PC+iPod).

It's located in /var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music on the iPod.

They are stored in cryptic folders and four letter file names, ex: Folder: F13, file CLFK.m4v to discourage piracy so once they are copied just rename them.
posted by glenno86 at 2:10 PM on June 4

Copy Trans will backup your video files and music data from your Touch to your PC.
posted by lola at 8:15 PM on June 4

Thanks lola, Copy Trans did the business. A nice polished piece of software, that lets you see what is recoverable before you buy it.
posted by Kiwi at 2:23 AM on June 5