What is the easiest way to transfer all my music from ipod to my new hard drive?

January 31, 2010 4:23 PM

My hard drive on my dell laptop (inspiron E1705 - running windows vista) just crashed deleting my itunes library. I got a new a hard drive and have my music still saved on my 120 gig ipod (newest generation). What is the easiest way to transfer all my music from ipod to my new hard drive?
posted by AZNsupermarket to computers & internet (12 answers total)

As far as my experiences go, you can't transfer from ipod to computer - ever.

That said, hopefully, someone else will have better options, but your best bet would be to re-rip your cds, or borrow the cds you don't have from the library or, you know, other places.
posted by Kimothy at 4:44 PM on January 31, 2010

Try YamiPod.
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:45 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Floola lets you transfer songs and videos off and on an iPod easily.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:45 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not tried it with every model of iPod out there, but for the 2-3 different models I've owned what I did was have it enabled for disk use, plug it in, go to folder options and tick the "show hidden folders / system folders" box.

There's an invisible folder that the iPod uses to store the music... iTunes will have renamed the mp3 names to some gibberish, but that doesn't matter because the id3 tags will still be functional. Copy that all to your HDD and add it to iTunes, then consolidate library.
posted by xdvesper at 6:12 PM on January 31, 2010

Try sharepod
posted by wabbittwax at 7:10 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

On a Mac, I'd reccomend Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards.)
On a PC, I've heard good things about Music Rescue.
posted by raygan at 7:12 PM on January 31, 2010

winamp used to have an ipod plugin. Would also let you transfer music from the ipod to the computer.
posted by defcom1 at 8:37 PM on January 31, 2010

My experience has just been to log in to iTunes and authorize your computer. Then plug in your iPod and sync. Itunes will inform you, you can only sync to one library at a time, and ask if you would like to sync with this computer. Agree, and it will transfer from your iPod to the new computer.

Maybe I'm missing something though since there are all these 3rd party apps...
posted by NeonBlueDecember at 9:55 PM on January 31, 2010

if your willing to pay then copytrans works beautifully.

www.copytrans.com
posted by majortom1981 at 4:13 AM on February 1, 2010

I went with sharepod because it seemed like the most straight-forward program. Thanks for all the suggestions!
posted by AZNsupermarket at 8:12 PM on February 2, 2010

Sharepod seems to working much better than I ever expected. Thanks wabbittwax for making this experience far less painful than originally expected.
posted by AZNsupermarket at 8:56 PM on February 2, 2010

no problem. I've enjoyed using it myself many times.
posted by wabbittwax at 8:26 PM on February 3, 2010