All I need is a touch.

June 19, 2011 6:38 PM

So, my iPod touch died and I'm having problems getting a new one working.

About a week ago, my iPod touch (Gen 2, iOS 3) stopped responding to my caress. Screen would turn on, would sync normally, but couldn't interact with it. I restarted it, synced it, restored it, resynced it, bought a new faceplate from iFixit with which to replace the seemingly defective one, but all with no success.

This would not be a big deal, except a lot of my work life is on there - I was using it as a PDA. It is all backed up in iTunes, but of course I can't access stuff there.

Next step: Use my wife's old iPod touch (Gen 3, iOS 4) - except it's too up to date to sync with my old powerbook. I tried downgrading the OS on my wife's computer, but attempts we met with an error along the line of "is not compatible with this firmware." I used firmware from felixbruns.de and iClarified, but none of it works.

My question is, how can I get a functional iPod touch with my information on it, short of buying a new laptop, or used Touch? At my disposal:
- a non functioning ipod touch Gen 2, iOS 3, as above
- a functioning ipod touch Gen 3, iOS 4
- Powerbook G4 with iTunes 9.1.1
- About year old Macbook with up to date iTunes (wife using it currently, otherwise I'd give actual versions)

posted by deliquescent to technology (4 answers total)

You can extract all the information contained in your itunes backup with this free program
posted by Poet_Lariat at 6:46 PM on June 19, 2011

Did you try a hard reset of the non-functional iPod? (Hold down the Home and Sleep buttons for ten seconds, until the Apple logo reappears.)

You should also be able to take the functional iPod and plug it into your wife's computer, restoring it with a previous backup of your non-functional iPod.

Copy iPod backups from your computer's /Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/ folder to your wife's computer (make a backup of her folder first) and you should be able to restore from her computer.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:51 PM on June 19, 2011

I tried the hard reset before replacing the front plate, nothing.

So last night I tried copying the mobile sync folder, and it offered to restore from "ipod touch" which I did, and it spent about 5 min restoring it, but when I turned it on it didn't have any of my apps. Can I copy my apps over, or do I need to buy them again?
posted by deliquescent at 4:33 AM on June 20, 2011

You shouldn't need to buy your apps again. Check this article from the Apple KB: Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore and iTunes Store.
posted by Georgina at 6:50 AM on June 20, 2011