After hard drive crash cant restore itunes library off ipod

My hard drive cracked it and had to send off the whole computer and get a new one put in...so i have lost everything...after updating my mac to get all applications and program versions back to where they were but my itunes is empty of course...now i cant figure out how to get my songs from my ipod which is synced with the old HD. so how can i get the songs from my ipod to the new itunes?!?!

This question is the most often asked question on this forum. A simple search for "transfer iPod music to iTunes" brings up tens of thousands of threads. (I guess nobody knows how to use any kind of search? Google is your friend, and so is that search box to the upper-right.)
Anyway, since I'm too lazy to post more, Wired will help you instead.

Similar Messages

My hard drive crashed and my itunes library is gone--what do i do?

my daughter and i both have itunes library's on the same computer just under different user names.my hard drive crashed and now our itunes library's are gone. should i just download the latest version of itunes and then hook up my ipod to it?not sure what to do.

*should i just download the latest version of itunes and then hook up my ipod to it?not sure what to do.*
If your iPod is set to sync automatically with iTunes you need to take care connecting it to an empty library.
1). Connect your iPod to your computer. If it is set to sync automatically you'll get a message that it is linked to a different library and asking if you want to link to this one and replace all your songs etc, press "Cancel". Pressing "Erase and Sync" will irretrievably remove all the songs from your iPod.
Alternatively open iTunes first and go to Edit>Preferences>Devices and check the box "Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically" and choose Ok. Then connect your iPod.
2). When your iPod appears in the iTunes source list change the update setting to manual, that will let you continue to use your iPod without the risk of accidentally erasing it. Check the "manually manage music and videos" box in Summary then press the Apply button. Also when using most of the utilities listed below your iPod needs to be enabled for disc use, changing to manual update will do this by default: Managing content manually on iPod and iPhone
3). Once you are connected and your iPod is safely in manual mode there are a few things you can do to restore your iTunes from the iPod. iTunes will only give you the option to copy your iTunes Store purchases directly from an iPod to the computer, you'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
For everything else (music from CDs, other downloads etc) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
iTunes & iPod software
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
A selection of iPod to iTunes utilities:
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
YamiPod Mac and Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
4). Whichever of these retrieval methods you choose, keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync.
5). I would also advise that you get yourself an external hard drive and back your stuff up, relying on an iPod as your sole backup is not a good idea and external drives are comparatively inexpensive these days, you can get loads of storage for a reasonable outlay: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

Hard Drive Crashed... Library Files Not Recovered

The hard drive that contained my iTunes library crashed on me the other day. I have been able to recover all of the musical content from the drive but not the actual itunes.itl and .xml files or any recent versions. There are lot of .tmp files that I have recovered as well.
I also have a copy of some of my library on my iPod (auto sync wasn't turned on so it's not the whole library). What is the best way of recreating the library files? Is it safe to just create a new library and then drag and drop in all of my music? What effect will this have on syncing with my iPod?
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

+apart from updating the file paths+
Not sure what you mean by this, and it's important. itunes doesn't 'update' file paths. If both your old and new setup were using itunes defaults, it should be OK.
+just reimport the whole iTunes folder that I have recovered and would it just be a simple case of searching for duplicates and then deleting them out of the library?+
Also, it depends on your setting of "Keep itunes media folder organized".
If that is checked, you can reimport the itunes folder again and itunes will skip the exact duplicates. If it DOES make any dupes, they should be easy ti find using the Date Added field and Show Duplicates.

HT1473 I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. Now I cannot transfer the library from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer). How can I complete the transfer?

I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. When I try to transfer the content from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer), it would only let me transfer iTunes store purchases. How can I complete the transfer of all the content on the iPod back onto the computer?

Recover media from iPod
See this post for options on moving your iPod data back to your computer.
tt2

How do I unactivate after hard drive crash?

Just purchased an upgrade to CS6 Photoshop from CS3 Photoshop but hard drive crashed before I could uninstall it. How do I deactivate after hard drive crash? Do I need to or can I just load my full CS3 copy and then upgrade it to my new CS6?

You can just install CS6 directly. You will be prompted to enter your qualifying serial number from CS3 during the install process.

Can I create a "new" iTunes library on an external hard drive and transfer my iTune library to save space on my laptop

Can I create a "new" iTunes library on an external hard drive and transfer my iTune library to save space on my laptop hard drive

Yes. Just copy all your music to a folder on your external. Then delete the music on your computers hard drive.
It is not quite that simple. If you do that you will end up with many broken links and will have to re-create your library from scratch . iTunes does not like it when you move or rename files or folders and doing so between drives is guaranteed to result in exclamation marks indicating you have broken the links to all your media files.
If you are content with moving the whole library to an external drive (usually the best thing for most people), try:
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the library.

Restoring iTunes library after hard drive crash

The hard drive on my Macbook pro (mid-2009) crashed. I took it to the genius bar for a diagnostic. The drive was physically fine so they wiped it and reinstalled Mavericks, which is now running 10.9.4. I am restoring user files from Time Machine individually to keep things clean. Hooray!
I'm now running iTunes 10.3.1. Years ago, I placed the iTunes library in Users>Shared on the hard drive, so my wife could access the files when she logged in. We don't need to do that now, so today I dragged all the music files from Time Machine to the "Music" section on the iTunes window.
They seem to have installed and indexed fine, but I lost some of the original data--like date added and numbers of plays--which would be nice to have. (Then all now read as installed today with zero plays.) My playlists are all gone as well; I'd like to have them back.
Is there any way to restore the music so those things stay intact, by basically making my library the way it was?
I considered dragging the entire set of folders over from the Shared section of Time Machine, but was afraid the music would not index, and the folder structure and nomenclature was different (for example, it had iTunes Music instead of iTunes media and there were a couple other anomalies). I imagine this is because the Shared library was set up under a different version of iTunes.
I hope this doesn't further complicate things but my user name was changed at the genius bar (from what it was prior to crash); they added my last name to my user name. I didn't notice till I got home. So far I have had no trouble accessing the files I have dragged in (Numbers, Word, etc), but don't know if the permissions on the music files might be affected.
All help greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answers to all your questions are in the links below:
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
06/2014 ChrisCA post: Restore iTunes library from Time Machine backup - https://discussions.apple.com/message/26104480#26104480

How to restore itunes after hard drive crash

How do you restore your itunes library after my PC hard drive crashed?

Hi Toboggan,
If you are looking to restore your iTunes data from a backup, you may find the following article useful (while it is focused on moving between computers, many of the steps should also apply to your situation):
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Regards,
- Brenden

Any way to get music from ipod back into library after hard drive crash?

I just survived and am recovering from a hard drive crash. For some reason, on my backup, I only retained about 500 of my 2500 songs in my library. All of my music is intact on the ipod however. Is there any way at all to resolve this issue and get the music from the ipod into the libary, or in the alternative, any way to back up the stuff on the ipod? Thanks.

Connect your iPod to your computer. If it is set to update automatically you'll get a message that it is linked to a different library and asking if you want to link to this one and replace all your songs etc, press "Cancel". Pressing "Erase and Sync" will irretrievably remove all the songs from your iPod. When your iPod appears in the iTunes source list change the update setting to manual, that will let you use our iPod without the risk of accidentally erasing it. Check the "manually manage music and videos" box in Summary then press the Apply button. Also when using most of the utilities listed below your iPod needs to be enabled for disc use, changing to manual update will do this by default: Managing content manually on iPod and iPhone
Once you are safely connected there are a few things you can do to restore your iTunes from the iPod. If you have any iTunes Music Store purchases the transfer of purchased content from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
The transfer of content from sources such as songs imported from CD is designed by default to be one way from iTunes to iPod. However there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. Have a look at the web pages and documentation, this is just a small selection of what's available, they are generally quite straightforward. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
SharePod Windows Only
iPodRip Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac and Windows
Music Rescue Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible - Windows version only)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
Whichever of these retrieval methods you choose, keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync. I would also advise that you get yourself an external hard drive and back your stuff up, relying on an iPod as your sole backup is not a good idea and external drives are comparatively inexpensive these days, you can get loads of storage for a reasonable outlay.

Recovering after a hard drive crash and restore

I have a question before I sync my iPod again;
I had a operating system hard drive crash a little while ago, and I reimaged my drive with a three month old backup, basically I rolled back my computer's state a couple months, and with it, the state of my iTunes library.
Now, my library is going to be missing songs that my iPod has, does this mean when I sync my iPod again iTunes is going to delete those songs it doesn't know about anymore? I don't recall seeing the option to "manually manage" the iPod anymore, but even in that case does this mean I can't automatically sync again?
I understand that I can't use iTunes to pull songs off my iPod but thats not what I want. Essentially I want to rebuild my iTunes library list from what the iPod has, even if it can't find the songs on the local disk anymore, I just don't want them deleted.
Maybe I'm approaching this problem the wrong way..

Hi there,
I'm struggling with the exact same issue, so I'm hoping you get a response soon from someone who knows what the g-o may be... I did sync my iPod after my hard drive crashed, but I had iTunes already configured to 'manually manage' my music, so it didn't clear my entire iPod. I'm just scared of accidentally deleting certain music off my iPod playlist that I didn't burn onto disc & so I'd lose it for good.
Let's hope someone's got an idea...

Lost hard drive -- need to restore iTunes song library from iPod

i recently purchased my first iPod and downloaded iTunes to my PC. I then loaded 850 songs from my collection of CDs. Shortly after, my hard drive crashed - completely unrecoverable. I bought a new PC (laptop) with Vista. Now i need to reload iTunes. Can i download all of my songs from my iPod onto my newly installed iTunes? I'm afraid that when I "synch" I will lose everything on my iPod since nothing will be in my iTunes library. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

do this:
To display hidden files and folders
Open Folder Options in Control Panel.
Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click Folder Options.
On the View tab, under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.
Close the window and go to My Computer again.
1. Click on your iPod's drive and go to iPod_Control
2. Click now on Music and you'll see a few folders titled F00, F01, F02, etc.
3. Click on a folder and highlight all the music, and drag them to Library in iTunes. You should now have all the music syncing, and most will be named correctly, but still some you will have to rename
**Also, it helps to have the second checkbox in Edit>Preferences>Advanced checked so that it makes a copy of your music file to an independent iTunes Music Folder.**
~~This being useful in that you'll be able to play all your music without having to have the iPod plugged in~~
Does this help???
Message was edited by: TMusquiez
Message was edited by: TMusquiez

Rebuilding library after hard drive crash AND sound quality of iPod files?

Hi all,
I had a hard drive crash and hadn't done a back-up in awhile. My iPod was up-to-date though. I used third-party software to grab the music off the iPod. So now I a good portion of my library back up to another hard drive AND the entire library pulled off my iPod. Should I just direct iTunes to the files I pulled off the iPod or direct it to the backup and add the missing files from my iPod files? Clear as mud?
Also what will be the sound quality of the files I pulled from the iPod?

If you copied the files from the iPod to a folder on your computer then open iTunes and go to File>Add Folder to library and add the songs back into iTunes (or simply drag the folder from it's location to the iTunes Source pane, - the long pane on the left. They should sound fine since they are simply copies of the originals. Before you add them check your iTunes preferences, go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and make sure the boc "Copt files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked.

Replacing library after hard drive crash

My hard drive crashed and I had no back up. I'm trying to create a new library on my iPod. I can download songs into a new library in iTunes but it won't let met download it to my iPod. The old library remains on my iPod and can only be played on the iPod not in iTunes (the library is grayed out in iTunes). How do I delete the old library off the iPod and then download the new library onto the iPod without losing everything?

WHen you connect the ipod are you getting any messages? Usually in these cases you get a message and need to hit NO because if you hit YES it wipes the ipod clean.
Or are you connecting the ipod while holding shift and ctrl keys?

After hard drive crash I needed to authorise my pc again. itunes tells me iphone cannot sync as pc not authorised. when I try to authorise the pc, itunes tells me pc is already authorised... what can i do?

After a recent hard drive crash I needed to authorise my pc again. I first de-authorised all previous computers (there was no other option)
Then I authorised the pc with the new hard drive.
then I tried to sync
Then itunes tells me iphone cannot sync as pc not authorised.
when I try to authorise the pc, itunes tells me pc is already authorised...
I have been playing this game 10 times now ... "cannot sync because pc not authorised" and then "cannot authorise as already authorised"
what can i do?
thanks

yes, a few times. the number of authorised computers decreases and increases from zero to one and vice versa accordingly. yet I am still being told that it cannot sync.

How do I restrore iTunes content after hard drive crash?

My hard drive crashed and had to be replaced. How do I restore my content without having to pay again? I did burn
a lot of it to CD but I hadn't gotten around to doing with most recent purchases. Thanks.

Take a look at Option 3 here:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Quickly_reconnecting_large

After hard drive crash cant restore itunes library off ipod

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for