Damaged hard disk = erased music library?

Oh god, oh god, oh god, my hard disk's been damaged and I'll slit my throat if my music is gone. I will. Please help! I don't know if it'll erase my music, or f it does, if there's any way to get it back. I don't have iCloud or anything like that so please, for the love of god, HELP.

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

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What is done with damaged hard disks when replaced by Apple?

Wondering if anyone knows what the security policy and process is that is followed by Apple when a damaged hard disk is replaced by Apple. Is the disk destroyed, or demagnetized. How do we know that the data on the disk is will not be accessed and copied anywhere? Is there a stated policy document available somewhere in the Apple Store that discusses this ? Thanks.

How do we know that the data on the disk is will not be accessed and copied anywhere?
We don't. If privacy is a concern, and you can't wipe the drive, destroy it.

IPod intact; hard disk erased!

Yikes...long story short: the helpful people at Dell had me completely erase and reformat my hard disk. Everything was basically inaccessible at the time, so I couldn't save anything anyway.
Problem is this: the iPod mini is about half full. I'm afraid that since there is zero in my library, when I go to add an album I'll lose everything on the iPod. Am I worrying needlessly? Advice? Suggestions? Commiseration?
Thanks!!
hikinghigh

hikinghigh,
These links will give you several methods of recovering whatever songs remain on your iPod; some free, some third-party software, some more comprehensive for restoring playlists, ratings, playcounts, etc. Read them and their associated links before deciding on a strategy that works for you. There are many various third-party software programs that will offer a more robust process, or an easier GUI. Do a Google search for them if the links below leave you wanting…
Don King Resurrected: Deleted files from hard drive (free user steps – music recovery only)
MacMuse: Computer Crashed (free user steps – music recovery only)
Copying music from iPod to computer (a primer on various methods and software)
Copying Songs from Your iPod to a Mac or PC (resource for 3rd party software)
iPodRip Software
PodUtil Software
XPlay (Software For Music Recovery &/or Cross-Platform Functionality)
XPlay Photo Browser (For recovering Photos)
After recovering your song files, strongly consider developing a thorough backup strategy for just this type of situation.
You need at least three sets of your music:
-- One full set on the PC within iTunes (on internal HD or ExHD)
-- One full set on an separate external backup medium (CD/DVD/ExHD/other)
-- One (full or partial) set on the iPod
Music files on just the iPod and the computer is not considered having any backup. If you cannot store your complete music files on the computer, then create and maintain two external sets.
Backup both the music files and the Library database file (iTunes Library.itl). What are the iTunes Library files?
Here is a post on developing a backup strategy: http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=394618&messageID=1263275

Broken Hard Disk, lost iTunes library

Recently my hard disk stop working. So I lost my iTunes library. It was practically empty since I manually managed all songs.
So now I have to create a new library but when I try to check the option "Manually manage music and videos" iTunes ask me to format my iphone.
Why should it delete the iphone content? Will I loose all my apps?

iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only media purchased from iTunes Store
Sync transfer is one way, computer to device, matching the device content to the content on the computer (except purchased content as mentioned above). For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you have to use third party commercial software. Examples (check the web for others; this is not an exhaustive listing, nor do I have any idea if they are any good):
- MusicRescue - http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/ - Mac & Windows
- Sharepod (free) - http://download.cnet.com/SharePod/3000-2141_4-10794489.html?tag=mncol;2 - Windows
- Snowfox/iMedia - http://www.mac-videoconverter.com/imedia-transfer-mac.html - Mac & PC
- Post by Zevoneer: iPod media recovery options - https://discussions.apple.com/message/11624224 - this is an older post and many of the links are also for old posts, so bear this in mind when reading them.
Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
In general do not regard your i-device as a reliable unique storage for your media. It is not a backup device and everything is structured around you maintaining a backup of your media on a computer backup.

Erased music library Can songs be recovered

Relatively new to IPODS. Created music library with a computer that I do not have easy access to. I installed the software on computer that I do have access to and mistakenly erased all of my songs off of my IPOD mini. Can I recover those songs without access to the original computer? via the itunes website? How do I get the songs that I purchased? Is it possible to copy song files from the original computer to a disk or e-mail them to me at my current location? Do I need to send the IPOD to the old computer to download from the harddrive. Help?

See this link: Buegie, "Help! Can you undelete?" #1, 12:56pm Oct 9, 2005 CDT
Just do a bit of research before you attempt to recover the deleted songs. Sometimes it works, othertimes it may not work as well....
Edit: Emailing the files will be too large. You can have them uploaded to a fileserver if you have the availability, then download them to your new computer. Better to have them burned to a CD or DVD and forwarded to you.

Cracked Hard Drive, Lost Music Library.

This one is a bit of a doozy, and was previously left unanswered months ago. So far, it seems I've exhausted all that the Apple Support and Google searches can offer. My goal, as stated in the title, is to get a set of old music onto a old replacement hard drive and my iPod Touch.
The conflict that started it all was the hard drive that held my music cracked and failed to recover any data. Since then, I have had to replace the hard drive in my MacBook Pro with an older hard drive that currently is running OS X 10.6.8
To add insult to injury, my disc drive is incapable of reading my CDs, probably due to the damage the computer took in the same instance as the cracked hard drive.
The only remaining files I have for my music lay in my very outdated, very low-charge 30GB iPod Classic that I cannot use unplugged. What I thought I needed to do is mount my iPod Classic onto the desktop and replace the iTunes library with the one in my iPod as the official support recommends. However, whether it be the outdated iPod model or that I am running 10.6.8, I cannot see or find a disk mounted anywhere on the computer.
If anyone has any helpful pointers, it would be greatly appreciated to let them be known to me. Thanks in advance, and if any other spec details are needed, I can offer them at any time.

[Discussion: Zevoneer's post on replacing music downloaded from iTunes music Store|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8794716] - basically it is up to the individual to ensure their music is backed up against loss.
Actually your music is still around, it is on the old hard drive. Do you still have that?
Purely at Apple's discretion they may possibly allow a one time second download, but you have to contact them about that.

Can I restore my accidentally erased music library from iTunes match?

I was making room on my external drive for my back up, when I erased the Time Machine back ups as well as my iTunes library. Is there a way of bringing my library back from iTunes Match?

Hi,
I presume that you did not not delete your iTunes library from within iTunes. Can you recover from trash? Also why did you manually delete your time machine backup? Time machine manages your hard drive space and removes older backups when more space is required.
If you have iTunes Match, open iTunes and turn on match.
If you see the tracks listed and you see the " ! ", delete all tracks but don't delete from cloud. Highlight tracks and download. If you see the tracks with download icon, highlight tracks and download.
Jim

Hard disk faild, iTunes library gone

I had move all my library to a external hard drive but it broke down. tryed to have it repair but it was imposible. the sad thing is that the hard drive was supouse to be my back ut. is there a way i can get my songs and apps back without me having to buy them allover again?

Yes, all your purchased music and apps can be recovered. Once you get your new computer (or hard drive), simply sign in to iTunes using your Apple ID and password. From iTunes' help:
Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store
You can download many types of content previously purchased from the iTunes Store to your devices and authorized computers. This way, you can add items to your devices and computers without having to sync or copy files. It’s also useful if your iTunes files are lost or deleted for any reason.
Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store.
Note: Some types of previously purchased content might not be available in some countries.
HideDownload previous iTunes Store purchases to an authorized computer
Click iTunes Store near the top of the iTunes window.
Click the Purchased link at the right of the iTunes Store homepage (below Quick Links).
In the page that appears, select a category.iTunes shows you which of your purchases are available for download. You can view all of your past purchases, or just the ones not currently in your iTunes library. Items already in your library aren’t available for download.If you select Music, you can view your purchases by song, artist, or album. If you’re viewing by album, click an album to see which songs on it are available for downloading.To search for an item, type its name or a keyword in the search field, and then press the Return key to view your search results.
To download an item, click its Download button .To download all available items, click Download All.
You can also download previously purchased music, movies, and TV shows by clicking the Download button next to an item in your iTunes library.
To hide previous purchases you haven’t downloaded yet, choose View > Hide Music in the Cloud. This also hides any iTunes Match songs you haven’t downloaded.
You can download previous purchases on a total of up to ten devices and computers, combined. You can authorize up to five computers at a time with an Apple ID.
To find out how to download previous purchases to your iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad, see the documentation for your device.

Damaged hard disk or? error 1429 has anyone seen it before

we are a big family all having iPods of different generations…
My husband has been complaining lately on his 3G so had a look the other day and reset it but today it had gone unmanageable blinking apple/folder-icon. Resetting wouldn't work so I connected to computer and iTunes said damage on harddisk and suggested restore - but restoring only end with message "unkown error 1429". I made an effort and put in a new battery but it made no difference.
Before giving up, I can't even turn it off, I'd like to know if some had a similar problem/error message? And solved it??
He had it for X-mas 03. Will he have a new iPod for X-mas 06?
Cheers
Viveka
15 Alu, homeLAN with intel iMac, 17 iMac, 14 iBook G4, & Strawberry iMac Mac OS X (10.4.7) iPods x 4, bonjour printer & wifi sound

Nope. Trying to see it from the positive side. It solves a X-mas present problem as buying a new is better prize value than sending it for repair…
Merry X-mas!
ps But let me know if you find a solution. I am waiting for the battery to get emptied to find out if a real restart could improve the status. Though, I really know I did this when changing the batteries.
Regards from a blond and persistent Scandinavian!
Viveka

Bluetooth damage hard drives?

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone could please tell me whether or not it's true that the inbuilt Bluetooth module and Bluetooth devices can damage hard disk drives? Should I leave Bluetooth switched off if I want to prevent damage to my hard drive?
Thanks in advance,
Stu
P.S. Is it also true that mobile phones can cause damage to hard drives? Thanks

There is no truth to the idea that the electro-magnetic force generated by built-in or add-on Bluetooth adapters, or mobile handsets or smartphones equipped with Bluetooth, can damage a hard disk or the data stored on it.
You might consider leaving Bluetooth switched off for security reasons or to conserve battery power, but turning it off will not protect your drive or data from damage due to EMF. It simply is not a problem.

"Ghost" System folder on internal hard disk.

I have a mid-2010 iMac with a 120 SSD (used for the operating system, primary applications and documents) and a 1 TB internal hard disk for seldom-used applications, documents and movies. Although everything works reasonably well, the Hard Disk keeps creating a System folder on the internal Hard Disk with a Library folder, which in turn holds some Caches. If I delete this System folder on the Hard Disk by way of Cocktail, the computer simply creates it again. Is this normal?

Hey Allan...
I assure you, these audio related cards are very much
completely real and assuredly non-mythical!
They are:
A MOTU PCI-424 card, which is a proprietary card for running multitrack MOTU audio interfaces.
A Universal Audio UAD-1 card, which is a piggy-backing DSP card that runs audio plug-ins.
This is the main computer in a recording studio that I
run. My initial plan was to have two separate internal
drives that are identical, so that if one drive were to
die, I could immediately reboot from the other system
and have almost no down time.
I was asking about this on an audio related board and
someone made the point that having multiple instances
of system software might be causing a problem.
As a workaround, I think instead I will load an extra
internal SATA drive and just keep it in a box, waiting
where I can just pop it in if the system drive fails.
I've tried everything and the PCI cards don't show up
under system "A", if the drive with system "B" is also
mounted. I don't know if there's any tricky workaround
to this... mounting drives in a different order maybe?
I'm not heavily tech-savvy, so I think the easiest option
is just having a separate replacement drive rather than
using one of the drives that is always mounted.
Let me know if you think of anything though...
Best,
Fred

To merge music library ?

-I had an iPod synchronized music library into a Windows laptop.
-I have switched to a brand new MacBook Pro.
-All my musics are in my iPod
-When I try to export my iPod music library into my MacBook iTunes library with manual synchro, I have only choice to ERASE music library in my iPod...
I need to MERGE iPod library (full) with MacBook library (empty) : but how to ask this "one time" action ?
Or perhaps it is not the good way to realize this operation ?
Thanks by advance for your help...

Can't you backup your itunes library from your pc (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382 or http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751) and restore it on your new mac?
If you have an ipod touch, you can't transfer your music back, unless you bought it in the Store and use "transfer purchases" in the File menue in itunes.
You can also use 3rd party software like http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy or similar to copy your media content back.

My hard disk crashed and the backup of my library was not saved. Fortunatly my music files are on a seperate server. How can I sync my Playlists back in my library?

My hard disk crashed and the backup of my library was not saved. Fortunatly my music files are on a seperate server. How can I sync my Playlists back in my library?

Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive: Apple Support Communities

Moving a music library from one external hard drive / disk to another

My music library is already on an external hard drive and I want to move it to another external hard drive (along with the music filkes). I have follwed the standard setps of chaning the itunes folder location, keeping my itunes folder organised etc. When I come to consolidate my library it doesnt find anything or copy anything accross? Is it just looking on my MAC drive do you think? How can I get it to look on my 1st external hard disk?
Getting fed up with this now - must be the 4th time I've had to move libraries from one machine / disk to another and each time I always end up having to re rate music, or have lots of duplicates etc.

Hey,
There's a really good guide to moving your iTunes Library to an external hard disk on Lifehacker...
Here's the link... http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
Cheers
Rosco
proposed | solution

Music Files Deleted After Hard Disk Failure and First Sync After Hard Disk

Hi,
I recently had a hard disk failure and lost all of the data on my hard drive. I replaced the hard drive and reinstalled all of the software including iTunes. I am running Windows XP Home. The first time I plugged my iPod Nano into my computer after the hard drive replacement it synced to iTunes and since iTunes had no music files it deleted all of the music files on my Nano. How do I get them back and why on earth would iTunes do such a stupid thing??? My Nano contained many songs that I bought from iTunes and I want to get them back. I have found some third party software that will undelete the deleted files but it costs $69. I don't feel that I should have to pay to correct a defective feature in iTunes. Does Apple have an undelete utility? Can I redownload the songs that I purchased from iTunes?

*The first time I plugged my iPod Nano into my computer after the hard drive replacement it synced to iTunes*
When you connected did you get a message that your iPod was linked to another library, and then press Erase and Sync? When an iPod is set to update automatically and you connect to a computer with an empty iTunes and accept the message above it will erase the originals completely (as you have discovered). Also as you've seen, none of the recovery programs are particularly cheap so you have to decide if in your particular circumstances it's worth it to get your songs back. It may be if you have a lot of purchased tracks which you will have to pay to download again. If they came primarily from your CDs then it's most likely not as you can re-rip them.
*Can I redownload the songs that I purchased from iTunes?*
If you didn't make a back-up of your purchases to restore from then I'm sorry to say that the policy on lost purchases is that you have to pay to download them again:
"Once a Product is purchased and you receive the Product, it is your responsibility not to lose, destroy, or damage the Product, and Apple shall be without liability to you in the event of any loss, destruction, or damage." iTunes Store: Purchased content can be downloaded only once
You could try contacting the iTunes Music Store Customer Service and you might be able to persuade them to sanction a second free download. There have been occasional reports in the iTunes forum of this happening, however just be aware that they are not under any obligation to do so. If you click on any of the links on this page you'll find a space at the bottom to email your query: iTMS Customer Service

Damaged hard disk = erased music library?

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