Dead computer. What happens to my music?

i-Tunes and all my music was on the hard disk of my laptop which has now died and in trying to revive it I hace had to wipe the hard disk. But my music is on my i-Pod. How can I restore this to a new computer?

See if you can get the iPod recognized via the PC (without the Restore) and use the MacMuse method or one of the methods below. Once you restore, your iPod's music will be erased.
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
Senuti (Mac OS X v10.3 or higher Recovery Utility)
XPlay (Windows software For Music Recovery &/or Cross-Platform Functionality)
XPlay Photo Browser (For recovering Photos)
Extremely Simple Method: (just to recover the song files – may not work on a Mac)
1 - Open iTunes
2 - Edit=>Preferences=>’Advanced/General’ tab
2a --- Select ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’: checked
2b --- Select ‘Keep iTunes Music folder organized’: checked
2c --- Click OK to store changes
3 - Attach your iPod to the PC and hold down the ‘Shift+Ctrl’ keys until the iPod is fully recognized (this will defeat the auto-sync process)
4 - If you get a dialog box to link the Library, decline this option
5 – Within iTunes: File=>Add Folder
6 - Browse to and open ‘My Computer’ (click on the ‘+’) and select the iPod
7 - Click OK
8 - The music files should start to transfer back into iTunes
8a –- this will take some time depending on your PC and the amount of songs on the iPod
No Playlists, or Ratings, Last Played, & Play Count attributes will be transferred from the iPod to iTunes using this method
After recovering your song files, strongly consider developing a thorough backup strategy for just this type of situation (and many other potential disasters).
You need at least two full sets of your music, not including what is on the iPod:
-- 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 only one other medium is not considered having any backup.
If you cannot store your complete music files on the computer’s internal HD, then create and maintain at least two external sets (any multiple combinations of ExHDs, DVDs, CDs).
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 thorough backup strategy:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=1498152

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