Getting Album Artwork for songs NOT in iTunes and ONLY on iPod

Question

Hello
Am I missing something obvious here? I am struggling with the album artwork feature for use in the coverflow section of the iPod Classic 80GB. I do NOT keep all of my songs in iTunes as my laptop hard drive is just not big enough.
My problem is that highlighting the songs on my iPod once I've connected it to iTunes then selecting Get Album Artwork simply doesn't work. Only trawling through countless forums on various websites I've discovered that possibly the artwork is only updated for songs you have in the iTunes library or only for songs bought on iTunes. I have 1000s of CDs I've uploaded onto my iPod (surely lots of people do not keep their music in iTunes for the same reason as me - small hard drive?)
There MUST be a software fix for this problem that could be issued out? Or if not, somebody should come up with a fix on an independent website. By the way, all of my tracks on the iPod have had their info obtained from the Gracenotes system used through iTunes so not having matching info to iTunes cannot be a reason for the lack of artwork can it?
I'd love to hear a solution to this problem.
Thanks

Answer 1

My problem is that highlighting the songs on my iPod once I've connected it to iTunes then selecting Get Album Artwork simply doesn't work.
Correct. It's meant to access your iTunes library and add artwork from the iTunes store.
There MUST be a software fix for this problem that could be issued out?
Nothing that I know of because it's meant to work this way.
By the way, all of my tracks on the iPod have had their info obtained from the Gracenotes system used through iTunes so not having matching info to iTunes cannot be a reason for the lack of artwork can it?
No, because as I say, it's meant to add artwork in the iTunes library (although even this can sometimes be an issue if the album info obtained from Gracenote doesn't match what's in the iTunes store.)
If an iPod is set to manage the songs manually, then it's possible to add the artwork to the songs directly onto the iPod (when looking at them through iTunes) without adding it to the songs in iTunes. Just copy paste an album image from (say) Amazon into the artwork box in the bottom left corner when looking at the songs on your iPod through iTunes.
However, I have found that if you are adding artwork directly to the iPod via iTunes and not to songs in the library first of all, then some (or all) artwork may not display correctly.