How do I solve this problem?

Question

I finally gave in and downloaded some songs from Itunes, however, when I plug in my Ipod to transfer the new music onto it, my old library isn't there anymore, and the only songs in the library are the ones I just purchased! Furthermore, a little window pops up, telling me that my Ipod is connected to a spearate library, and do I want to connect to this new library, replacing everything currently in my Ipod with the songs I just purchased-
My question is this: Is there any way to transfer the songs I just added without erasing everything off my Ipod- and: Why did this happen, where did my old library go, can I retrieve it, do I have to transfer all my cds and music folders into Itunes AGAIN as I did when I first got my Ipod?

Answer 1

Difficult to be absolutely certain that this what you are doing, but if you are deleting the songs from your iTunes library after transferring them to your iPod, and you have automatic transfer selected for your iPod, then iTunes will remove those songs from your iPod and replace them with your new ones next time you sync it. So in effect you get a mirror image on your iPod of the songs in your iTunes library.
Also, that message you see usually means that your iPod was at some point connected to a different iTunes library other than the one normally associated with the iPod.
"do I have to transfer all my cds and music folders into Itunes AGAIN as I did when I first got my Ipod"
That statement suggests that you are deleting them after putting them on your iPod.
You need to change the method of transferring music to your iPod to manual if you're going to do this.
You can change to manual transfer by following the instructions here.
Manual Transfer.
However, please be aware that keeping the only copy of your music on the iPod is a very risky option. What if you needed to do a software restore (which is a very common fix for iPod problems)? This would erase the contents of your iPod. Any purchased music would be lost and need to be purchased again.
What if the iPod were stolen/lost/needed repair?
It’s much better to keep the music on your computer, and if storage space is at a premium, one option would be to buy an external hard drive, which are cheaper than ever nowadays, and keep your music library on that.
The iPod is a music player and was never intended as a long term storage device for the only copy of your music.
Of course if you're not deleting the songs from iTunes, then you can ignore my sermon!