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

Similar Messages

  • Using ipod as hard disk

    I use my ipod's hard disk to transfer music from my office pc to my home pc. I decided not to delete the iTunes Music Folder from the ipod's hd in case my PC's hd crashed. Is this recommended? I only have 6GB of music downloaded so space is not an issue (for now).
    Also, I like to know if using ipod during flights is ok? I know that using cellphones are not allowed but how abt ipod?

    Hi Larien,
    Im sorry im not going to answer your question as i dont know the answer!! But, im in a similar situatio to yourself, i want to transfer my i-tunes from my parents desk top to my new laptop and was wondering if its an easy process to do? as iv got over 1000 songs in my i-tunes and dont want to risk losing them all!!!
    Pete.

  • 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

  • Ipod as hard disk - Why am I not able to see the whole file?

    I'm using my 80 gig 5th gen ipod as a hard disk for the first time. I've dragged a 32 KB text file to the ipod. When I scroll though the file all is great...but I'm not able to see the whole file? It's like I get one page and that's all. Any ideas to help me?

    Do you mean the Notes function? If so, the file size per note is, I believe, 4k. Therefore, you'd need to break up a 32k file into several parts or it will be truncated.

  • Ipod nano hard disk

    How do I delete songs from my ipod hard disk?
    for some reason when I loaded in the software for my I pod I loaded all the songs in my computer--109 of them on to the Ipod how do I get them deleted???
    Message was edited by: buzz345

    So you don't want all of the songs that are on your computer to be on your iPod? Is that correct?
    You have 2 options.
    1. In the iPod Summary Window, go to the Music tab. Then, change the iPod to Automatically Update only Selected Playlists. That is if you want only those playlists to be on the iPod.
    2. Manually Update the iPod. This would let you manually delete songs off the iPod. Check this out:
    Managing Songs Manually
    I hope this helps!

  • IPod Classic Hard Disk Ruined

    To whom this may concern -
    I am a long time Mac user. I love Macs, and I may always. But I've run into a huge problem now. I purchased an iPod Classic for my boyfriend. He lives in Argentina. He was charging it, and it fell on the floor. Nothing was damaged on the outside, but when he turns it on there's a big X. He went to the website to try and reboot it, but it didn't work. Now he's gone to the Mac Store in Cordoba Argentina. They took it apart (for a fee), and told him that he needs to pay over $200 to get it fixed. It cost me $190 to buy it here... mind you. They said that the Hard Disk is ruined.
    Here's my question. The iPod is still under warranty. SINCE, you people say you have the best customer service, (which you DO NOT indicate WHERE you have the best customer service), I was wondering if he sends me their report of his iPod, (including his serial number and things), I could get him his hard disk, and we replace it there. He cannot send me his iPod for less than $70. So sending it to me in the States is not an option.
    I am very upset at Mac. I thought they were the best for service and products. But his iPod broke, just by falling once. AND they won't fix it for free for him in Argentina. This is frustrating. If you can get me a Hard Disk for his iPod (i can show you anything you want to see, their report, his serial number, whatever you want) my opinions of Mac will be much better.
    Why isn't there customer support all around the world? I'm moving there soon... and I'm nervous about my computer breaking there and the expense it will be to fix it.
    Thank you for your help,
    Maureen

    They do have the highest rated customer support and they are good at honoring the warranty, which covers manufacturing defects. But a warranty is not an insurance policy and does not cover accidental damage. And the number of accidents it has doesn't matter. If you buy a car and get into just one accident, good luck with having the dealer fix the damage under your warranty. Apparently the fall was far enough to crash the heads on the hard drive.
    If you purchased it with a credit card you might see if the one you used has extended warranty/insurance coverage. Otherwise you are looking at repairing it by putting in a new hard disk.

  • Use iPod as hard disk & listen to music?

    Is it possible to use your iPod as a Hard Disk & be able to listen to the music on it?
    Like, if you wanna save your music JUST INCASE your computer crashes ALL OF A SUDDEN, but you still want to be able to listen to music and enjoy your iPod & not just have it sitting there as an extra hard drive.
    Does anybody know if it is possible to do both?
    And if so, How?
    5th Generation 30GB   Windows XP  

    Wrong.
    Of course you can use your ipod as a hard disk as well as using it as an iPod to play music. There is nothing wrong with this at all.
    There is one downside. The content will take up twice as much space on your iPod.
    You'll need to sync your content to the iPod using itunes -AND- copy it manually to another folder using the iPod as a hard disk.
    So, the answer really is YES, you can use your iPod as music player, and a hard disk for all of your content as long as your library takes up less than half the total capacity of your iPod hard drive.
    Additioanlly, there are ways to copy the content off your iPod even when it's not being used as a hard disk. It requires third-party software, but it's possible. Thats another topic altogether.

  • After hard  disk crash: How can I get my fotos from iPod to hard disk?

    As I said my hard disk crashed. (iPod 3.gen. )
    So now I have my photos only on the iPod but I can't get them on my hard disk.
    (If I would sync my iPod they would be deleted...)
    Do you have/know a good programme (free), that copies them back on the hard disk??
    Thanks a lot
    truckdriver64

    f you have full resolution copies of the photos on the iPod have a look here, it's completely free: Apple Knowledge Base article - Use Disk Mode to copy photos from iPod
    If not, there are a few programs out there for recovering photos from an iPod, have a look at the ones below. I don't know of any "free" ones but if your photos are of value to you then paying for a program makes perfect sense. If you search the internet you can find more. Just be aware that what you'll be recovering will be photos optimised for the iPod so they won't be the same quality as the original full resolution versions:
    iPodPhotoCopy Windows only
    CopyPodPhoto Windows only
    Tansee iPod Transfer Photo Windows only
    iPod Photo Liberator Mac & Windows
    TouchCopy Mac and Windows Versions (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)

  • Enabling ipod as hard disk with no computer

    Hi,
    I am currently away from home for 4 months and have no access to my mac or any other at present. I wanted to put all the pics and videos from my digital camera onto my ipod in their raw form (tiff, raw, but not jpeg) but I believe this is not possible unless the ipod has been enabled to use as a hard disk, I didn't know this before I left home.
    Is there any way I can do this without a computer? Or would it be possible to go into an Apple shop (perhaps in Sydney as I will be passing through) and have it done there?
    I apologise in advance as I will be slow to get back to any replies as I am having to use internet cafes often with dial up connection.
    Thanks for any help.

    Yes.
    Hold the MENU and SELECT (Center) buttons until you see the Apple logo to reset the iPod. THen, while the Apple logo is displayed, press and hold the PLAY and SELECT buttons to enter Disk Mode.
    Reset the iPod again to exit Disk Mode.
    Cheers!
    -Bryan

  • 40GB ipod photo hard disk issue

    As of a month ago, my 6 mo. old ipod photo began to act funny. It's not completely malfunctioning like others I've read about in the forum. But when I manually select a song further down in a playlist or in a different playlist, the ipod begins to vibrate enough that it was noticeable. This does not happen when it plays songs in order from a playlist. It only happens when manually selecting songs. It also takes a couple minutes to initially start up when turned on and at times can take up to 5 minutes to be recognized by itunes. When I first started using my ipod none of these events occurred. But they have become increasingly a problem. Is this a problem with the hard disk that I should have looked at? Or is it something that the next firmware update will take care of?

    As of a month ago, my 6 mo. old ipod photo began to act funny. It's not completely malfunctioning like others I've read about in the forum. But when I manually select a song further down in a playlist or in a different playlist, the ipod begins to vibrate enough that it was noticeable. This does not happen when it plays songs in order from a playlist. It only happens when manually selecting songs. It also takes a couple minutes to initially start up when turned on and at times can take up to 5 minutes to be recognized by itunes. When I first started using my ipod none of these events occurred. But they have become increasingly a problem. Is this a problem with the hard disk that I should have looked at? Or is it something that the next firmware update will take care of?

  • Failing iPod Classic Hard Disk?

    Last week, one of my podcasts couldn’t get past 3 minutes or so (of 30) before it would stall out, and then move on to the next podcast. The next day, after syncing new podcasts, all MP3 file versions of podcasts would not play from the iPod. Later that day, accessing the iPod (at work with windows 7) would take forever, probably because the OS was trying to rescan the disk.
    When I got home and connected my iPod to my Mac, the disk wouldn’t mount, and iTunes would say it needed to be restored and all data would be lost. Not wanting to waste the gas to drive to work and back on the weekend, I tried just about every available I have to get the work files I needed- Data Rescue 3 would spin its wheels for 20+ minutes with no effect, disk utility didn’t get any results after 30 minutes, and my wife’s PC had the same issues reading the disk. I eventually got disk utility to ‘repair’ the disk and was able to get files off. Oddly, doing more than a few hundred MB transfer at a time would cause Finder to beach-ball until I made it quite the transfer.
    After this, I wanted my iPod to function again, so I tried restoring it to factory settings. This didn’t work on either my Mac with iTunes or my wife’s PC, so I ended up erasing the disk with Disk Utility and reformatting in MS-Fat32 (so my work PC can read files off of it). My Mac was then able to restore the iPod software, but when trying to sync my media to it with iTunes (around 5k songs), it would fail part of the way through, asking for a restore. Resyncing would get more media on, but have similar ends. When trying to navigate songs on my iPod, it wouldn’t see any at all.
    I eventually did a restore with my wife’s PC, to guarantee it had the windows file system version (for disk usage) and then synced it to my Mac. It only took 2 tries and over-night (6+ hours) to get all of my songs & podcasts to sync.
    Now songs will play, and navigation works, but album art is not correct. Files that I know are MP3s, once again, will not play, not even for a few minutes as before. MP4’s that are from the same podcasts do play, so I don’t think it’s their media source. AAC’s work just fine. I didn’t move any M4V’s over to test b/c it was taking forever just to get songs to transfer, much less video.
    Is this indicative of a hardware problem, or is something messed up on the software side? Can anyone suggest appropriate steps to fix these issues?

    I've done repairs myself on older models (new batteries) and while it's delicate, it's not impossible. iFixit.com has step-by-step instructions on how to do this with my exact model, so there's no issue for me doing the actual work.
    Buy a part from Apple? Ha! That won't be reasonably priced.
    In any event, I had Disk Utility zero out the data on the drive last night, not just erase it, and iTunes reformat the disk. Now, knock on wood, it seems to be playing well. I haven't tried out a problematic podcast yet, or added any video, so we'll have to see. I also let my Mac format this to AFS, or whatever the "Apple Macintosh" file system actually is for an iPod instead of the FAT32 windows version I had been trying ealier. I'll need to move to the later to use this as a means to move work files about, but iDisk will suffice for the short-term.
    I'm hoping the re-allocated sectors can avoid being used and go with the drive I have now. We'll see what happens when I toss video files back on here and work project files...

  • Use ipod as hard disk

    Can't activate this function in Itunes

    I presume you're following this procedure, yes?
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1478
    If the preference is dimmed, is Manual Management enabled?
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1783
    If not, try putting the iPod into Disk Mode manually:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1363
    Regards.

  • If an iPod is in "use as hard disk" mode, could I drag and drop songs to it

    After countless attempts to sync my iTunes into this iPod I just obtained, with iTunes, Finder, sometimes both programs hanging and freezing up, since I pick "use iPod as hard disk" as an option, couldn't I just drag and drop my iTunes tracks into the iPod via just a pair of Finder windows? I mean if it can work like a USB drive, I think it wouldn't be impossible to do the same with my songs, since they are just files as well, since I am having such a horrible ordeal syncing this iPod. I am on the verge of my 6th Restore in almost as many days and at best I could load songs into it one by one, but sometimes it would even balk for the most curious reasons such as:
    song running over 5 1/2 minutes in length
    song consisting of mp3 I d/l-ed elsewhere independent of iTunes Store
    song purchased from iTunes a very long time ago
    the 4th or 6th song in a row being synced, no matter the type
    I have little idea why this iMac is giving me so much guff, as my sister has the same model that works without complaint for her.

    Curses, foiled again! Maybe you additionally have an idea why my 4th gen 20 GB iPod seems to make Finder, iTunes, and occasionally Disk Utility hang and stop responding when all I am trying to do is attempt to make the iPod work as designed ie: accept my iTunes songs, keep them and have them available for playback. It is fully charged, yet most of the time it chokes when I am trying to Restore it, so every time I do manage to restore it, it takes about 4 or 5 incremental attempts of completing Restore until I get it going again. Then I am only able to get it running by manually loading the songs one track at a time until I get up to about 30 or so and it unravels upon my attempts to put all of them on, even adding them manually one song at a time.

  • Ipod goes into disk check

    Hello. When I plug my old ipod (3rd generation, I think) into my mac, about half the time it goes into what appears to be a disk check mode (a picture of a disk comes up). After a while (tens of minutes), it finishes and puts a "check mark" on the screen.
    Does this mean the ipod's disk is about to fail?
    thanks!
    iBook    

    Diagnostics probably can't fix any issues that it comes across. If you feel like there might be an issue with your iPod's hard disk, you can resolve it before it turns into anything monstrous. As long as everything that you have in your iPod is in your iTunes library, you should probably go ahead and restore the iPod. This will erase all of the files off of your iPod, however, it will also reinstall the player OS and fix any bad disk sectors it comes across. It will also defragment the drive. If you're not familiar with this process, see this article for more instructions and information.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60983
    Keep us posted!
    CG

  • Can't enable iPod hard disk

    I am trying to enable my 30GB iPod to be used as a hard disk to save documents. When I initially plug my iPod into my Mac, the iPod icon appears briefly on the desktop, then disappears.
    Then, when I try to select "Enable Disk Use" on the iPod Summary page, I get the message "Waiting for iPod..." for about a minute, followed by "The settings were not saved for the iPod because it could not be found."
    The funny thing is, when I used my iPod as a hard disk in the past it worked fine. But ever since I upgraded to iTunes version 7.0.2, it started giving me this error message and I have been unable to use my iPod as a hard disk ever since.

    I haven't seen this problem since iTunes 6 and even then I was never able to find a complete answer to the "Preferences not saved" error as it was called then or any knowledge base articles with an official explanation. I did however find a workaround in a previous discussion but I don't know how if you could get it to work with iTunes 7. It involved connecting your iPod and in the short time that it was still visible on the desktop just as iTunes is opening, going to Preferences>iPod and ticking "enable disk use". You had to be quick but it could be done. In iTunes 7 it would mean quickly clicking on the iPod icon in the source list to bring up the Summary tab so you could enable disk use while the iPod was still showing on the desk top.
    The only other suggestion I would have is to try restoring your iPod. restoring will erase the iPod's hard drive, reload the software and put it back to default settings, so if you have songs on your iPod that aren't on iTunes you will lose them if you have no back up. Once the restore is complete follow the on screen instructions and it should connect to iTunes and give you a prompt to automatically update your library onto the fresh installation. If you choose no it will default to manual mode which will default "enable disk use" and from there you can choose whatever setting you like: Restoring iPod to factory settings with iTunes 7

Maybe you are looking for