Losing itunes previously purchased because of reinstall of windows xp

Question

I have only maintained one itunes library; however, on two occassions, I have had to reinstall the operating system and itunes. Now I have songs on my ipod which I cannot return to my library, because itunes repeatedly gives me a message that my ipod is synced with another library. Again, I have never had another library. So, even though I paid for certain songs from the Itunes store, itunes is telling me that I must erase all songs on my ipod in order to update and sync. This means I will lose some of the previously purchased songs. Curiously, most of the songs previously purchased are still there and are contained in my library following the reinstallation of itunes.
I am also frustrated because there is no itunes support. Its anti-theft software is so strident that it makes the software cumbersome. I am thinking about returning to Mp3's and might purchase a Zune--even though I despise Microsoft. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Here's how to get music back off your iPod. If it's an authorization issue, then this probably won't help much!
From another thread, try this post by Jeff Bryan:
For all other non purchased music (your own CDs etc) try this method which works on some Windows PCs.
Enable your iPod for disk use.
See: iPod Disk Use.
Open iTunes and select edit/preferences/advanced/general. Put a check mark in the box marked "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" and also "keep iTunes music folder organized", then click 'ok'.
Connect the iPod whilst holding down the shift/ctrl keys to prevent any auto sync, and if you see the dialogue window asking if you want to sync to this itunes library, click 'no'.
Then go to file/add folder, open 'my computer', select your iPod and click 'ok'.
The music files should transfer to your iTunes.
If this doesn't work (and it may not because officially it's not supposed to), check out the instructions/suggestions here.
Music from iPod to computer (using option 2). This a manual method using "hidden folders" and although it works, it can be messy.
Much easier ways are to use one of the many 3rd party programs that copy music from the iPod to the computer.
One of the most recommended is Yamipod. This is a free program that transfers music from iPod back to the computer. However, it does not transfer playcounts/ratings etc.
Another free program is Pod Player.
If you want to recover just the structure of playlists from the iPod (and not the actual song files themselves), there's iRepo for Windows. which I understand has this feature.
There is also CopyTrans. This does preserve ratings/playcounts etc if those are important to you but this program is not free. It also supports video transfer.
BACK TO ME:
If you have iTunes 7.0 or higher you should be able to transfer your purchased music on an iPod back to your computer. Try this advice from Apple:
Use your iPod and iTunes 7
With iTunes 7 you can transfer iTunes Store purchases that are synced with your iPod to any authorized computer. Let's say from your home to your work computer. Here are the steps to "reverse sync" purchases from your iPod.
Make sure that you are using the latest version of iTunes 7 and iPod software.
Authorize your computer by choosing Authorize Computer from the Store menu in iTunes.
Attach your iPod to the computer that contains purchases.
From the File menu, choose Transfer Purchases from iPod.