New Hard Drive, No Access to ITunes Library on Old Hard Drive

My hard drive died yesterday, and no data recovery was possible, so I lost my ITunes library, which was made up mostly of songs that I had imported from my extensive CD collection.
I have no backup CD with the library on it.
I had hoped that I'd be able to transfer over the songs from my IPod to the new hard drive that I had installed today. I downloaded ITunes and attached my IPod, and received a message stating that my IPod was synced with a different computer, and only had the option to (1) Transfer songs bought from the ITunes store, or (2) Sync with the new computer and erase everything off of my IPod.
I read a few help articles about using the IPod as a hard drive, but I can't do that as I don't have access to the original ITunes Library folder.
Any ideas?
Mini   Windows XP  

There's an answer to your question but first it's time for a little lecture - if it makes a difference, I don't feel any better about this than you do. ; - )
I hope you take this unfortunate state of affairs as an opportunity to learn a very important lesson: Back up your iTunes library as soon as you can after resolving this situation because right now you are only one glitch of your iPod away from losing your music entirely.
Many people come to the Discussions having lost their music in just such situations and, believe me, it's not a happy time for anyone.
If you place any importance on your playlists and the data they depend on, make sure to include the iTunes Library files in your back-up regimen as well.
Anyways, that's the lecture. The answer to your problem should be found in Zevoneer's post .
Good Luck! But once you have the music back on your computer, remember:
Your music is valuable - please back it up!

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