iPod OMG... $1,000s down the drain, please help!

Apple will have a list of your downloads. Give them a ring or send an email.
See what happens.

Do you have an iPod with them on, because IIRC the new iTunes allows you to transfer songs off it, or you can use a program like iPodDisk to get them back.

xUKHCx said:

Do you have an iPod with them on, because IIRC the new iTunes allows you to transfer songs off it, or you can use a program like iPodDisk to get them back.

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Yep. When you first plug an iPod into iTunes it will ask if you want to transfer the DRMd stuff into the iTunes library, providing you first authorise the library with the iTMS.

keithos27 said:

nope had formatted that as well...

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Wow, you are pretty far up **** creek. Hope you manage to get a satisfactory answer from apple. So you have no viable back up anywhere.

Might be worth keeping out file recovery programs such as Data Rescue 2 to try and get them off your external drive, as a final option.

Are you sure the external HD has fully died? The Firelite I use for my PowerBook once appeared to have died during a full backup and restore, but had actually just overheated. I tried it an hour later after it cooled and it worked quite happily.

Ouch, id like to see how this turns out.

I mean, it just HAD to be within someone at "Risk management" within apple or something.

That guy who applies Murphy's Law before Apple moves to the next stage.

Cuz apple hates anything remotely smelling of bad PR.

And this seems like a legit thing to happen to at least a few people that use iTMS. They have to have some sort of "plan" or "contract fine print" about this.

Hope these help:
1
2

amoda said:

Hope these help:
1
2

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hey, great links.

and to the OP, do as I do, burn data DVDs as a backup to your external HD. i know..it sound silly, but you've made quite an investment so a few inexpensive DVDs it's a big deal.

good luck. keep us posted on the results.

Cheers,
keebler

keithos27 said:

was told to write apple an e-mail @ http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/email.

thanks for the links! now i have precedent that i can refer to, which should hopefully help my case. was told it will take 2 business days to get a reply... we'll see...

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You should be OK. Happened to me a while ago when my main drive failed and Apple's own Backup had completely failed in creating a usable archive file... both my source files and my backup were completely gone.

They just set the filess' status to Never Downloaded and iTunes took close to 4 days to re-download it all.

AFAIK, Apple will let you download purchased songs again, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal so once you re-download they assume you have learnt a lesson from the incident and should you face the same situation again you're out of luck.

Hopefully they'll respond soon and you'll have your songs back.

They asked me for all the order numbers when I did the same thing, granted it was only a few months compared to 2 years.

I don't see why they wouldn't help you out though. Good luck.

You'll probably want to back them up to DVDs, as well as keeping another copy on a different hard drive. Hope Apple is good to you with this.

keithos27 said:

What is the best way to archive this data?

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Hard drive. Buy one where you store all your digital life, and then buy a new one every five years

keithos27 said:

Assuming I do get to re-download all of my music, videos, etc...

What is the best way to archive this data? Right now I have a clean install on my MacBook Pro with iTunes 7.3 my Apple TV and iPhone connected to it, that is it... No music connected.

So once I re-download the GBs worth of music, how should I back up? Do I just copy the iTunes directory to a backup drive? I want to keep the playlists, Album Liner Notes (pdfs), etc in tact...

That being said let's say I back up tomorrow and it's iTunes 7.3. Assume I don't format my MBP again until something like iTunes 8.0 comes out... When I go to re-install OS X and iTunes and have a fresh version of that program running, do I quit iTunes, paste the folder from my backup harddrive to my MBP, and re-open up iTunes? Will it matter that the backup is 7.3 vs. 8.0?

Thanks,
Keith

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The three most important things to do when using computers.

1. Backup
2. Backup
3. Backup

I purchase all my stuff with my iBook G4, then transfer to my PC server, where I also rip my discs and sync with my iPod.

I also backup all my purchases on my iBook G4 to a DVD disc.

So I have my purchased on my iBook G4, DVD disc, PC server, and of course my iPod.

The simplest form of backup is just to buy a large external hard disk and drag your iTunes folder to it...

keithos27 said:

nope had formatted that as well...

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Just curious, you did not change your name too, did you?

I have dug myself into these type of holes before, and finally I started to adhere to the motto of "measure twice, cut once". I know that is from carpentry, but it really can be applied to working on computers, with the idea of planning before doing any major destructive work. Kinda 20/20 hindsight advice I know, but like I said your best lessons are learned by these self inflicted problems.

keithos27 said:

Assuming I do get to re-download all of my music, videos, etc...

What is the best way to archive this data? ...

...how should I back up? Do I just copy the iTunes directory to a backup drive? I want to keep the playlists, Album Liner Notes (pdfs), etc in tact..... ..Will it matter that the backup is 7.3 vs. 8.0?

Thanks,
Keith

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Here's a thought, why not back up your entire HD? You can do this instead of trying to span multi-disks with a 10 gig music library.

A 250 Gig hard drive will cost less than a hundred dollars. I got one from Buy.com for $49.95. Then format the drive into two partitions, like Backup 1 and 2. Then install SuperDuper! on your notebook

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

and make a full bootable copy of your notebook hard drive to one partition. I alternate between Backup 1 and 2 so if something happens during the backup, I have the most recent still intact on the other partition. I also have another external drive that I make additional back ups. This way you have a drive with all of your data to boot from if the MacBook HD dies. You can boot to new computer and be up and running in 1 hour with all of your data. I've been down this road of lost data too many times; this solves that problem once and for all.

mainemacuser said:

Here's a thought, why not back up your entire HD?

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Bad idea.

First of all, if you should ever need that backup, you would have to know where's the useful data that you want to restore. Now think about this for a second: is it easier to find the right stuff at the moment you back it up or after weeks/months/years of storing it somewhere? It's a no-brainer, so only backup useful stuff — then you can really use your backup archive when you need to.

Second, not many of us have unlimited backup storage. If you need to back up -say- half a terabyte every month, you will need 3TB storage for half year's backups. Granted, not many of us want to keep that many backups, but still, you get the picture. If you backup 100%, then you need 100% extra storage for one backup. If you backup 25%, then 50% extra storage is enough for two backups. This is more like a theoretical point, but still very valid. Storage space is not that expensive, but how much is too much?

Lastly, mark my words: "you will need backup archive some day". The day will come, even if everything has been reliable so far. And when that day comes, you need to have a *usable* backup that is also up-to-date. If you only have a year-old DVD that has been scratched to be unusable, can you really call it a backup? No, it's only useless piece of plastic. Or if your backup is scattered to multiple locations and you won't find what you're looking for, then is your data safe? No. Unless you manage to restore lost data, your backup is worthless.

There's also an old saying worth mentioning: "nothing is backed up until it's backed up twice". Trust that. And if you also want to make your life easier for the moment the disaster strikes, please do yourself a favor and *think* ahead about what you're backing up. To repeat myself; think about what data you absolutely want to be able to restore!

iBookG4user said:

You'll probably want to back them up to DVDs, as well as keeping another copy on a different hard drive. Hope Apple is good to you with this.

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Truth. And then store your DVD backups off-site, at another location, in case you have a fire or a flood or something terrible like that. I bet I've invested 1,000+ HOURS maintaining my iTunes library over the years -- ripping songs, downloading from iTunes (on dial-up!), finding cover art, sorting and organizing. Screw the $0.99 cost of the songs, my time alone is worth $30/hr!