iPod HDD crashed, lost my music, how can I get it off my ipod?

The PC won't erase your iPod unless you allow it to - although, if your iPod is Mac formatted you won't be able to do the following without something like MacDrive: Plug it in, say no when it asks if you want to sync the iPod to it, and follow the instructions here - http://www.cnet.com.au/how-to-get-songs-off-of-your-windows-ipod-240063041.htm (just one of the sites Google threw up when I searched for "get music off ipod windows vista")

Getting music off an iPod onto a Mac is just as easy without paying for a third party program, but you'll need to used Terminal. Open Terminal and type: cp /Volumes/<iPod name>/iPod_Control/Music ~/MusicFromiPod - then in Finder drag MusicFromiPod into iTunes.

You are entitled to five simultaneous PCs/Macs accessing any DRM'ed music, so unless you've been promiscuous with your music, you should have no problem playing any DRM'ed songs on another computer. The first time you try to play a DRM'ed song you'll have to enter your password.

Would using the iPod as a disk, then importing the songs into your iTunes library work? I tried it with my 5G iPod, and the DRM songs were o.k, but the file names were an absolute mess, iTunes named the songs in its interface fine, but the filesystem looked a disaster!

Music Rescue

Put your iPod in disk use enabled... then use this program.

http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/

you'll have to click ok every 50 songs unless you purchase it but still... it's been a life saver for me... hope it helps

DRM shouldn't matter, recovery software essentially takes any music off your iPod even if it is protected. The protection is there to keep the files from being able to be copied and distributed to other people. The FairPlay DRM with Apple is tied to your iTunes account as long as you have the account name and password associated with the protected file you're good to go.

The biggest issue is if the hard drive truly crashed or if it just got disorganized (i.e. your music now appears as "other"). If your hard drive has truly crashed it might present a problem with recovery because the hard drive is going to have problems with reading itself.

amacpherson said:

Put your iPod in disk use enabled... then use this program.

http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/

you'll have to click ok every 50 songs unless you purchase it but still... it's been a life saver for me... hope it helps

Click to expand...

Why considering such tools at all (if you are not in the middle od a desaster)? Prepare for the unthinkable and buy Music Match on iCloud and let Apple handle the backup.

This happened to me once, i used a great program called "iRip", check it out @ http://thelittleappfactory.com/irip/

Bigmacduck said:

Why considering such tools at all (if you are not in the middle od a desaster)? Prepare for the unthinkable and buy Music Match on iCloud and let Apple handle the backup.

Click to expand...

^^^This. They should definitely travel backwards in time and subscribe to iTunes Match.

iRip worked for me. Not a perfect solution but it did the trick.