I need serious iTunes/iPod help!

[MemoryMakers2669]

UGH, I hate iTunes. I purchases HUNDREDS of $$$ in songs from there, on my old laptop. Now they all seem to be GONE!! I tried syncing them onto the new laptop from my iPod...now GONE completely!!! Grrrrr!!! I could seriously scream.

How do I get them back????? I look at my account on iTunes and it shows that I purchased them. Anyway of retrieving them!?

 

[HonnyDipp]

if you purchased them from iTunes, just sync your iPod to your new laptop. They should load up.

Also, try placing this question on the main iTunes board:

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=149

 

[phoenx79]

One of the great things about the new iTunes is that you can set it up to access all of your music from one computer on another. If you can't get that to work, there are several ways to get to your music, as long as it is still on your iPod.

Open up your iPod under My Computer.
Go to Options-->View--> Click Show Hidden Folders.
Once that is done, you will see some folders available. The folders with your music in them show up as invisible, and have folder names that are just a couple of letter (if I remember correctly), you can take all of the info in those folders and copy it to your hard drive, and it should put your music on your computer.
I know this works with older iPods and music that was ripped from discs, not sure about downloaded from iTunes.

 

[mom2travel]

I learned from the guy who came to fix my computers that I can back up our entire itunes library onto an external hard drive - doesn't help you now, but maybe in the future. between all my photos and the family's itunes, it'll be cheaper to buy a hard drive (I heard $90) than to keep putting the photos on USB/pen-drives and *hoping* we don't crash computer and lose itunes

Anyway, he also told me that if computer crashed and there was no backup, you can upload from your ipod to a new computer BUT FIRST you need to download itunes to new computer and associate your itunes account with that computer. Otherwise, the empty itunes library will sync to your ipod and delete everything!

If you lost what was on your ipod, couldn't you associate your account with your new computer through itunes online and then reload the songs you purchased from itunes to the computer, and then sync back to your ipod?

 

[TwinsinCA]

UGH, I hate iTunes. I purchases HUNDREDS of $$$ in songs from there, on my old laptop. Now they all seem to be GONE!! I tried syncing them onto the new laptop from my iPod...now GONE completely!!! Grrrrr!!! I could seriously scream.

How do I get them back????? I look at my account on iTunes and it shows that I purchased them. Anyway of retrieving them!?

Is your old laptop still working? If so, you have to go into your music folder and transfer all your old music files to your new computer.

If the reason you have a new computer is because the last one completely crashed, I don't know if there is a way to get them back.

 

[lucyanna girl]

This might be wrong but I thought iTunes would allow you to re-download purchased music a limited amount of times if something happened that made you lose it.

Good luck OP.

Penny

 

[FireDancer]

I prefer not to let iTunes hold my music library. When I purchase any digital content I want the raw file which I download and store on RAID drives. This way I am not tied to any single service or provider. The only function iTunes serves for me is as a drag and drop interface for my iPod. I even manually download my podcasts using an RSS reader.

I also refuse to purchase anything that has even a hint of DRM in it. I want to do what I want with the files I buy. Using the method I do I have full control of all my digital content and I can put it on as many devices as I want. I can even sit here at work and listen to my entire library (all 800 Gigs) through my VPN, no iTunes needed.

 

[Micca]

This might be wrong but I thought iTunes would allow you to re-download purchased music a limited amount of times if something happened that made you lose it.

Good luck OP.

Penny

This is also my understanding. These other solutions are great, but this might be something you can do if all else fails.

 

[Feej]

This might be wrong but I thought iTunes would allow you to re-download purchased music a limited amount of times if something happened that made you lose it.

Good luck OP.

Penny

Good luck with that. I've heard that Apple make it very difficult for you to do this.