Hi everyone,

Earlier in the year, the hard drive on my laptop failed and had to be replaced. I didn't lose everything, for instance I still have all my photos, but I did lose my iTunes setup with all my music in it. My big fear now is, if I re-install iTunes and connect my iPod to it, will it just wipe all the music off my iPod?

I don't fancy losing over 1000 tracks in one go, but I do want iTunes back, with all my current music on it, so I can load some new songs onto my iPod :( The iPod is also usually hard-wired to my car stereo, so it's quite important to me on long journeys (I do a lot of them) as I can't currently receive radio...don't ask.

Computers and computer programs really aren't my comfort zone, so if anybody can help it'd be much appreciated!

Andrew

Pretty sure it will sync back from your ipod to itunes. Wait for a definate answer as thats only what i think and id hate for you to lose the music!

iTunes works by using library's.

Your iPod was synced with the iTunes library that was on your old, now defunct hard drive. If you connect your iPod to another library it will prompt you that your ipod was previously synced with another library and that syncing it with a new library will erase all content on the iPod.

Naturally as you have said you wouldn't want to do this as you would lose all your songs on your iPod.

The other way around this is to use another program to manage the music on your iPod. I use Copytrans manager. Installing and using this program allows you to add music to your iPod without affecting what is already on your iPod. Another benefit of the program is that it allows you to backup the music you have on your iPod to your computer although i think this is only on a per album basis. There is a free version of the program but their is also a paid for version which includes a host of programs called Copytrans Suite.

The suite may be of interest to you and as far as i can remember there is a trial period.

Hope this info helps.

Edited 30 December, 201015 yr by Guest

My old Dell laptop MoBo went pop leaving my iTunes library stuck on the hard drive - 1600 songs to be exact.

The same old thing occurred as in iTunes wanting to blitz the contents of my iPhone and iPod in favour of a new library on my iMac. I needed to pull the music back off the iPod and iPhone and transfer it to the correct folder on the iMac to create a 'master' library.

Once in place iTunes can fill it's boots and blitz the music on the portable devices and simply reload everything from the new 'master' library which is a combination of my 1600 old songs I've pulled off the portable devices plus the new stuff I downloaded afterwards.

The software I used is Touchcopy 09 - http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/index.php

Works very well, did the same thing with SWMBO'S iPhone as she had loads of music on an old hard drive.

The lesson of this being.... Make a regular back up on DVD or BD disc.

I've just done mine to BD disc and it took nearly 2¼ hours to do it, but it's done.

Hardly anyone gets round to making backups of anything. It's an increasingly common phenomenon, I am well aware of the benefits of backing up information on a regular basis but it's one of those things I never get round to doing.

Must try harder or buy an Apple time capsule.

All sorted now, thanks everyone

Hardly anyone gets round to making backups of anything. It's an increasingly common phenomenon, I am well aware of the benefits of backing up information on a regular basis but it's one of those things I never get round to doing.

Must try harder or buy an Apple time capsule.

If your using snow leopard you dont need a time capsule, stuff in a USB HDD, format it as HFS journaled and point time machine at it.

I back everything up on my mac, and my home PC to a HP X510 media vault, its all done automatically without intervention by me. I cannot afford to lose over 150GB of music and 300GB of other digital media and documents, so I also backup to an external HDD which I Keep at work should anything happen to my home setup.

Its quiet painful to tell users who we try and help fix their home pc's that they have lost years worth of photos, music, documents etc. because they had not backed them up, they seem to think that computers will work forever. Working in IT, I of course know how bad it really is.

All sorted now, thanks everyone

Sohow did you do it Andrew?

I'll be in the same position soon, as will be replacing the home desktop