heres my story- my computer got over infested with spyware and 400+ trojan viruses. i had no choice but to Fully restore my computer. now i re-downloaded itunes to put my music back on my comp. when i plug in my ipod, it takes about 5 minutes, than a first generation ipod appears on the screen, with all statistics showing n/a. then a little pop-up window comes up and says "ipod is corrupted. you may need to restore the ipod or re-connect it". well, reconnecting doesn't work. does anybody know how i can locate my ipod through the 'my computer' drive to save the music to my comp? if i restore my ipod will it delete the music on it? keep in mind, my music is NOT on my computer, and if it gets deleted, im back to square one! 2,600 songs all over again!
Well, if your iPod is corrupted, that's pretty much it. I know, it's upsetting. It sounds like you disconnected your iPod without ejecting it, or you had malware that made your computer think you disconnected it. If you REALLY want to save your music, you could try going to an Apple store and seeing if they can recover the data on your iPod's harddrive. Note that that will take time and possibly money.
itunes also plays games. Lucky you have an ipod and not one of the other products. There is a chance itunes did some of the damage because it 'shoots first asks questions later'. If you can plug your pod into your computer and your computer can recognize it, you can recover your music. Under tools in the file explorer window you can allow yourself to view hidden files and folders. Your music is in a hidden folded called something like ipod control. Copy the whole directory to your hard disk. itunes has scramble the file names but the music and the tag info will be intact.
This is the safest most likely to work senerio. Any third party tool uses the database which is probably corrupt. Once the music is on your hard disk you can import it into any audio system you would like.
i fully restored my computer. not just becasue of the ipod, but my computer was history due to Trjan viruses and major spam. so i pluged in my ipod and was able to recover my files by opening the hidden folders. all 3,000 songs! thanks
Thanks for posting the results. Your problem was that itunes was 'playing games' not that your ipod was corrupted. Well now you know where your music 'lives'. It is a good idea to back it up periodically. This is the safest way to backwards sync your ipod. It leaves no trace for itunes to sniff out. itunes will 'kill' your pod if it finds any trace of 'tampering'.
I was copying 200 tracks to my ipod classic on Saturday when it froze at track 3, the only way to 'fix' it at the time was to kill itunes via task manager and I had to unfortunately reboot my pc without safely disconnecting the ipod.
ever since that morning - disaster - seems my ipod is corrupted and I can't get itunes to recognize it and I'm pulling out my hair after 12 hours of internet search and wasted debugging time.
I have >4000 tracks on my ipod and these aren't on my hard drive any longer because I now only have a couple of gB free. How can I copy & restore the music files? I once tried copying a few tracks from the hidden music folder and importing back into itunes but the file name is garbage and doesn't bring across any artist/track details. Any help or advice greatly appreciated!!
itunes scrables the file names but the tag info will be in tact. I can only guess that the tag info wasn't there in the first place. There is no way itunes as to attack the tag info since ipods can't touch that info.
You did have time to disconnet your ipod after you shut down itunes with the task manager.
Your mistakes,
1) Using itunes with out backing up your tunes. (big)
2) Not dissconnecting your ipod before you shut down. (small)
I think you should count yourself VERY lucky to recover any tunes. I would follow the instructions I posted earlier. This will work as long as your computer can read your ipod as a disk.
Since ipods do not work forever, you will ALWAYS find yourself in this position sooner or later. It is smarter to back up while the ipod is working then wait till it is broken.
