[Yossi]

By mistake my HDD got deleted, but I have all my songs on the iPod, how do reinstall them back on to my Mac?

[D_Icon]

If you connect your iPod to your computer, doesn't it automatically sync with iTunes?

[Nobody]

I was having that same problem today, but "syncing" with iTunes would most likely erase the iPod, wouldn't it? I believe it only syncs in one direction: from iTunes to iPod. I believe this is so you can't "smuggle" music from one iMac to another. However, I legitimately need to get my music from my iPod to my iMac. Drat.
Sincerely,
iScrewed

[D_Icon]

Syncing should not erase anything, it should duplicate so both devices contain the same information.

[Yossi]

is there someone willing to try it out?

[lkalliance]

In theory, couldn't you do this:
(1) Turn off autosyncing in your iTunes preferences
(2) Mount the iPod as an external hard drive
(3) Enter the iPod via the Finder and manually copy all the MP3s back to your hard drive
(4) Re-import them into iTunes
Is there any reason that wouldn't work?

[Yossi]

No you can't for one simple reason, Finder does not see the songs they are hidden, number two let's say I do find them on the iPod the song are NOT organised!

[car1son]

I was interested in this for possible future use (since I'm currently ripping my CD collection to an external HD and loading them on my new iPod, and don't prefer not to burn 20GB of AACs for backup when they are already stored on the iPod, or repeat all the really tedious tag editing, should that disk ever fail on me.)
A check of Version Tracker turned up a couple of possibilities:
escapePod

iPod Access
I have tried neither.

[nkasuri1]

iTunes is programmed to mirror the contents of its library onto the iPod. This means that if you have no music in your iTunes library, it will completely delete your iPod. I recently ran into this same problem. There are, thankfully, a large number of third party applications that allow you to bypass this limitation. I downloaded iPod.iTunes. This application actually checks your iTunes library and if there are any duplicate tracks on your iPod it doesn't move them to iTunes. Worked flawlessly for me. I was able to move all my music from my iPod to iTunes. Anyway, if you type iPod in versiontracker you will find any number of applications that will let you perform this function. Make sure you read their instructions carefully so that you don't end up erasing your iPod. By the way, you cannot mount your iPod as a hard drive and copy music to iTunes. When the iPod is mounted, it doesn't show any of the music files in the finder.

[qimosabe]

You can also use terminal to access the songs on your iPod. Just cp the songs to your hard drive. The only catch is that all your songs will be about 20-25 folders named F1 to F25 and in no particular order. It would be used as a last resort to at least salvage all the mp3s off the iPod. I have done this for a friend who lost his hard drive and wanted back his mp3s off the iPod instead of re-encoding all his CDs again. I also tried ipod.itunes and it was effective.

[crue24]

If you have access to a PC machine I have an easy fix. The same thing happened to me. Luckily the restrictions apple put on there so you can't copy the iPod songs to other songs don't work on windows. connect your ipod to your mac. Enable file sharing for windows. From a PC mount the iPod and mount the HD you want to copy the songs to. On the PC you will be able to see the hidden files that you cannot on the mac. Simply drag them from the iPod to the new HD. Note When I did this, I actually moved the files from the iPod to the PC and then copied them to the mac, but I don't see why it wouldn't work, skipping that middle step. Mounting the drive from the PC gets you access to files that are hidden, which i believe is the only thing you need to bypass.

[robtodd]

What commands have to be input into Terminal to transfer the individual tracks?
Make any instructions very simple, or point me in the direction of the idiots guide to using Terminal. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[saxophonemn2]

Use xPod it automatically will export your all of your songs onto your hard drive and then you put them into the iTunes library they will be organized in the library becasue the tags ID# tags will be OK. A while I go I accidentally screwed up the partition on my iPod and had to back it up so i could reformat it.

[robtodd]

Here's the thing. What I really need to know is terminal commands because I want to extract individual songs. My hard drive is a puny 10GB and the iPod is already well over that.