Backup your iTunes Library having your iPod connected:
At the risk of making my Windows readers feel like second-class citizens, please follow the first four steps outlined in the instructions for Mac users.
Once you’ve done that:
Once you’ve done that:
1. Double-click on the My Computer icon on the Desktop.
2. Locate your iPod in the window that appears and select it.
3. Choose Folder Options from the Tools menu in the My Computer window.
4. Click the View tab in the Folder Options window that appears.
5. Look for the Hidden Files and Folders entry. Below this entry enable the Show Hidden Files and Folders option and click Apply to reveal the hidden files.
6. Dismiss the Folder Options windows by clicking the OK button.
7. Double-click the iPod’s icon in the My Computer window.
8. Sorry about the return to second-class citizen status, but please follow steps 8 through 10 in the Macintosh instructions above.
9. Once the Music folder is on the Desktop, right-click on the folder, select
Properties from the contextual menu, uncheck the Hidden option in the Attributes area of the General tab, and click Apply. In the Confirm Attributes
Change window that appears make sure the Apply Changes to This Folder, Subfolders, and Files option is checked and click OK.
The folder and all the items in it are now visible and can be dragged into the iTunes library.
Note that although the music files bear a seemingly incomprehensible four-letter title (AHLK.m4a, for example) when viewed outside of iTunes, their titles will appear properly once you’ve brought them into iTunes.
More-Refined Methods
Scan sites such as hotfiles.com and versiontracker.com and you’ll discover that there are a host of utilities designed to pull music off your iPod and onto your computer. Some are more sophisticated than others—allowing you to copy not only the music the iPod carries, but its playlists as well. Here are a few of my favorites.
Another useful free utility for backing up your iTunes library is iDump:
iDump will allow you transfer your songs off your iPod to a PC, iDump does come wrapped in installer but you can simply drop the .exe in the root directory on your iPod and run it from there.
Connect your iPod and run iDump and you'll have access to all your songs, select the songs you want to transfer then pick a destination directory and how you would like your songs to be named. And then sit back and transfer all the selected songs to the PC.
You can download it here:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/IPOD-TOOLS/Multimedia-IPOD-tools/iDump.shtml
Also worth noting: 09-02-2007
How To Recover Your iTunes Library from Your iPod
If your computer crashes and all you have left of your iTunes collection are the files on your iPod, you can use these instructions (found on the Apple forums) to recover your entire iTunes library.
Recover your iTunes Library:
1-After getting your computer up and running again, re-install iTunes
2-Start with the iPod disconnected from the computer & open iTunes
3-Go into iTunes Preferences – this blocks iTunes from seeing an iPod connection; leave the preferences window up and running
4-Connect the iPod to the computer, wait about 15 seconds before continuing
5-Open "My Computer"
6-On the Tools menu, Folder Options, View tab, enable "show hidden files /folders"
7-Open the iPod icon in "My Computer"
8-Open the "iPod_Control" folder
9-Drag the folder called "Music" to somewhere on your computer’s hard drive
10-After the copy completes, right-click the new "Music" folder on your hard drive and select "Properties"
11-Clear the checkmark next to "Hidden"
12-Close that explorer window
13-Eject the iPod from the System tray "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. (This icon looks like a small gray rectangle with a green arrow floating above it.) 14-
14-Right-click & select ‘Safely remove..’, then click ‘Stop’ in the next window, OK in the next window, and then Close to complete the ejection.
15-Disconnect the iPod from the computer.
16-Go back to iTunes, cancel the preferences window
17-Go to the File menu, choose "Add folder to Library: and find that "Music" folder you copied over from the iPod to your PC
18-Your iTunes library should now be restored!
To recover your iTunes Playlists
1-Download this program: http://otto.homedns.org:8888/iTunes/iPodGetXML.zip
2-Put the iPod into Disk Mode or otherwise access the iPod as a drive.
3-Make sure you can see hidden files
4-Go to the drive and the iPod_Control folder and find the iTunesDB file.
5-Copy the file to your PC.
6-Put the copied iTunesDB file in the same directory as this program, then run the program. It’ll read the iTunesDB, get all the playlists, and create an XML file for each one.
7-Now just import those XML files into iTunes to recreate the playlists.
Source: http://www.sarahintampa.com/sarah/2007/09/02/how-to-recover-your-itunes-library-from-your-ipod.html
