HUGE Ipod question.very important!How do i recover these faded musc files?

Question

Hello, im really sorry to ask this but im having one giant issue with my Ipod.i had nearly 5000 songs.i was missing 700 which were on my new pc cuz my old one broke and i lost all the songs but i had saved them to my ipod.then yesterday i put all the songs from the folder file when i connect my ipod to my computer and saved them to my computer in an appempt to get 5000 songs but the files were like ghost but i took no notice and copied them anyway and moved them into itunes and they played fine so when i was done i synced my ipod and the '!' sign that means file is missing came up and now im 4300 songs short but i have the saved ghost files that i cant copy..but tey play the music just fine.what can i do, this is a huge problem =o. PLEASE help me!

Answer 1

'!' means that teh file has been moved form where itunes expects to find it  - it may still be on the machine but you have to find it and add it to the library manually.

Why do people assume that the ipod is a music backup system - its NOT!

the Master files are on the computer in the itunes library and you really need to back these up directly.

Thats NOT they way its designed to work the ipod is a slave device to ONE itunes only although itunes can have many ipods. When you PAIR an iPod with a computer it erases all songs on it!!! and deletes pairing with original computer.

Sharing music is also illegal!

You cannot transfer music from an ipod to itunes as Itunes is the MASTER location of the music files. if you NEED to transfer music form your ipod to the computer as you have lost the original you need a 3rd party application (I use Yamipod for mac) but a whole range can be found on www.versiontracker.com and enter ipod transfer in the search box under your operating system.

I suggest copying the contents of the "iTunes Music" folder on your old computer onto the new one by USB hard disk, USB Flash memory or DVD-r

once you have the utility installed run it and close itunes! connect the ipod (if itunes starts up and asks if you want to pair say NO and close itunes again). then with the utility transfer the songs form the ipod to your hard disk.

Then disconnect the ipod, START itunes... drop the files you have just transferred onto the itunes Library and once the files have been copied into the library you can delete the originals (NEVER MOVE or touch the itunes folder on your computer otherwise you will lose the music let itunes manage it for you).

Now reconnect the ipod and when it asks pair say YES and it will transfer the music to your computer.

if doing this with 2 computers you have to do this on both!!