iTunes is the devil - please help! - SOLVED!!!!! Thanks!

[the_Journeyman]

So, my wife attempted to sync her 8GB iPod touch to her laptop.

She had purchased quite a few songs through iTunes on her laptop.  After syncing, the iPod no longer has the songs on them, NOR does the iTunes on her laptop.  She can't brows the storage on the iPod aside from the pictures folder (BOO on you Apple for that little "lockout") and she doesn't know where to begin looking for them if they made it to the HD on her laptop.

ANY ideas where or how she can recover these songs she has already purchased?

Thanks!
JM

[derby]

worst case scenario is they're gone and you can just redownload them from ITMS.

is this a mac or windows laptop?

on a mac, the files should be under ~/Music/itunes (by default)

on windows, the files should be under %userprofile%\Music\itunes (by default)

[the_Journeyman]

Windows 7 laptop.

So, even if they're not visible in the iTunes program, they might still be where you mentioned, even if they originated on the iPod and not the laptop?

Can she re-download them free since she bought them once already?  We're both iTunes n00bs, and it doesn't help I have a problem with how iTunes can hijack stuff.

Will it matter the songs were purchased using the iPod instead of the laptop as far as re-downloading goes?

JM

[slowpoke13]

The songs are tied to the iTunes account used to d/l them. And then you "authorize" machines to use them if it was downloaded originally to a different device/machine.

At least that's how I remember it going back when I looked into it.

[thought]

all itunes songs are in the cloud now, you can re dl anything you've ever purchased from them as long as you are signed in under the account that bought them.

[the_Journeyman]

Thanks for the input folks!  She finally found where to bring them back to her computer!!!!!

JM

[slowpoke13]

Where were they? Did she have to re-d/l them? Or were they just hidden on the puter? I've had to rebuild my library when I moved them from puter to puter a few times.

[the_Journeyman]

She had to re-download them.  For some reason the sync deleted them from the iPod and wouldn't put them on the laptop despite it being iTunes "authorized"

JM

[derby]

She had to re-download them.  For some reason the sync deleted them from the iPod and wouldn't put them on the laptop despite it being iTunes "authorized"

JM

is this the same laptop that the iPod was originally sync'd with?

if the files weren't on the laptop AND the iTunes library that was being used to sync (you can have multiple libraries per iTunes install), i'd expect to see the behavior it sounds like you're describing.

iTunes gives a warning when this happens.... something similar to this:

[the_Journeyman]

This was the first time the iPod has ever been hooked to a laptop.  She was purchasing music using the iTunes app on her iPod.  She didn't get any warning though.  She did have it set up where the laptop was "authorized" on iTunes

JM

[TiNi]

i've got another question...

the only place i have my music right now is on my iphone
my old laptop died, and i got a new one...

how the hell do i get all of the music from the iphone to the computer without loosing anything?

[bevel]

i've got another question...

the only place i have my music right now is on my iphone
my old laptop died, and i got a new one...

how the hell do i get all of the music from the iphone to the computer without loosing anything?

If you bought everything from iTunes, just install iTunes on your new laptop, and choose to redownload all your music before you sync. When it goes to sync, it'll see "wow, all these songs are already in this library, cool!". If you don't download all the music from iTunes, you'll be in the boat that Journeyman and his wife were in.

Now, the other story is if some of the music came from iTunes, and some from other sources. If that's the case, you'll need to hunt out a program to pull the music off for you before you do the sync. iPod To Mac is pretty good, and there's a dozen PC versions that'll accomplish the same thing.

Whatever you do, do not sync your phone until you've got the music on the new laptop first. Once you sync, it'll be too late to try and recover anything off the phone.

[TiNi]

grrrrrrrrr... that's what i figured 

i have a mix of ripped cd's and itunes music
whatapain

[derby]

grrrrrrrrr... that's what i figured 

i have a mix of ripped cd's and itunes music
whatapain

where the drive from your old laptop?

[TiNi]

where the drive from your old laptop?

i still have it, but phone now has WaY more stuff on it than the old machine... i'm really just dreading weeding through all of the music. is this on the laptop Y or N... is this on the laptop Y or N... is this... is this... i think it would be better to move everything on the phone to the new laptop, right?

sadly, my itunes library is the only thing i didn't back up to another drive
and my iphone hasn't been plugged into my computer in 6 months 

i'll check into this ipod to mac software, it sounds like the easiest way to go  thanks!