Posted by Tom Cole on 10/12/05 03:00

simon.harris@kingshc.nhs.uk wrote:

>Having had a catastrophic HDD failure I now have a shiny new disk
>installed. Problem is, of course, my daughter has lost her iTunes
>library. I appreciate that there is no 'official' Apple way (!) to pull
>stuff off her iPod back into iTunes. But the Apple FAQ seems to suggest
>that it should be possible to upload 'new' tunes onto the 'pod' by
>setting the iTunes options to 'manually manage uploads' or something
>like that.
>But this sounds like a Catch-22. The default setting is automatic
>update which means if we plug it in now to an empty iTunes, everything
>will get 'wiped'. But the 'tab' where you set the 'manual update'
>option is on the iPod tab which is only activated when you plug in the
>iPod!!!
>So how am I supposed to make this setting (and avoid wiping the iPod)
>*before* I plug it in for the first time.
>I have also read about 3rd party products like 'iPodRip' that are
>supposed to enable transfer in the other direction but this also relies
>on getting the iPod connected to iTunes with it uploading a 'blank'
>playlist onto the player.
>Help - I'm going round in circles, here!
>
>Simon

There are a number of utilities to copy music from iPods to your hard
drive. I use sharepod http://sturm.t35.com/sharepod which can copy both
ways.

To stop iTunes syncing when you connect your iPod, hold down Ctrl+Shift
when you plug it in.

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