Lost HDD w/ iTunes library - no backup

[BlueTeuf]

We have experienced the misfortune of the failure of one disk of our RAID 0 setup which has wiped out our iTunes library (among other things). Because of my negligence, we have no backup.

I sent off the HDD to a "pro" to see if he can get it working again - answer is no.

Does anybody out there have any success rebuilding an iTunes library by retrieving it from the iPod? Otherwise, I have to re-rip my CD collection and that will takes weeks and only recapture about 90%.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

BlueTeuf

[Acymetric]

We have experienced the misfortune of the failure of one disk of our RAID 0 setup which has wiped out our iTunes library (among other things). Because of my negligence, we have no backup.

I sent off the HDD to a "pro" to see if he can get it working again - answer is no.

Does anybody out there have any success rebuilding an iTunes library by retrieving it from the iPod? Otherwise, I have to re-rip my CD collection and that will takes weeks and only recapture about 90%.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

BlueTeuf

Yes! I used iGadget and it worked great, I highly recommend it. It recovers the files exactly as they were when they were on the computer, including the star ratings if you use those. I think it costs like 10 dollars or something, but its worth it. Be sure of several things though. If you have the ipod and itunes set to sync automatically, turn that setting off, because iTunes will replace the songs on your iPod with the songs in your iTunes library, which is empty. So disable autosync first, then run the iGadget program.

Also, if you use the "automatically copy songs to the iTunes folder when added to library" option, disable that because sometimes a song will cause problems and not copy. iTunes will tell you a song didn't copy, but not which one. iGadget lets you choose the folder name and sorting options for transferring to the computer, make sure you choose to sort by artist/album. The first time I used it I accidentally sorted by genre, that was a mess.

I don't know if I explained any of that very well, or how computer literate you are, so ask away if something up there didn't make sense, I'm sure myself or someone else here can help you out.

Turns out it was $15, and here's the link (http://www.purpleghost.com/index.php?q=get_igadget). And for emphasis, make sure you disable syncing with iTunes before you plug your iPod into your computer, you'll lose everything!

[BlueTeuf]

Worked like a charm.

Thank you!

[billybreen]

Excellent. I've never had that problem, but it's nice to know there's such a comprehensive solution if it ever came to that.

[blazindw]

I used CopyPod and CopyPod Photo when my harddrive failed. I just used the trial version and in a couple days (I have over 10000 songs), I was back in business.