I blew the computer's hard drive (with un-backed-up music files).

My son's iPOD has about 125 files on it. I was worried that if we synched it to the new computer (that doesn't have any downloads on the iTunes) that it would sync the wrong way. But someone said I can hook it up to 5 different computers, so the new computer could be one of those.

Now its not syncing at all.

Help.

Sorry, every time I attach my iPod to my computer, it wipes itself clean and I have to start from scratch. I have grown to fear syncing my iPod.

Alas, I am no help.

Ylime - Mine too! I close itunes as soon as I can for fear of it accidentally syncing every time I want to charge it. If I want to add new music, I have to go through the drudgery of uploading everything all over again. My husband accidentally added a lot of duplicate files to one of our folders, so if I just do the folder option, I end up with nine zillion of the same song. Le sigh.

you can only get the songs from the ipod to the computer that have been purchased through itunes. if the songs came from your own CD or music file, then it won't upload them. only the ones that have been purchased. stupid, i know, but it works. i had to do that one time.

Ellie, I don't even do it anymore. I have a car charger. I am getting sick of what's on it, but with the new baby, I have no time to start from scratch.

wow, I'm glad I read this thread! That's a bug I hadn't heard of. And it sucks that you can only upload iTunes mp3s. I have a shitload of stuff that I paid for, it's legal and everything, but I got it from other sources, yahoo music or some such place.

Sam is definitely not getting an iPod now. He'll have to suck it up and deal with another brand of mp3.

i'm so glad i got the shuffle.

I got DaD the iTouch for his birthday, couldn't wait for the actual day, just snapped and gave it to him, cos I was so excited about it. He's digitised his whole life already, turned it into a light sabre and has Beenie's first steps footage on it to show anyone who cares. :)

Sorry i'm no help with this question, we're new to the whole i-anything experience, and so far LOVING it. i can listen to my uni lectures while i walk around the lake. Get into shape AND study, at teh SAME TIME. Bliss.

Also, i cannot praise the "autofill" feature enough. i'm hearing stuff i didn't even know i had.

My iPod does this weird thing that if I plug it into my computer to upload music, it won't even recognize it. Unless I open iTunes and then restart my computer while leaving the iPod plugged in (which of course it warns you not to do on pain of death). You don't even want to know how long it took me to figure out how to make it work!

So, um, no solution here. But sympathy!

If you're using a Mac, download a program called iPod rip. It should take the tracks from the iPod and put them back on the hard drive. If you try to use iTunes, it will want to erase your iPod.

If you've bought any of the tracks on iTunes, I think you can also recover them. Check with apple.com support for help.

There's tons of iPod recovery programs. Senuti, iPod Rip, tuneaid on windows.

The ipod supports MP3 (that you ripped yourself and from the itunes store) and apple lossless, and a few other obscure formats. Just because your music came from Yahoo or someplace doesn't mean that it won't work- check the music store that you bought it from. The other stores are fraught with incompatibilities player brand to player brand because of the DRM, so just not buying an iPod may not be the right answer.

What OS are you on?

get "Sharepod" ... you put it on the ipod and the computer you're hooking up to, and it lets you drag and drop any file to and from the ipod.

Yay! An iPod helpdesk! Okay, I know this is a long shot...but does anyone know a good program to use for Linux? I'm currently using Amarok but it is sooooo sloooww! As in it moves at glacial time.

Anyone?

Yes to clarify, like MD said -- it isn't Apple's fault, this DRM (digital rights management) stuff.

See also: RIAA and big fat meanies... and buy all your MP3s from Amazon.com... /end self-serving plug.

Most of these issues are preferences issues, such as it automatically sync'ing, and stuff. If you go to iTunes preferences, you can adjust all that. I have it set so that iTunes starts when I plug in my shuffle, and no sync'ing happens. I have to manually do all that.