I've always used iPod Rip for that. I know there are other things out therre that do the same thing, but I don't know what they are.

They erased it? They erased your hard drive without telling you? That's an awful thing to do.

That really is terrible. I don't have any advice, but I say kick those fuckers in the shins. I sympathize.

*wants to take credit for the recent comeback of shin-kicking*

That really sucks, Pink. If they erased your hard drive without telling you, they owe you money or software or both, not to mention all the music you may have lost.

Before you give in your machine for repair, they specifically tell you that they might erase your hard drive (just to be safe, I'm sure). I just never thought they would- I've had this similar problem (logic board, common in the iBook) before and they've never erased it. And actually, I do have backups of nearly everything, including almost my entire music collection (CDs, so vintage!), so the real pain here is just the godawful work of making my computer look like mine again. If I can save a little time using something like iPod Rip (thanks, dersins!), that'll be good.

BUT FIRST I have to update all my software. My computer (my iBook- I'm on my work PC right now) now has iTunes 4.3, wtf?? How old IS that?

When you turn your iBook in at the Apple store, the thing you sign says you acknowledge that they may wipe the hard drive. The person at my Apple Store said she'd back up my hdd but in my case, I had a backup at home and my MacBook Pro was a fresh install.

I'm sorry to hear what happened. iPod Rip will get your music back on the mac.

And it isn't just an Apple thing. Dell or HP could have done the same thing. I learned many moons ago to back my shit up. I use Carbon Copy Cloner and make a bootable version of my hard drive on a Firewire external drive. I can copy it back down to the Mac if something goes wrong.

[on preview, what you just said].

And iTunes 7 just came out yesterday. Doing a "software update" from the Apple menu will update everything. iTunes 4.3 is right around when the Music Store was introduced. That's retro.

Senuti can put the music on your iPod onto your Mac.

dobbs, is senuti any better / worse than ipod Rip? i've never used senuti...

Ipod Rip looked really awesome, and probably would have worked perfectly.

But my computer hadn't updated iTunes from 4 like I thought it had (how did it do a Software update that said ITUNES and not update past 4???), and I clicked the wrong button and iTunes deleted all the music on my iPod in 5 seconds (literally!!!! How does it do that so fast??). Before iPod Rip was able to get it. So, yea, looks like I'm rebuilding from scratch.

:'-( x 1,000.

Thanks anyway guys, for your help- at least I know the right thing to do next time.

Like, when I say iPod Rip would have worked- I mean it DID work. I opened it and saw all my playlists, all my music, everything. I was overjoyed. Then I messed it all up :-(

Wow, a wiped hard drive and a wiped iPod? That really does suck. You might be able to do a file recovery on the iPod. What a crappy day.

I googled "deleted iPod music", and did you know there is software sold specifically to recover deleted files from an iPod? I previewed then purchased PodSalvage, and it appears to be recovering all my files right now. A happy* ending to a long day, I think.

*If "happy" can equal paying $40 to press a button to save the music you lost by pressing a button.

dersins, sorry, never used ipod rip.