iPod hacks!

I wanted to put my music collection on my new computer, so I could make playlists and listen to song on my brand-new speakers, but I couldn’t figure out a way to get my songs off my iPod and onto my new PC. It turns out, there is no graceful way to get my songs off an iPod. It seems that Apple’s deliberately making it hard to copy songs in order to appease record companies.

Which makes sense, but my songs honestly aren’t pirated. My boyfriend has several hundred CDs, (not an exaggeration) which are all bought and paid for, in actual stores. And what’s Stick’s is mine! Especially when it comes to his Foreigner and INXS CDs.

My laptop is also brand-new and it’s running Windows Vista, which is — guess what? Brand new! I wasn’t able to find good instructions on how to get songs off the iPod, so now that I’ve figured it out, here are the directions:

Getting Songs Off Your iPod With Vista

Go to Computer in the Start menu. This should give you a list of drives on your PC, one of which is your iPod. Click on your iPod.
This should show you what’s on your iPod, a folder called Calender, one called Contacts, a document called BOOTEX. Don’t see any music, do you? Don’t worry, it’s all there, just hidden.

Click on the Organize tab, and then choose Folder and Search Options. A little box pops up, click on the View tab. Under the Advanced Settings, there’s an option to Show Hidden Files And Folders. Check that box, and hit OK. I think Vista asks if you you’re sure you want to do that (like you might have gone through all this by accident).

Ta-da! Now you magically have a folder called iPod Control, and in that folder is a folder called Music, and in that folder are folders called F00, F01, etc., and in those folders are randomly named files like GTFE and TQYW. That’s actually Air Supply and Journey and the rest of Stick’s music collection.

Copy and Paste those F00 files somewhere on your PC, and then run Consolidate (from the Advanced tab) in iTunes and watch iTunes find your music you need to go to the File tab, and then Library then Organize Library, and choose “Consolidate files” to bring in all your music.

OR

I actually decided to put both my computer’s iTunes libraries on my thumbdrive. You might not have an empty external drive lying around, but it is a good way use your iPod with more than one computer without losing everything by accidentally syncing to the wrong library.

Open Computer in the Start menu. Click on “Music” in the left-hand column. In Music, open iTunes, in iTunes open iTunes Music. Now, instead of seeing XKJG and EJDU, you should see folders with the names of your favorite bands. Yay! Save these folders to your thumb drive. When you want to add them to your other computer’s library, run Consolidate (from the Advanced tab) in iTunes.

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0 Responses to iPod hacks!

  1. Eric says:

    congrats on the new ‘puter! Now why didn’t you tell me you got one!

    Does this mean you could run nwn online when you go to the other hemisphere?

  2. Meg says:

    well they came on Tuesday and I’ve been trying to get Vista to stop being a pain in my backside. I don’t think I like it… too much “Are you sure you want to install WoW? Really sure? Double-secret sure?”

    And actually I was just lookng for my NVN disk! we should play this weekend if you can bring your laptop to Hugo’s.

  3. Shaun says:

    itunes is really geared to sell music from Apple, not manage music you already have. And unless the ipod is already associated with a machine you cannot download music from the ipod to the computer.

    However, just about any itunes alternative lets you pull music off your ipod without having to access the drive directly.

  4. cory says:

    buy a Mac instead 😛

  5. Peggy says:

    I used a simple program called idump.

    http://www.softpedia.com/get/IPOD-TOOLS/Multimedia-IPOD-tools/iDump.shtml

    It is easy to use and moved all the music from the ipod to the pc in a matter of minutes

  6. Logs says:

    hey!
    thanks a ton.
    i new how to do this on every PC i’ve seen, except of course my own. (vista, of course) easy tutorial, thanks for the help!

  7. Meg says:

    glad I could help you — Vista definately doesn’t make it easy!

  8. Pingback: How To Get MP3s Off Your iPod With Vista OS : HyperGadget

  9. Meg says:

    Just tried this again, and you now need to go to the File tab, and then Library then Organize Library, and choose “consolidate files” Need to add this later.

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