Ipod touch veterans...Need Help!
 

Both my sons have Ipod Touch devices. They keep their Itunes account on our main desktop computer at home. Problem happened today: main desktop died. Can anyone help me migrate the kid's Itunes to my laptop?


Thanks gang, I knew I could count on the group here.

Gene

Do you know how the desktop died? If the hard drive is still good, then you can likely by an external enclosure with a USB connector and hook it up to your laptop. This is probably a $15.00 solution.

If your hard drive died, it is still possible to retrieve the information, but it is likely much more expensive.

Top secret tech info... sometimes... if you remove the hard drive... while holding it horizontally vigorously twist it back and forth... or even gently tap it on a desk.

Sounds crazy I know but about one out of ten times it actually works, if the drive does come back to life it probably is dieing so immediately (before you turn it off) copy everything!

Also if the drive is still spinning sometime the OS dies and the computer won't boot. Removing the drive and hooking it up like Steve describes will also work with that problem.

Oh and if the computer is completely dead (no lights or beeps) it may be the power supply,

Oh no... the robot ninjas are at the door!

this is why I did not give up the top secret information...Scott you will be missed.

Dropping it on a hard surface - like a desk - from 3-4" up was favorite for drives with the brake sticking on or the bearings gumming up. Doesn't do anything helpful for most of the other failure modes... :)

^^^ What he said.

The next obvious thing to do is fix the computer itself; if the hard drive isn't the problem, then it should be possible to replace just the broken part.

If the hard drive itself truly is dead, then you can retrieve the songs/artwork from the iPod itself with a for-pay tool from Transfer iPod to iTunes, copy iPod to PC and iPod to computer, which understands the database format and unmangles the names. Same folks have a free player that lets you play the tunes on the iPod directly through the computer. Works very well (you can even run it from the iPod drive partition, so don't need to install it).

Personally, I've never trusted iTunes one inch. Suckiest part of the iPod experience by far, and an increasingly bloated piece of junk. Refuse to get locked into it..

I rip all my CD's to high bitrate MP3's on an external drive which I back up from time-to-time with another external drive that lives in a drawer... I just import the folder in iTunes to load it on the iPod, if I don't use GtkPod and Rythmbox to manage the iPod without using iTunes (or the associated bloatware) at all.