Restoring iTunes After Hard Drive Crash?

That's right. Hard drive died along with everything on it. It seems the disc is unreadable at this point, without paying someone a lot to dismantle it and try to read the plates with their fancy machines. :shakehead

Most of my files I had recently moved to an external hard drive, so I have them, but my iTunes library was not backed up at all. (I know, I know, I have learned my lesson and now that I installed a new HD I also bought and plugged in a second external HD that will stay there and constantly back up the PC.)

If I plug my iPhone or iTouch into the computer and sync it with a fresh iTunes download, it is going to wipe out all my music and data. Is there a way to retrieve my stuff from the devices? I have heard there is 3rd party software that you can download that will rip data from an iDevice to iTunes, but I don't know which is the best or safest or how I should go about doing it.

Has anyone had this happen and successfully retrieved their music and data from their devices? Thank you guys for any help you can provide. :thumbsup:

Try this here

did u try connecting the drive to a working PC using a sata/ide to usb adapter?

could be just windows corrupted and the drive and data is still good.
you could use that tool to attach the drive as an "external storage device" and copy the data off it to the working PC.

Here's the built-in (legal) behavior from Apple:

1) For stuff you bought from the iTunes store: If you hook up your iPhone or iPod touch with a freshly installed iTunes, during the sync iTunes will tell you that it has found bought items on the iPhone/iPod, and will copy them from the iPhone/iPod.

2) Stuff that you don't have bought from the iTunes store that is still on the iPhone/iPod touch will be deleted. Since you have a backup of most of your iTunes files (how did you make this?), you can try putting the files back into iTunes before you connect the iPhone/iPod.

elgarak said:

Here's the built-in (legal) behavior from Apple:

1) For stuff you bought from the iTunes store: If you hook up your iPhone or iPod touch with a freshly installed iTunes, during the sync iTunes will tell you that it has found bought items on the iPhone/iPod, and will copy them from the iPhone/iPod.

2) Stuff that you don't have bought from the iTunes store that is still on the iPhone/iPod touch will be deleted. Since you have a backup of most of your iTunes files (how did you make this?), you can try putting the files back into iTunes before you connect the iPhone/iPod.

Click to expand...

I think that iTunes Store remembers all the apps and stuff that I downloaded (I think??) and would allow me to reinstall them into iTunes. Most of them were free though, so it wouldn't be that big a deal if it didn't, I'd just have to re-install the ones that I want again.

The problem is that like 1550 of 1600 songs were ripped from CDs, not purchased from iTunes, so they have no record of them and I can't just re-download them. And no, I don't have any of my iTunes library stuff backed up. I had word processed documents and spreadsheets and pics on the external HD, but none of my music.

Basically I'm just looking for an easy way to restore my library of music without having to go through the hassle of ripping everything from CDs again.

You don't state what OS you're using. If it's a PC you can have a go at having SPINRITE fix the crashed drive. If you are on a Mac you can still use SPINRITE on the drive if you move it to a PC box.

I've been using SPINRITE for many years on many machines and it is a powerful tool.

You could also try the link above I posted earlier.

DisrupTer911 said:

did u try connecting the drive to a working PC using a sata/ide to usb adapter?

could be just windows corrupted and the drive and data is still good.
you could use that tool to attach the drive as an "external storage device" and copy the data off it to the working PC.

Click to expand...

I had my dad take it to his office and their IT guy couldn't do anything. Then we took it to a PC building and repair place nearby and they said it was unreadable too and would have to be sent out to be read via dismantling it. If those guys couldn't fix it, it's beyond my abilities to do so. I think the drive is dead.

Sub_Umbra said:

You don't state what OS you're using. If it's a PC you can have a go at having SPINRITE fix the crashed drive. If you are on a Mac you can still use SPINRITE on the drive if you move it to a PC box.

I've been using SPINRITE for many years on many machines and it is a powerful tool.

Click to expand...

Sorry I should have stated that. I am running Vista. I have no idea what SPINRITE is, but I will google it. Thanks for the tip.

RCM said:

You could also try the link above I posted earlier.

Click to expand...

I did scan over that, and it looked pretty complicated and involved jailbreaking my phone and whatnot. I will read over it again and see what it entails. Thanks.

If it was an ipod classic, it would just be a matter of plugging it in and enabling hidden files and folders, my girlfriends ipod works that way on her windows 7 system, but doesn't do that at all on her MacBook.

I erased my hard drive, reinstalled I tunes and then plugged my iPhone back into it and it backed it up, synchronized and then it downloaded iOS 5 ( which I didn't install). It won't do Anything to your phone, it won't delete anything, it sill just back it up sync and look for updates.

Try installing winamp and using the ipod functions in it to download the stuff to your hard drive.

al93535 said:

I erased my hard drive, reinstalled I tunes and then plugged my iPhone back into it and it backed it up, synchronized and then it downloaded iOS 5 ( which I didn't install). It won't do Anything to your phone, it won't delete anything, it sill just back it up sync and look for updates.

Click to expand...

The phone is less of a problem, as I have less stored on it, and apps can be re-downloaded. It's the iTouch that I am more concerned about. If I sync it to the PC with an empty iTunes library, my understanding is that it will input into the iPod any changes that have been made to the library, which in this case, is a complete wipe. So to my knowlege, plugging it in will erase all my music. Am I missing something?

Lynx_Arc said:

Try installing winamp and using the ipod functions in it to download the stuff to your hard drive.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will go look at both winamp and spinrite now and see how they work.

nbp said:

Thanks, I will go look at both winamp and spinrite now and see how they work.

Click to expand...

I have the ml_ipod plugin but I am unsure if it works with all the phones etc. There is a default
ipod plugin that comes with it also. I downloaded all my stuff from my Ipod video 5.5 version to my hard drive
to test it and it put everything in folders just like it is on my drive. I don't use Itunes at all for my ipod to manage it.

It looks like from my reading on their website that winamp does not support iPod touch or iPhones.

nbp said:

It looks like from my reading on their website that winamp does not support iPod touch or iPhones.

Click to expand...

http://mlipod.sourceforge.net/
looks like the mlipod plugin doesn't work either...
(from mlipod site)
iPhone/iTouch support disabled by default, because newer devices and iTunes versions caused Winamp to crash. iOS 4 or 3 wasn't supported anyway, due to Apple's implemented protection to keep us out of the game. It can be re-enabled for older devices in the preferences, on the "Advanced" tab. You must restart Winamp after this change.

It was worth a shot I guess. You can thank Apple for upgrading their software to lock out winamp support from your touch and Iphone

There are a number of commercial utilities that will download all you music and artwork from your iPod or iPhone.
Download music from iphone
Norm

worst-case, you can backup the files on the actual device. While they are named things like 5s9874f13df8g8gh7t1t6b8f21t5re.mp3, they'll still play. Obviously you won't want to manually rename each one, so this doesn't help you there....

bshanahan14rulz said:

worst-case, you can backup the files on the actual device. While they are named things like 5s9874f13df8g8gh7t1t6b8f21t5re.mp3, they'll still play. Obviously you won't want to manually rename each one, so this doesn't help you there....

Click to expand...

If you can get the files off in MP3 format you can use a program like MP3Tag to use the imbedded tags in the files to create a suitable filename for them. I use it to correct things and compare files for duplicates etc.

I know its' too late, but BACKUPS are your friend, and relatively cheap to get one that will sync your hard drive for every new file you create.

There is a way to keep iTunes from automatically syncing to your ipod try this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1205