Recover Hostage Media From Your iPod with iPodDisk

Consider being caught in this situation: your computer crashed beyond repair, and since everybody seems to be talking about how great Apple computers are, you’ve treated yourself to a brand new Mac. The problem is, you’ve got an iPod full of music that’s still associated with your defunct computer. When you plug your iPod into your shiny new Mac, it states that you must format the iPod in order to use it. You don’t want to erase your music, you want to retrieve it!

Given this sticky situation, you could spend an eternity and a few paychecks re-importing all of your CDs and re-purchasing all of your digital downloads. Or, you could use a fantastic, free piece of software called iPodDisk to retrieve all of your media from your iPod, putting it in its rightful place on your brand new Mac.

Here, Of Zen and Computing describes how you can recover or back up your music files from your iPod using iPodDisk.

Step 1: Download and Install iPodDisk Software

The iPodDisk software is free, and available for download at the iPodDisk web site. Download and open the DMG image file, and drag the iPodDisk icon to your Applications folder.

Step 2: Plug Your iPod Into Your Computer

This one’s self explanatory — take your iPod, and plug it into your computer with either a FireWire or USB cable.

Step 3: Start up iPodDisk and Recover Your Music

Start up the iPodDisk software, and a Finder window will appear on your screen. Through this Finder window, you’re able to browse all of the media files on your iPod. You can drag & drop both individual files and entire folders from the Finder window, to a location on your computer.

Here’s a suggestion: create a temporary folder on your desktop, and drag all your media from iPodDisk to that folder. Then, go to iTunes and add that folder to your iTunes Library by clicking File → Add to Library. Once iTunes finishes adding the songs, click Advanced → Consolidate Library. Once your iTunes Library is consolidated, you can safely delete the temporary folder from your desktop.

If you have issues getting iPodDisk to work with your iPod, you may need to put your iPod into disk mode. For instructions on putting your iPod into disk mode, consult “Putting iPod into Disk Mode” at the Apple Support web site.

Shout-out to The Unofficial Apple Weblog for pointing out iPodDisk.