Can't transfer music to ipod 3G

[GSte]

A google search says that I need to reformat my ipod, but I don't have any of the music that's on there backed up. Does anyone know of any way to transfer my music off the ipod before I wipe it? It seems that itunes doesn't have an option to do so for some bizarre reason....!?

Many thanks for any help, this has been plaguing me for ages!

[S2_Mac]

The accepted wisdom on iTunes not offering to "sync back" music from iPods is that it's Apple's atempt to make nice with the big music labels. As in, if Johnny could take his iPod to Jenny's house and let her use iTunes to grab everything off his iPod, Jenny would be less inclined to buy her own stuff. Fortunately, it's not a huge barrier...

The iLounge tutorial on Copying content from iPod to computer will get you going. There's basically two routes to take: use 3rd party software to transfer [almost everything] from iPod to computer, like playlsits, ratings, counts, etc. (and files, of course ;-), or to "manually" copy only the content files (but no playlists, ratings, etc.).

3rd party sw ranges from free to $30+; I recommend the $25 TouchCopy because it's easy and I don't hear reports of it mucking up people's iPods ;-) If your iPod currently plays tracks, you can p'bly use 3rd party software to do the job. If your iPod is no longer playing tracks (or if it's playing the wrong tracks), you will most likely need to get your files off it by-hand -- see the "Brute Force" section of the linked article.

[GSte]

Many thanks for the help.

It currently plays fine, I just can't put any new tracks on there. Have tried copying tracks to my PC in windows explorer but the "copying" window just freezes and explorer crashes. Will have a look through the article you linked though and see what I can do. Would prefer not to pay for software really but will do so if necessary. Cheers again.