Copying my music from my nano to my computer

[bperkinsii]

I'm trying to move the music from my nano to a folder on my computer but I can't see the music on my ipod while in windows explorer, I used to be able to see them on our old computer which had XP as the OS, now we've got win7 for an OS. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob

[Sid32]

Select show hidden folders. Should be in ipod_control of course...

[bperkinsii]

sid32, thanks for the reply I see the music folder but still can't see the actual music. All I see is a group of folders labeled F00 thru F13. Is there something I need to change in the ipod settings so I can access my music?

thanks again for your help

Is there a way to just copy from one ipod to another, maybe hook them both to the computer and drag and drop the files?

[Sparkee]

There is no way to copy from iPod to iPod. Those folders with the cryptic file names should contain your music files. Apple had to make it this difficult to please the recording industry. Read Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide.

[Sid32]

Yep in the F# folder you will find your mp3s with odd names like dfs98fds0e.mp3. Read the guide above and you can also run the mp3s though a id3 tagger like kid3 to get your names back.

[S2_Mac]

Apple had to make it this difficult to please the recording industry.

Just a bit of contrary-ism to start your day ;-) My take on this issue -- the funky filenames -- is a bit different. Way back in the day, when all iPods were disk-based, one of Apple's goals was to make life as easy as possible for the HD's file system -- guarentee that no file path contained illegal chars, or was too long, etc. There was also a need to keep users from messin' with the files -- moving them around, renaming them, etc. -- since changes to the filepaths would mess up the link between the iPod's "index file" (the iPod version of the iTunes library file) and the content files.

The oddball folder- and file-naming scheme helps to solve both issues. By distributing content files to the F00 thru F99 (or however high it goes these days) folders, the FAT32 file system faces the fewest strains (overloading a single directory, excesive directory nesting, etc.). By using the "AAAA.extension" file naming convention, idiots..er, users... are discouraged from re-naming files, thus throwing off the index file. It also deals handily with "international" issues by not having to accommodate accented characters, non-Roman alphabets, etc. in the file system, making the firmware more efficient for the meager little processors in those early devices.

The "AAAA.extension" convention allows for just under a half-million unique content file names per iPod (26 ^ 4); it p'bly makes the over-eager tinkerer stop and think, and it ensures the smoothest path for the file system (pun intended ;-) The labels might have been happy with this, but I suspect its roots are more in line with technical and support issues than with business politics.

[Sparkee]

You are probably right S2_Mac, it makes sense, my excuse for the cryptic names makes it easier and quicker to explain and in my opinion, not far from the truth.

[gavidoc]

Do a google search for the program called Sharepod.

Free program that you can use to transfer music from your nano to the computer. Names, albums, and artist data remains intact. I don't know for certain if it will work with Win7 though.