Can I sync my songs from my iPod onto a new computer?
The computer that had my iTunes library with all my music on it crashed, and I can’t remember all the setting I had on it. I got a new computer, and I would like to put all the songs from my iPod onto it, but I’m afraid that when I plug it in, it will erase all my songs, like it did with another computer. Is there a way to put the songs on my iPod onto my computer without erasing it?
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3 Answers
First off, one thing a lot of people don’t realize is that the hard drive of a crashed/dead computer usually (as in “almost always”) still has your old data on it. If you get a new computer and put your old drive in there as a secondary drive, you should be able to recover your stuff including your music that you had stored on there, though it may be a little tricky to tell the computer where to look for it.
Also, your iTunes account should have a record of all of your purchases anyways, and that account info is stored elsewhere; any computer running iTunes and logged into your iTunes account should be able to access (and, if necessary, re-download) your purchase music and apps.
As a tip, one thing I did when I got a used iPod was to go into the iTunes settings before I plugged the iPod in for the first time and told it to let me manage my music and apps manually. That way, it did not automatically sync and wipe out everything that was already on the iPod. It seems a lot of people leave it on automatic and wipe their stuff out.
Download and set up CopyTrans on the new computer (it’s a free download, easy to find). That has modules that will allow you to “clone” a loaded iPod onto a new computer, in effect transferring your existing library onto the new machine.
And @jerv‘s advice about setting up iTunes to not sync automatically is exactly right.
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