iPod tweaks

I wrote this a few years ago, when I still had a PC, long before everyone was using Vista (or maybe even before Vista had been released), but it might still come in handy to someone, so I decided to transfer it over here. Hopefully, these instructions work for Vista. If not, I can tweak them as I learn about Vista.

To transfer music from your iPod to your computer:

1. Connect the iPod to the computer. If iTunes opens and gives you bullshit about different libraries or whatever, tell it to cram it, then close iTunes.

2. Open My Computer.

3. Double click the icon for your iPod (should be Drive E: or F:).

4. Select Folder Options from the Tools menu in the iPod window.

5. Click the View tab.

6. In the Advanced Settings pane, select Show hidden files and folders. Click OK.

7. You should see a folder in the iPod window called iPod_control. Double click it.

8. Double click the Music folder. You should see a bunch of folders labeled F00, F01, F02, etc. All of your music files are in these folders.

9. Choose Select All from the Edit menu to highlight all the folders.

10. Choose Copy to Folder from the Edit menu.

11. Choose the folder to which you'd like to copy your music files, and then click Copy. It may take a while, but eventually, all your music files will be transferred to the designated folder on your computer.

12. Once the file transfer is complete, you can import these songs into iTunes--just choose Add folder to library from the File menu and select the folder in which your F00, F01, F02, etc. folders are now located (I would recommend the My Music folder).

*Your music files themselves will have shortened names, but as long as you have the track/artist/album info entered in the tags, all of that should be preserved once you add them to iTunes. And if you have iTunes set up to do so, it will rename the files and reorganize them into folders by artist and album name. Any troubles, let me know.