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iTunes cannot read contents of iPod - all music seems to have dissapeared

Hello,

I've had a 160 GB classic iPod for a bit more than a year (so out of warranty) and hadn't had this problem before until today. When I connect it to my computer iTunes sends a message saying it cannot read its contents and asks to restore it. If I do I loose the 100+ GB music I have on it, if I don't when I disconnect the iPod from the computer, it says there is no music, although the space is occupied (only less than 60 GB free space). I've restored and reloaded my iPod several times, and every time I connect it to iTunes the same thing happens. I should mention that I have iTunes set up in manual mode, and that the problem happens only after I play something on the iPod disconnected from the computer (that is, if I connect it and disconnect it, things are fine, until I try to play something on the iPod).

Can anyone help me? After reloading my iPod with music I'm afraid of connecting it to the computer and losing everything, but I cannot load new stuff on it any other way.

Thanks!

PC Dell, Windows XP

Posted on Dec 12, 2010 1:37 PM

35 replies

gmy112

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Apr 1, 2011 10:20 PM in response to RChappo

I had the same problem. I updated itunes and the entire ipod seemed to go down the drain. Thanks, Apple.

I also cannot get the songs off of my ipod and have tried third party software as well as manually taking them off. I did not auto-sync because my hard drive is not big enough to hold my songs. I did buy an external drive, but since I cant get the songs off, it isn't doing me much good. I am a very unhappy apple customer right now. My ipod is just over a year old.

Retracts 87
Reallocs 340
Pending sectors 4
Power on hours 215
Starts/stops 12035

Apr 1, 2011 10:52 PM in response to turingtest2

Thank you on the instructions, very usefull, after three months now I finally got to know that my Ipod hard disk is almost dead, the sad part is that is only 1.5 years old

Sep 21, 2011 1:37 PM in response to Mar.villa

Hey i tried doing all the steps you suggested but i can only find the itunesDB file and not the itunesDB.old_mlpmp. What should i do?. what do you recommend for me to do? Please help.

Sep 21, 2011 9:29 PM in response to Mar.villa

Ok i was able to fix my ipod, but unfortunately all my media is gone. To keep some of my media i opened up the computer folder on my computer and selected the ipod icon. The ipod folder opened. You have to be able to see the hidden files on that folder. Once you are able to see the hidden files you open the folder called "iPod_Control". Once that folder is opened you will look for the folder called "Music" copy that folder to where ever you want to save it to. Once you have saved that folder you have saved some pr all of your media and then it can be added to your ipod after you have restored you ipod to factory settings. For me i was not able to save all my media but most of them i was. I wasnt able to save all the media because i would get this message saying something like it couldn't find the media. iTunes wouldn't let me restore my ipod to factory settings. I closed iTunes. Then i went to the computer folder on my computer and from there i saw the ipod icon. i right clicked it and selected format. It only took a few seconds to format it. Then i opened up iTunes again and it recognized my ipod. It gave me a message saying that it had found the ipod and it was on recovery mode so i had to restore it. so i clicked restore. Unfortunately all my media was gone. but i had already saved my media so now im just going through the folder called music the one i had saved and im putting my music back into my ipod.

Hope this helps, so far is going ok for me 🙂 GOOD LUCK!!!

Sep 21, 2011 9:49 PM in response to christianfromhastings

If you were not able to do this here is a page with better instructions on how to do exactly what i did. http://www.best-ipod-online.com/backup-ipod.html . Hope this helps and good luck!!

iTunes cannot read contents of iPod - all music seems to have dissapeared