iPod content copied/moved to external hard drive

Long story: an old laptop that I used only for playing music (either streaming or from my iTunes library) died. The external hard drive that held my 12,000 song library worked fine to that point. My local PC guy was aghast that I had an external hard drive that was older than 6 years old, so I doubt he even tried to move the music files over to a new 1 TG external hard drive, because that original old external hard drive had nothing to do with the laptop start up, which was the issue. Regardless, he said he could not move the music.

Before I go elsewhere, I thought I might as well just move the content already on my 80 GB iPod that held all but a few hundred of my songs over to the new external hard drive, in case the old ex hard drive really is done.

There are several software programs to do so. AnyTrans is one I was looking at. Couple of questions-

Those of you that are more versed in this, is it easy? What program have you found works best and easiest? Any other tips on moving my music library? Once I have it on my new external hard drive, I will be backing it up with Carbonite like the rest of my work laptop, but I am open to other ideas and options.

Now, I know its more fashionable to use a rental service like Apple Music, Spotify, et al. But I just want to keep my library, as through the years, I collected some rare music, like live shows (e.g. over 30 Rush concert soundboard recordings) and rare remakes.

Thanks in advance.

 

Pretty sure I used Sharepod the last time I did this but it's been a few years.

 

Are you just trying to move the files from the old external drive to the new external drive?

 

If it's an ipod classic, you can get to your stuff just by plugging it in and using windows. The filenames will be different (ABCD.m4v format), but all content and id tags are entact. You can just copy and paste them.

 

Initially yes, but my project now is to move the content on the iPod to an external hard drive.

 

This is how I did it with my first couple of iPod Nanos.

 

It is a classic iPod. When I then import the moved files on my Windows PC to iTunes, will it populate correctly with the intact tags in regards to artist, song, album, or would I need to update and type them in? Pardon my ignorance, I know my way around some computer stuff, but this is foreign territory for me.

 

If you are on a Mac use Senuti (iTunes spelled Backwards). It does exactly what you are looking for. It transfers from devices to iTunes or it can dump to a folder. It's about $19 on their website and works very well.

 

Not certain, but I'd bet it populates correctly based on the tag information.

 

Similar situation, want to put some history podcasts on a CD for an elderly neighbor to listen too. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I've never tried this, but if you have itunes - it seems pretty easy:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5499629

 

I did try this today. When I plugged in my classic iPod to the laptop, the only files that popped up were "calendars", "contacts", "ipod control" (grayed out), "notes" and "photos". No music files showed up. Anything I need to do differently to do this move using Windows?

 

I’m trying to remember how I did it because I definitely got a bunch of music off the iPod onto the computer a few years ago...

I think when I plugged it in I told it to connect to the iPod as a regular usb drive, and that allowed me to get to the music directory/folder.

 

I just went the Sharepod route yesterday and it worked fine. All sorted.

 

The path is: iPod_Control/Music

In that, you'll have several folders (mine are F00 - F49). Within each folder is a random assortment of your music files on the device.

The easiest way to copy all of them:
While in iPod_Control/Music, search for *.mp3

This will return all of your music files that are mp3's, do a quick select all, copy and paste them to your hard drive.

You may have some .m4a's, so do a search for *.m4a and do the same if the search yields some files.

This method is much faster than opening each folder and copying its contents to your local drive.

Let me know if you have any other questions.