iPhone/Laptop crashed - afraid I'm gonna loose everything on my iPhone

My poor laptop crashed a few months ago - it had at least four viruses on it.  

My amazing DH was able to get all my files off of it onto an external hard drive, then totally rebuilt my computer.   So I'm back in business...except for my iTunes. Everything that was on it originally is now gone.

I have an iPhone, which has over $100 worth of music and apps that I've downloaded onto it.  (All of my other music was uploaded from CD's) I want to be able to plug it into my laptop and sync it with iTunes. However, every time I've tried to plug it in, iTunes wants to delete all my music and apps from my iPod.   Which just isn't cool.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get around that problem? I really want to be able to sync my iPhone and iTunes, but I don't want to loose everything on my iPhone!

Change the settings to do manual syncs. Otherwise what itunes does it put everything in itunes onto your phone. Which at this point is nothing.

I have this same problem with my iPod touch, if I download things directly onto the iPod, they disappear when I sync.  I don't know why they can't allow you to sync from the device to the computer, but that appears to be very tricky    I have it on manual sync, which is a pain in the backside, but lets me keep my music

Manual Synching is the only way around this. Unfortuantely when I downloaded the new version of iTunes to our PC when we got a new on a couple of years ago I hadn't changed the settings to manual and it wiped my iPod (old 3rd gen 30GB model) clean except for my purchased music. So all of my CD's that I had put on it in the past (that my ex ended up with) are gone. I do remember that there is a way to import your library from the iPod to iTunes but I'm at a loss on exactly how to do it.

Perhaps send an email to iTunes helpdesk asking how.

They don't allow you to take music from an iPod/iPhone to a computer because in theory it would allow people to share a lot of music with each other just by bringing their iPod over to a friend's house and plugging it into their computer.  Apple is essentially covering it's a*se by not including that capability into the iTunes software, because they could get into trouble for facilitating the pirating of music/movies/tv shows.

It's dumb and I think there should be some kind of allowance, like the iPod will only be able to send files to one specific computer: your own.

If you want everything from both your iPod and your iPhone into your iTunes, you'll have to "rip" it.  There is software that exists that "rips" the files from your iPod and puts it back on your computer.  When my computer crashed about 4 years ago, I used a program called CopyPod.  I'm sure there are others that exist, just be careful about downloading them because I'm sure some are not legit.

I have an older generation iPod video, so what's worked for me might not work for you, but it's worth a try and very easy.

For the time being, change your iTunes settings so that it doesn't automatically update your iPhone (switch to 'manual').

When my computer crashed, I used a software called Music Rescue that takes the music from your iPod and puts it back on your computer. It's free if you don't license it; the only annoying thing is that every 50 files you have to click a button to say you don't want to license it. Still, it's really easy to use and effective.

You can download it here: http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/

I've used it several times due to a computer crash or when I want to transfer all of my songs onto a new computer (you may have to reactivate some files with your iTunes store account).

Hope that helps!

This kind of thing is exactly why we don't have Apple products.    Good ol' Steve Jobs likes to control how I use devices I purchase and what I can connect them to.  No thank you.  I'll provide my own user experience, TYVM.

This kind of thing is exactly why we don't have Apple products.

I would rather be blinded slowly with hot needles than use or own ANY Apple product whatsoever. This attitude has three components 1. The products 2. The philosophy behind them 3. The kind of people who are enthusiastic about them.

I would rather be blinded slowly with hot needles than use or own ANY Apple product whatsoever. This attitude has three components 1. The products 2. The philosophy behind them 3. The kind of people who are enthusiastic about them.

FWIW, we hate Microsquish too.  lol

FWIW, we hate Microsquish too.  lol

This post brought to you from Firefox running on SuSe Linux...

DH runs Linux on CentOS.. I'm on Linux with fedora (yes, I'm a wuss).   

DH runs Linux on CentOS.. I'm on Linux with fedora (yes, I'm a wuss).   

If it ends with an x it's good... I am toying with Open Solaris.. real Unix...

You meet the husband seal of approval... "Wow.. that dude is hardcore."  Well done!