iPod ripping software?

[Rellik]

I'm trying to find something to help out my brother-in-law. His computer crashed a while back, taking most of his music collection with it. He's got most of the collection saved on an old iPod, and wants to try and rip them to his new computer. Anyone know of a good software to handle this kind of problem?

 

[Our Wasted Years]

I never heard of any kind of software like that and it might not exists.

:/ could you at least say what kind of iPod does he have? (which generation and what kind)

 

[Rellik]

The software definitely exists, I've seen it myself. I'm just trying to save myself the trouble of going through a bunch of Google hits that probably won't do what I want them to by seeing if someone here already knows of a safe, reliable program.

As for the specs of his iPod, it's a classic video iPod. I'm not sure about the generation, but it's quite old. It's rather thick, only has 40 gigs of memory, and has a glass top. (As opposed to the plastic or metal top that's on newer iPod Classics.)

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I've never used a program to do it, but there's this one:

http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/index.php

If his iPod is one of the older generations, there's also a way to do it manually without buying software like that. The older iPods were able to show up in "My Computer" as an external hard drive. If you set windows to show hidden folders, the iPod system folder should show up, and you can just copy all the audio and video files from in there into a single folder on your computer. The folder should be x:\iPod control\music, and then with many subfolders within there, each containing some of the audio files.

The files won't be named by song (they'll be like BAQV.m4a, etc.), but if you wanted to resort them after the fact iTunes has a feature where it'll copy your library to a new location, and renaming them and sorting them into folders in the process.

 

[Rellik]

I've never used a program to do it, but there's this one:

http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/index.php

If his iPod is one of the older generations, there's also a way to do it manually without buying software like that. The older iPods were able to show up in "My Computer" as an external hard drive. If you set windows to show hidden folders, the iPod system folder should show up, and you can just copy all the audio and video files from in there into a single folder on your computer. The folder should be x:\iPod control\music, and then with many subfolders within there, each containing some of the audio files.

The files won't be named by song (they'll be like BAQV.m4a, etc.), but if you wanted to resort them after the fact iTunes has a feature where it'll copy your library to a new location, and renaming them and sorting them into folders in the process.

I don't know if he's willing to pay for anything, but I'll run it by him. If anyone knows any freeware though, that'd be great.

As far as the other method you described, my brother-in-law uses an iMac. Would that method still work on that type of computer?

 

[GuitarHero]

If your bro has a mac than I recommend expod, I've had to use it on several occasions to get all the music off my pod and back onto my computer.

http://expod.joynt.net/

You install the program, plug in you iPod, let it load all the tracks on the iPod and you tell it were on your computer you want it saved... doesn't really get any simpler than that.

A good windows alternative is ephpod, I've only used it once but it was also very simple. Albeit not as simple as expod.

http://www.ephpod.com/
(a quick tut for ephpod)
http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/

EDIT: I also recommend poddox
http://www.poddox.com/

I should also mention all of these programs will automatically tag the songs for you so they won't be the crazy iPod scrambled names.

 

[Mr. Pokemon]

I've used foobar2000 to copy music and other files off my iPod (it recognizes audiobooks and video files, but fb2k can't play them.)

Not only it is a great alternative to iTunes (you can copy it to your iPod classic's HDD and run it from the iPod if you're away from your home computer), it's free and with the File Operations plugin (IRRC installable from the setup wizard), you can copy files off your iPod into folders by artist and album. You can also name each individual song according to its tags, instead of the XXXX.m4a you would get if you copied them by opening the hidden folder manually.

In other words, I can use foobar2000 to copy the entire Beatles catalog from my iPod to my computer. Instead of having randomly-named XXXX.m4a files that I can't identify, I can get a folder structure like:

The Beatles/Rubber Soul/Drive My Car.mp3 and The Beatles/Sgt. Pepper/Fixing a Hole.mp3

http://www.foobar2000.org/

EDIT: fb2k doesn't come with iPod support. You'll need to install this plugin, http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop. You can use the following directions to do so: http://yuo.be/wiki/dop:start

 

[Kacikip]

I personally use Sharepod when I need to rip music off of my iPod for any reason. It's horribly simple, so even someone as computer illiterate as me can use it.

I'm not sure if it works for Mac though. :/ I read in the help that you can install MacDrive, but I'm not sure if MacDrive, despite the name, will work for Macs since it says something about installing it on a windows PC.

I'm horribly computer illiterate as I said before. @_@

 

[Mr. Pokemon]

I personally use Sharepod when I need to rip music off of my iPod for any reason. It's horribly simple, so even someone as computer illiterate as me can use it.

I'm not sure if it works for Mac though. :/ I read in the help that you can install MacDrive, but I'm not sure if MacDrive, despite the name, will work for Macs since it says something about installing it on a windows PC.

I'm horribly computer illiterate as I said before. @_@

MacDrive is simply software that allows Windows to read Mac-formatted hard drives. Useful for dual-booting Windows and OS X.

It would seem SharePod is exclusive to Windows.

For Mac, I found iRip.