iPod music transfer

Hi Austtravel,
Short answer is cannot be done easily. Have to do all sorts of unusual file transfers and have a very good grip on file names and types. I just found this fact out after reformatting computer to find I had to recreate all playlists from scratch, luckily have seperate external music drive for this reason.
However I just saw a product the other day at Hardley-Normal (Harvey-Normans), I dont know how good it is. It was a program designed specifically for doing exactly what you want, about $40-$60 I think. Called something like UNlock your iPod or something intelligent like that It talked about being able to transfer from iPod to PC easily and on different computers too, and make your iPod act a bit more like a PDA if you want that sort of thing. I would think other places like Dick Smith may also have this product or something like it so give one of them a go. I havent yet purchased or used this program yet so I cannot vouch for its usefullness.
Have fun
Stryda

BE careful.
I tried doing this and wiped 3000 songs off my ipod when trying to load them onto a new computer.
Evan

I did a google and found amoungst others a sareware program called CopyPod. Enables the transfer of iPod tunes back into iTunes on a single or multiple PC's.

Have a look at this site and especially the booklet listed at the top. Explains exactly how to transfer files/data both ways on Ipod/itunes to/from PC/MAC

www.missingmanuals.com/cds/ipodtmm4/

Cheers

PodPlus is a free program which will allow you transfer songs from your ipod onto your computer. (google + download for free)

The trick is stopping itunes from identifying your ipod when you plug it in, and starting to write its 'blank' library. However I think there's a shortcut - ie hold down a couple of keys when you plug the ipod in, and it stops this. Then you can go in to itunes and check the 'automatically update ipod' box in setup.

Cheers,
John

Thanks everyone, I'll give it a go.

You could also try setting your track management preferences to "manual" rather than the default "Auto".

Another programme that I have seen used successfully is Ipodrip (do a google) its free and transfers everything (including playlists) However take note of the warning above about resetting Itunes to do manual updates - otherwise when you plug the ipod in it will just update the Ipod with whatever is on the Itunes library you are trying to reverse update

Good luck!

Another method is to setup the ipod to use as a disk drive in itunes (in ipod options its a tick box)
Then manually copy over the songs from the ipod to your computer. The file names will be a jumble of letters and numbers, but when you open them with an MP3 playing program (winamp, itunes, media player etc) they will play fine and have the correct info on them.
If you want to rename the file names to their correct titles, use a program like ID3 tag tools. This lets you get the artist and song title out of the song and it renames the file name to that.