4.5.3

iPod Emergency Copy

Before using this feature you should read this document to be sure to get desired results!
You should also send me the iPod.iTunes logfile so I can see if you really need the emergency copy. To do so please switch in iPod.iTunes to the "Tools" tab and click the "Send Logfile" button.


iPod Emergency Copy copies as much files as possible from a damaged iPod file system.
A file system organizes data on disk. Errors in the file system can lead to ALL kind of errors. Accessing a damaged file system may crash/freeze applications or even the entire OS. Files can be damaged or simply gone away.
In most cases errors in the file system are not hardware related. So usually it works if you restore your iPod using iTunes, but as this will delete the contents of the iPod entirely you may want to rescue the contents from the iPod first.

You find iPod Emergency Copy in the Tools tab. When you click the Start button files will be copied to iPod.iTunes’ Target Folder Location. This is by default equal to the iTunes Music Folder. If you haven’t changed the iTunes Music Folder location in the iTunes preferences you will find the copied files within your home folder in:
~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/YOURiPod’sNAME/
If possible (enough disk space for the files to copy) the iTunes Music folder location and iPod.iTunes’ Target Folder Location should be the same (for the reason see “Correcting 4-letter names” at the bottom).

iTunes Preferences-->Advanced:

1. •If iPod.iTunes crashes/freezes during the copy
   

2. If you don’t see the progress bar moving for a long time it might be because there’s a very large file copied. Keep in mind that iPods are not very fast and copying a large file takes some time. In the log area you can see how large the currently copied file is.
   If iPod.iTunes has really freezed you can do the following:
   

3. •Force quit iPod.iTunes (click onto the iPod.iTunes icon in the Dock with control-option keys down).
   

4. •Launch iPod.iTunes and start the iPod Emergency Copy again.
   iPod.iTunes will remember where it had a crash/freeze the last time and will continue where it left off, skipping the problematic file it was trying to copy the last time.
   There may be more or less, or no files causing a crash/freeze, so repeat these steps as necessary...
   
   
   

5. •Dealing with duplicates
   As there’s no synchronization in this mode iPod.iTunes will copy every file that can be copied. If you add them to your iTunes library you will get duplicates in case some of the iPod songs are already in your iTunes library.
   There a two ways to avoid this:
   

6. Method 1: Make sure non of the iPod songs are in your iTunes library. Caveat: Don’t delete them entirely. Let iTunes move the files to the trash, but don’t empty the trash. Just in case not all files can be copied from the damaged iPod file system you might need them again.
   Also if you have playlists in your iTunes library containing these songs, they will disappear from the the playlist if you remove the song from the library.
   Of course, the simplest way to avoid duplicates is to add the copied files into an empty iTunes library.
   

7. Method 2: If you chose this method you can’t re-create playlist from the iPod and you have to re-create them by hand (see “Re-creating iPod playlists”).
   

8. •In iTunes, restore the iPod (for details see “Fixing the damaged iPod file system”).
   This will entirely delete the iPod, including it’s playlist data.
   

9. •Set the iPod to “Manually manage music and videos” and click “Apply” at the right bottom.
   

10. •Now we will transfer the copied iPod files back to the clean iPod:
    By default iPod.iTunes has copied the iPod files into the iTunes Music Folder. If you haven’t changed that in iTunes you will find them in your home folder in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/YOURiPod’sNAME/
    Drag only the YOURiPod’sNAME folder from the Finder directly onto the iPod icon within iTunes and wait until all files have been copied back to the iPod.
    

11. •Synchronize from the iPod to your iTunes library using iPod.iTunes.
    

12. •Done.
    
    
    

13. •Re-creating iPod playlists
    If your iPod appears within iTunes without error messages from iTunes it might be possible to re-create the playlists on the iPod in your iTunes library.
    You have to add the copied songs to the iTunes library first to make this work. This conflicts with the “Dealing with duplicates” issue, so if you expect duplicates you have to decide if you want to re-create playlist by hand or remove duplicates afterwards by hand.
    Note: when you delete duplicates by hand afterwards you might delete the wrong duplicate - the one that is in one or more of your playlists. Although iTunes displays in which playlist a song is (by right-click on a song) this might be a lot of work, depending on how many duplicates you have to remove.
    
    
    

14. •Adding copied iPod files to the iTunes library
    The copied files will not be added to the iTunes library automatically to give you the chance to deal with duplicates if you need to (see “Dealing with duplicates”).
    To add the copied files to the iTunes library simply drag the folder with the copied files onto the iTunes icon in the Dock.
    By default iPod.iTunes has copied the iPod files into the iTunes Music Folder. If you haven’t changed that in iTunes you will find them in your home folder in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/YOURiPod’sNAME/
    Drag the YOURiPod’sNAME folder from the Finder onto the iTunes icon in the Dock.
    
    Note: if you have copied the iPod files outside of the iTunes Music folder and if your iTunes Preferences-->Advanced are set to “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” then you need to delete the files copied by iPod.iTunes by hand afterwards.
    
    
    

15. •Correcting 4-letter names
    The copied files have random 4-letter names - that’s the way they are stored on the iPod. If you want to automatically rename the files according to their ID3 tags you can use iTunes:
    If the copied files are stored inside your iTunes Music folder, iTunes can correct the 4-letter names itself (provided the files have ID3 tags).
    The iTunes Music folder location is in iTunes’ Preferences-->Advanced
    If the 4 letter files are within iTunes’ Music folder AND “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” is turned on, iTunes will correct the folder structure for the files and their names.
    You might need to re-launch iTunes or even to turn the setting off and back on to make it work.
    
    
    

16. •Fixing the damaged iPod file system
    When you have transferred songs/playlists you need to fix the damaged iPod file system before re-syncing the iPod with iTunes. To do so select the iPod in iTunes’ source column and on the upcoming page click “Restore”. This will entirely wipe the iPod, erasing everything.
    
    

iPod.iTunes Settings-->Target Folder Location:

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