iTunes problem
 

Hoping someone here can offer some insight. A few years ago I downloaded several CDs from that Russian MP3 site. I imported the files into iTunes and they are on my iPod. Last week when I was on my PC, I thought I'd play one of those CDs. iTunes couldn't find the files. It shows the song title in iTunes as well as the cover art, but the damned files are no longer on the disk. I searched with file explore and they are no where. They have been deleted. I assume it has something to do with digital music rights or some shit like that. Anyone know? I back up the HD to a 500 gb USB drive, but of course if they aren't in iTunes, they aren't getting backed up. :banghead:

Since the songs are still on the iPod I believe there are programs that will allow me to retrieve them from the iPod. Anyone know anything about this? Any suggestions? And if I am successful in retrieving them, will they eventually disappear again in iTunes?

thanks in advance

A little googling will find you apps to pull files off an iPod. They're out there, I just don't know of any offhand.

Your russian mp3s weren't deleted via DRM. I know that site well, and what you got from them is totally plain vanilla mp3 files without any DRM or fingerprinting or anything. Nothing would have said, "Ooh! This Morehead fellow doesn't have rights to these songs! Yoink!" because they'd be indistinguishable from mp3s you ripped yourself from CDs you own. If they're missing, it's probably a matter of operator malfunction, if you catch my drift.

Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide | iLounge Article will contain all the information you need about extracting from your iPod to iTunes. Personally, I haven't tried it.

And I agree with Ratbastid (of course). I have never heard of iTunes searching for and deleting illegitimate songs, and I'm sure I would have heard the howls of protest all over the Internet if that were the case.

Keep in mind that, by default, iTunes renames the songs when it imports them. Search for words in the song title.

Are you close running out of room on your hard drive? I've seen screwy things like this happen when you are almost out of room.

Thanks, due to some unforeseen complications, I won't be able to do anything with this until next week.

I'm stumped as to why the songs longer appear in iTunes. When I have iTunes running, I can see them, it even shows the cover art. Its when I click on the song, it can't find it. I've never moved them from the iTunes directory. Oh well, as long as I can retrieve the files from my iPod, I'll place them back in iTune, redirect iTunes to their location and also keep a back up of these songs on CD, just in case.

thanks :thumbsup:

this can happen if you have moved things around on your hard drive because itunes will not know where to look for the song anymore, have you recently reorganized your music or changed the names of the folders they were in. Also does the song have a little triangle exclamation point thing next to in in iTunes?