HELP...accidentally deleted my itunes music

[mallaire]

Hello...my pc had two partitions on it. One was supposed to be a small partition (20GB) for OS and the other (60GB) was supposed to be used for all other applications. Anyway, we never used the second partition and quickly filled up the 20GB partition. In order to resolve this we needed to reformat the drive. I used a Maxtor external 300GB drive as my back up device. The first thing I did was move all my music files over to the external drive because my 20GB partition had very little room so this allowed me to recapture some extra space while we prepared for the C: reformat. Once all the music files were moved over we backed up the remaining C: partition (16GB) to the external drive. We then attempted a reload of windows and reformat of the c: drive but we made a critical mistake. We accidentally reformated the external drive and reloaded windows onto the external drive. We discovered our mistake because when we rebooted we got back to my previously installed windows desktop which shouldn't have been there. We then rebacked up the C: drive less all the music that was lost in the first external drive reformatting, reformated the C: drive, reloaded windows, restored the backed up C: drive and now have a full 80GB C: drive single partition. Is there any way to get this music back? I can see all the files but when you click on them they can't be found. Will itunes allow us to redownload all our missing songs at no charge?

[ElDiabloConCaca]

If you deleted the files, they are gone. You can look into professional data recovery services ( like www.drivesavers.com ), but they are pricey, and no data recovery is guaranteed. Since you've already written over some of the files, your chance of a full recovery is lower than it would have been had you simply erased the files. The longer you use the drive, the less chance of being able to recover the files.

No, the iTunes Music Store will not allow you to redownload your lost songs for free. You must repurchase them. You can try contacting them about this, but don't be surprised if they simply say, "No."

[bharoche]

If the music is still on the iPod, download the shareware podutil (mac and pc versions) which will let you transfer music from your pod to your HD. First enable disk use for the ipod.

[brunner154]

Mallaire , this is exactly what the Recording Industry jackAsses of America want. They want you to purchase your music more than once. IF they had their way, Itunes wouldn't even allow you to copy to CD. Best thing to do is to avoid anything to do with DRM and the RIAA and go with sites suchs as dmusic.com, garagebands.com, modarchive.com, soundclick.com, or any of the millions of Independent sites on the Web.