Recover Formatted iPod Files

I have a question regarding recovery of an iPod. I have an iPod photo which was formatted for use with a Mac. I can no longer access it, and I no longer have the Mac; however I’d like to recover the music on the iPod if possible. My research seems to indicate there is recovery software for PC formatted iPods, and for Mac formatted iPods, but not for my situation. Is there software I can download to a PC that will fix the formatting problem on my iPod short of requiring the factory settings to be restored, or am I out of luck short of finding a Mac to use?

All we know that iPods are big hard drives with special software and screen, the hard drive in your iPod needs to be formatted. Formatting is essentially the process of prepping the drive to talk to the computer it will be connected to.

The formatting normally happens automatically when you first connect the iPod to your computer to set it up: If you use your iPod with a Mac, it is formatted for use with a Mac. If you use it with Windows, it receives Windows formatting.

Recovering music from an iPod

#1. Using Third Party Software

There is several data recovery software available for you to choose, and here I just would like talk more about how to recover iPod files by yourself.

uMacsoft data recovery has the ability to recover almost all the data files for you, what you need to do is download the free version from below button, if the program could detect your iPod, then your lost music files could be recovered. Or else, just read my article of "Tutorial to recover files for iPod/iPhone/iPad" to get another method.

#2. Using the Terminal

The iPod songs are hidden away on your iPod in an invisible folder, ie one that the Finder won't display normally. It is possible to let the Finder display hidden files as outlined in this guide or with 3rd Party Software. Otherwise you can follow the below instructions.

All songs are stored in this location:

/Volumes/[YouriPodName]/iPod_Control/Music

In this folder are a number of folders usually labelled from F00 to F49 or higher. The songs are actually stored in these folders with obscure names that are usually not relevant to the song.

To copy these songs using the Terminal, follow these steps:

Launch Terminal which is located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Type in (replacing [YouriPodName] with the name of your iPod)

cd /Volumes/[YouriPodName]/iPod_Control

To copy the music to your Desktop, type in

rsync -r Music ~/Desktop

Once the rsync command has completed, drag the Music folder on your Desktop onto the iTunes icon on the Dock or in Finder

Wait while iTunes imports all the songs