Customer Reviews

PD+Rescue for iPod Win/Mac

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this program "just in case". Well, thank god I did!!!!!! When my computer crashed I lost EVERYTHING. This program helped me get everything I needed to get from my ipod. It's easy to install and very user friendly (which is very important to me). It's the most incredible program ever!

This product is easy to use and works as advertised to backup your ipod. So why did I give it only 3 stars? Because a major disclosure is lacking.
One of the reasons for buying this software is to move music on an ipod used with computer #1 (like a home computer) to computer #2(like a work computer). Suppose computer #1 is a Mac, and computer #2 is a PC. Can you
use this software to backup your music on the Mac onto the PC? Yes--but only if you purchase additional software that lets Windows recognize Mac files. Tastybites suggests MacDrive 6, which works fine (it lists for $50, but is $25 on Amazon).

But when I bought PD+Rescue, I had no idea that I would have to buy more software for getting music from a Mac to a PC--not because I didn't know that Windows cannot recognize Mac files, but because I thought that PD+Rescue was designed to deal with that problem. It isn't, which I found annoying since transferring songs from a Mac to a PC is not something unexpected.

Now for some positive news. Although PD+Rescue is not designed to permit two ipods to exchange music, it makes it possible. Yes, there is special software to do this (e.g Ipod 2 Ipod), but if you don't want to spend yet more money on software, here is how to do it using PD+Rescue. For this example, assume ipod #1 syncs on a Mac and ipod #2 syncs on a PC, and that only the PC is available(e.g. you bring both ipods to work). NOTE: Both ipods MUST be in manual mode before you start.


1. Plug ipod #1 into PC.
2. Select songs from ipod #1 you want to put on ipod #2.
3. Create a folder on an external hard drive or the desktop labelled "Songs from Ipod #1". Use PD+Rescue to backup the selected songs to this folder. Unplug ipod #1 from PC.
4. Open iTunes on PC. Go to File, Add Folder to Library, and choose "Songs from Ipod #1." This will load those songs into iTunes.
5. Plug in ipod #2 and change from manual mode to auto sync,which will install all the newly added songs onto ipod #2.
6. When done, change ipod #2 back to manual mode, go to PD+Rescue and backup all of the songs.
7. After doing backup, select songs from ipod #2 that you want to put onto ipod #1, create folder "Songs from ipod #2", and use PD+Rescue to backup selected songs to this folder.
8. Unplug ipod #2 from PC, plug in ipod #1, and copy the folder "Songs from ipod #2" onto it (or onto a cd or usb stick).
9. When the Mac is available, plug in ipod #1, move the folder "Songs from ipod #1 onto an external hard drive or the desktop(or use the folder if on a cd or usb stick)and follow same procedures discussed above.

At first glance this may sound complicated, but it really isn't.

Overall I am pleased at what PD+Rescue enables me to do. I just wish they had made clear the need for additional software when dealing with transfers between Macs and PCs.

Update April 23, 2009: I installed the software on my Macbook and it easily lets me backup the music on my iPod Touch second generation.

I have a 30 gig ipod that is full of music. It took countless hours to burn all my Cd's and transfer the files to my player. I have very little room on my PCs hard drive, so after transferring the files I had to delete them from my PC. I recently bought an external hard drive and with this product it was very quick and easy to back up my ipod to my new hard drive. I can now rest easy knowing that I will never need to burn all my Cd's ever again. Great Product!

I don't normally write reviews, but it has been so long since I've ordered a piece of third-party software that actually delivers exactly what it promises; PD Rescue is such a product. Like most other people using this product I too had a hard drive crash on me that contained iTunes and my music library of 5,000 songs categorized painstakingly into customized playlists. I was devastated when I learned that Apple provides little or no support to get stranded tunes on your iPod back into iTunes. But, I really do understand their reasoning for making this difficult. They do not want songs they sell pirated from someone else's iPod. But that just makes it more difficult for us good guys.

There are a few workarounds, but they are cumbersome and risky. Then I read about several third-party software products that could perform this process. I guess I am a little cynical because I don't usually trust reviewers on sites like Amazon. You just never know if they are real or someone from the company posting those reviews. You need to know that I am NOT in any way, shape, or form related to the folks who sell PD Rescue. I am just a person who lost all of his recordings and had little or no way to get them back into iTunes on my new computer.

I purchased PD Rescue and followed the directions, especially the many warnings the company gives in its literature about turning off the auto synch function in iTunes. If you do not do this, and you have an empty iTunes library (which is the case when you download a new iTunes onto a new computer), it will synch nothing to your current iPod and overwrite all your songs with nothing, thereby erasing everything you have. And then you are really stuck with no songs.

Needless to say I was a bit nervous about using this program, but I followed the directions and low and behold, in just a few minutes, all of my 5,000 songs on my iPod were being transferred flawlessly onto the new iTunes on my new computer. After about 15 minutes or so, everything (including all my playlists and originally purchased songs from iTunes) was transferred back onto my computer's hard drive into the proper folders so that iTunes recognized them. This will allow me to do business as usual with iTunes in the future and provide for proper synching with my iPod.

After spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over the years on third-party software that either do not live up to their hype or are very difficult to use, it was a very pleasant surprise to learn that his product does exactly what it says it does, and the process is fairly simple.

I strongly recommend this product for anyone who wants to transfer tunes from their iPod back into a new iTunes.

VERY solid product with a very intuitive user interface. I didn't even need to read the instructions. I have lost my files more than once and now those worries are behind me. Highly recommended.

This software was excellent and very easy to use. I had all of my music in iTunes, but then my computer crashed, so I lost all of it. Then when I installed this software, I was able to transfer all of my music from the iPod back into the computer, as a backup. Highly recommended for anyone who buys an iPod!

This program totally saved me. I listen to music and have audio files of my client's projects, so I needed a secure backup system. This worked perfectly and it's easy to use, even for a technophobe like me.

When I bought my new iBook I bought this product to transfer all my songs over and it was flawless. It took no time at all to install and transfer. Highly recommended!

I've tried most, if not all of the competing products. This one is by far the most reliable and easiest to use. In fact, it's the only one of these products that hasn't caused me to lose anything, EVER. Highly recommended.

My hard drive crashed including my iTunes library, so I purchased this product to transfer the songs from my iPod to another computer. I was able to get the songs to the iTunes library on the other computer, BUT, none of the songs would transfer back onto the iPOD because the songs "were not authorized purchases on the new computer". (Yes, I authorized the iPOD on the computer but that made no difference.) Long story short, be careful, the software does what it says, but that may not solve your problem.