Help with iTunes/iPod on Windows

[CrimsonKing]

A friend was having terrible problems with malware a few weeks ago, so I offered to help clean up her laptop. I ran the usual asortment, including Ad-Aware, SBSD and Hijack This. I didn't get a chance to finalize some things whle the laptop was in safe mode before I had to return it, so I got it back the other day and re-ran HJT and cleaned out any remaining suspicious things while in safe mode and verified the new Symantec AV was working, etc. Things looked very clean.

The whole time she had refrained from docking her new iPod, fearing that it could get infected or hurt by some of the things she knew were on there. At the same time, she had asked me not to reformat her hard drive so she wouldn't lose all her songs in iTunes (mix of ripped CDs and purchased). This morning she finally plugged it in and immeidiately got a message that she had to reinstall the CD that came with the iPod. I fear I may have removed a couple extra autorun registry keys and perhaps one of them was the iPod connector service? I've never used an iPod, but when I installed iTunes on my own PC, I did notice it put iPod software on there for me (how nice!). I guess she started running the install, but it was taking a long time and she had to leave to go to work. It told her not to unplug the iPod, so she left it there.

My questions are: 1) will reinstalling the iPod software prevent iTunes from seeing the device as the same one it let her transfer songs to before? 2) is this likely completely different from iTunes and can I assume she won't lose access to the songs she's already purchased? 3) Just in case I'm wrong about #2, is there a simple way to back up the iTunes songs to DVD or another PC and still have them properly licensed if I have to restore them for her?

Thanks in advance for any help. I apologize for being so green w/r to iTunes/Pod.

 

[DefRef]

I'm a little vague as to what the precise questions are, so use this answers with caution.

There is iTunes (the PC ripping/transfer app) and then there's a thing called the iPod Updater which upgrades OR reformats and restores your iPod to its factory state. You can update an iPod w/o losing your music and you can upgrade or reinstall iTunes to the same folder without losing anything AFAIK.

Check www.ipodlounge.com and thier forums to see what they can offer. Good luck.

 

[CrimsonKing]

Thanks for the reply. I was basically asking if reinstalling the iPod software would cause iTunes to see it as a different unit and not let her transfer files to it since it had already transfered the files to a "different" iPod. I know apple has some copyright stuff built in. I'm not familiar with it.

Turns out the iPod software reinstalled wiped the iPod clean. She was able to resync with iTunes and get the songs that were on her PC. She only lost some stuff she'd gotten from the Apple store.

What is the best way to back up the iTunes files? Are there files besides the music files that need backed up for them to work in a restore (license files, etc)?

Thanks again!