Well to start off, take an ipod, and connect it to your computer.

Let windows detect it, and open the device to view files.

In Explorer, click Tools, Folder options...

Click the view tab, click the radio button next to "View Hidden Files and Folders".

Click Ok.

Now go into the newly discovered folder named iPod_Control

Double Click on Music

now you will see many folders, or maybe just a few, it depends on what you have done with this ipod.

look into each one and find out which ones contain a long selection of audio files, .mp3, .wma, .m4a

now copy those and paste them into a temporary folder wherever you like.

Now i know you're asking, these are all named randomly...how do i know what im listening to?

Well grab a copy of EasyTag found here (Note: For windows you will need the GTK+ environment, found in the same location)

now open EasyTAG and browse to the temp folder that contains the music you copied and click the folder containing that music, you will see the list of oddly named audio files as below



now, not ALL files will be able to be ripped with this method as it depends solely on the information being correct in the files ID3 tag, that is the part of the audio files that stores artist and album information.

well simply double click in the part of the window containing the oddly named files, then you will see this green button near the top left. click it.



as you can see this loads up the tag and file rename scan, you can either fill ID3 tags with this, or rename the files and place them in their respective folders as you please, with the mask editor open you can see that i opted to have each file placed in it's own folder by

Artist\Year - Album\track - Title.mp3

this will seperate them all into the folders that match their artist and album and seperate them for you. also it will rename the files to the correct file names, and AFAIK there is no DRM on the files when copied this way, so you can do as you please with them.

then you click the green button again that is in the tag and file rename scanner window, and it will scan all the files and update as necessary for renaming.

hit Ctrl+S to save the files, click yes when it promps you if you want to rename the files. and you now have all the music on your or your friends ipod on your computer without needing to authenticate or deauthenticate with itunes and deal with any drm they use

enjoy

Nice guide thanks Mazuki

Wow thats really cool. Though i don't think it works with the stupid DRM songs that i bought off iTunes.

Thanks + It works. Rep ++

for DRM removal, check out SoundTaxi (in my sig link) that should do what you need otherwise, look at this <- i've got a copy i can test for you if you want

....goodness those images are too large *edited top post