OK- Your hard drive has crashed so you have had a good cry, shouted at the dog, blamed your other half, drowned your sorrows and cursed the fact you did not burn your music onto CD in the first place

First step- ask a buddy what to do. You’ll probably get the ‘I do not have a clue’ and a smug look because their tunes are safe. Do not worry- you will have the last laugh when their hard drive dies and they are left with all their tunes stranded. That is when they will be coming to you for the answers!
Second step- search the web. Type in “Restore iTunes music” “Copy iPod music” “Rescue iPod music” maybe “Transfer iPod music”. Largely you are going to get links to forums where desperate people are asking for help and where computer geeks make the answers difficult to understand. You will also get a few articles from computer mags which again are scary. Most importantly you will get sites where you can download software. But which one to choose? What is freeware? And what is shareware? And do they work? Which is the best? What if I screw up and lose all the music on the iPod? HELP!!!!
Third step- relax and keep reading the posts. Also, probably best to apologize to the other half as well and buy the dog a treat. I am going to sift through the options and tell you which programs are good for PC or Mac Hard Drives