Please bear in mind, I’m a numpty with anything computer based. I’ve tried the iTunes help options ….. but don’t understand them.

Many years ago I bought an ipod nano. I put all my CDs onto iTunes and then sync-d my ipod. Voila! That much I managed. I then bought Laptop 1 and moved everything from old PC to Laptop 1. I’m still in control.

Back to the present day. I have bought Laptop 2 because Laptop 1 no longer turns on and when it does it randomly turns off again. Last year my kids bought me a classic ipod so I can have all my music on it. I thought I could log on to iTunes from Laptop 2 and download all my music. I can’t. Why can I not see the music I copied from my CDs? Why can I only see my purchased/cloud music?

Can I get my whole library on Laptop 2 without going back to Laptop 1?

I appreciate that if you understand these things this is probably the IT version of calling a ‘tyre’ a ‘wheel’, but I don’t get it.

Can I get at all my music without Laptop 1?

Your problem seems to stem from the fact that all the music you ripped from cd is still on the HDD of Laptop 1, as a result the music you can see is literally what you purchased from Apple. Two ways around this, you can try to upload your ripped music from the first laptop into iTunes online facility, which will give you access, at a bitrate of 256Kb, or get the HDD taken out and installed in a caddy that you can then copy from onto your new Lappy, keeping the old HDD as a safety backup.
If all the music you ripped is on the Nano, then there is software that you can buy that’ll allow you to copy everything back into your new laptop.
Freeware generally only allows limited copying from iPods.

i tunes is abhorrent. it never just works for me
i tried putting an issac asimov audiobook onto my ipod a few days ago, and managed to somehow delete all my music and upload the 50 shades of grey.
now, im sure its all reversible but its pretty embarrasing when you ask someone to put some music on in work and all that is on your 60GB ipod is 50 shades of **** grey

Get CopyTrans,

Use it instead of ITunes.

It certainly used to be the case that you could (though I forget how) turn your iPod into a temporary portable hard drive, plug it into laptop 1, load your music into it, unplug, plug into laptop 2 and upload all the transferred music.

I did it several years ago. Was easy and worked fine. Google is your friend on this one.

Jonah, I think the problem may lay with you, the only time I had a problem anything like that was when I tried copying my entire iTunes library off of my laptop, and crashed it, losing all my music. Thankfully I still had all 150Gb on my iPod, which I copied back to the external drive it should have gone to.
Again, the problem was my ineptitude, that was the only problem I’ve had in eleven years using iTunes.
I really can’t see how you could lose music dragging and dropping one audiobook from iTunes into your iPod.

get the HDD taken out and installed in a caddy that you can then copy from onto your new Lappy, keeping the old HDD as a safety backup.

‘s what I’d do. The stuff you’ve bought online is in “the cloud” which is hipster for “the Internet.” The stuff you’ve ripped to your HDD is, well, on the HDD.

I believe you can now upload the local stuff to the cloud, so once you’ve transferred it to the new machine you can upload it for safekeeping. I think, anyway. CZ?

I think the problem may lay with you,

Or he’s using iTunes on a PC rather than something fruit-based.