Yes, CopyTrans will do all that, restoring iTunes to it's previous state (= as it is on your iPod). This will be reflected in all music data, including playlists, ratings, etc.
It will even respect the order of your songs in the playlists.
Once you've reinstalled Windows and iTunes and you are ready to perform the import, proceed as follows:
- Open CopyTrans
- Connect your iPod
- Follow this procedure.

CopyTrans starts by listing your iPod songs and displays them in its main window. It then copies them to your hard drive and finally (if you've opted for the recommended backup to iTunes) inserts them into iTunes.
This means several things:
- What you see in CopyTrans are the songs contained on your iPod.
- Songs don't remain in CopyTrans after the backup, so they won't take extra space on your computer, in addition to the iTunes songs.
- Songs are not removed from your iPod by CopyTrans after or during the backup.
- In other words, CopyTrans functions like a bridge between your iPod and your computer/iTunes. It is able to transfer your iPod music, including all meta data such as playlists, ratings, etc, from your iPod to either a folder on your computer or straight to iTunes.

Just follow these few steps.

You will find a detailed procedure on how to import a backup to folder into iTunes on this page.

CopyTrans actually doesn't allow you to backup the playlists only.
Though, thanks to the incremental backup, performing a backup when songs are already on the computer should only import the playlists, except if the first backup was not made with CopyTrans. In this case, performing a backup on an existing library will probably generate duplicate songs.
The best way to import the playlists only is to empty the iTunes Music folder on your computer (ONLY IF YOU ARE SURE ALL YOUR MUSIC IS ON YOUR IPOD TOO) and perform a full backup to iTunes that will transfer both the songs and the playlists to iTunes. Once this is done, you'll be able to benefit from incremental backups that only update the library, based on the recent changes on the iPod.

Backing up several iPods to one iTunes library will merge their contents in iTunes.
To avoid this, you can use our tool iLibs to create separate libraries for each user or each iPod.

- Start by performing a backup to iTunes of your old iPod.
- Synchronize your new iPod with your iTunes library.

There are actually two ways to backup your music to an external hard drive.
A. By performing a Backup to Folder and choosing a destination folder on the external hard drive.
If you choose this option, please take a look at this.
B. By performing a Backup to iTunes with a destination folder on the internal hard drive and copying these files onto the external hard drive once this backup is over:
- iTunes Music Library.xml
- iTunes Library.itl
These files can be found in C:\Documents and Settings\your_name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes onto the external hard drive.
To restore these backups:
If you chose option A, just do this,
If you chose option B, click (in iTunes) File->Add Folder to Library (choosing the backup folder as the one to be added). Then, copy the files "iTunes Music Library.xml" and "iTunes Library.itl" to C:\Documents and Settings\your_name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes

- Start by performing a backup to a folder.
- Burn THE WHOLE BACKUP FOLDER (songs + the .xml file contained in it) on a CD/DVD with a CD burning software such as CDBurnerXP Pro (free).

If you are sure your backup went fine and all your iPod songs are now in your iTunes library on your computer, you can answer "Yes" to that question.

This is easy with CopyTrans.
- Every time the contents of your iPod change and no longer reflect the contents on your computers, perform a Backup to iTunes. This will backup only the new songs or changes thanks to CopyTrans' incremental backup.
- Every time the contents of one of your computers change and no longer reflect the contents of your iPod, synchronize your iPod with the computer.

- If all your music is already on your iPod, you just need to perform a backup to iTunes from your iPod to your new computer.
- If your music is on your "old" computer, but not yet on your iPod, you'll first need to transfer your songs from the old computer to your iPod. Then, make a Backup to iTunes from your iPod to your new computer.

Start by emptying your iTunes Music folder (ONLY IF YOU ARE SURE ALL YOUR MUSIC IS ON YOUR IPOD TOO). Its location (path) should be C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR NAME HERE\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
Then, empty your library in iTunes, being careful to delete the library and not the contents of your iPod.
Finally, perform a backup to iTunes.

- Make a Backup to folder to the external hard drive.
- Uncheck the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option in iTunes->Edit->Preferences->Advanced
- Add your songs to iTunes.
Your songs will be added to your iTunes library without being physically copied to your C: drive, since you unchecked the option mentioned above.

Just perform a Backup to iTunes and the songs contained on your iPod will be merged with the ones that are already in your iTunes library.
Thanks to the incremental backup, CopyTrans won't generate duplicates if you backup songs that are already in your iTunes library.

This feature is not available in CopyTrans yet, but it is possible to adjust the default volume of a song in iTunes: Rightclick on a song->Get info->Options tab.

Try our new tool CopyTrans Doctor

idleTunes is a small program that features an automated remove user playlist function.

When a song is on your computer, it has:
- a file name (that you see below its icon)
- a name in its ID tag (that you can see in iTunes by right-clicking on the song and clicking Get Info).
When iTunes puts a song on your iPod, it uses the ID tag to display the song name on the iPod screen.
When you import your songs back from your iPod to iTunes, CopyTrans will use the ID tag to create the file name for the iTunes library. As some songs have particular characters in their name, CopyTrans may encounter difficulties rebuilding their name because of these particular characters in their ID tag.
Here are a couple of solutions to avoid this problem:
- Use different renaming settings under CopyTrans's "Settings" tab.
- Try to perform a Backup to iTunes rather than a Backup to folder, as the name of the songs should be preserved with this procedure.

The simplest solution is to start from scratch.
Just follow this procedure.

Just follow this procedure.

Try our new product CopyTrans Doctor.

This message means that your iPod file system may have been corrupted. Please try our new product CopyTrans Doctor.
Corruption usually occurs when you unplug your iPod without ejecting it first.
CopyTrans Doctor may fix your whole iPod file system and other iPod problems.
Then, perform a new full backup.