Music Disappeared

[Marino]

So I get up this morning and go to turn start a podcast and nothing is there. No podcasts. No 2000+ songs. Nothing in the iPod app at all. I immediately check the "About" tab in Settings and sure enough it says I have 0 songs. But conspicuously, the hard drive only has 2gb left. If all my music was gone, there would be way more space than that, so it's in there somewhere.

Now here's the real problem. Last week I was forced to reinstall Windows on my computer. I have not reinstalled iTunes yet, so the iPhone has not been synced in over a week. I had almost everything backed up, but my main concern is songs I purchased thru iTunes (about 100).

Question #1: Is there a fix to my music not showing up on the iPhone? I've already tried resetting it (holding both buttons down).

Question #2: Are my purchased songs lost forever if they're not recoverable from the iPhone? I had planned on using something like iPod Copy to get it all back once my PC was up and running again.

Thanks for any help.

[Marino]

By the way, my iPhone is not jailbroken or hacked in any way.

[Europa]

I always back up my purchased songs just to be safe.

Sync in iTunes. If they still don't show up, restore. Then go to Transfer purchases in iTunes.

[YvilKittyInSpace]

The music was erased from your phone because the music was no longer on your computer. This is the way it is supposed to work. If you delete a song on the computer, it gets deleted from the phone. Since your music is no longer on your computer since you had to reinstall Windows, well, it gets wiped from the phone too since iTunes will only sync whats on the computer.

You will have to contact iTunes to see if they will allow you to donwload the music once again. Their policy states that it is your responsibility to backup all downloads and purchases are a one time download. They may allow an exception.

Restoring your iPhone won't bring back the music once it is gone and especially since it is not on your computer.

[Europa]

Transferring purchases in iTunes should work though.

[YvilKittyInSpace]

Transferring purchases in iTunes should work though.

How is that going to happen when it is not on his iPhone and it is not on his computer? It can't just magically appear.

[Europa]

I thought it would let you download them again as iTunes keeps a record of purchases made with that account, but I just looked it up and it only transfers them from the phone to the computer. So, you're right, in the OP's case, that won't work :(

That's twice tonight that you got me.
Yvil 2
Europa 0

[Marino]

The music was erased from your phone because the music was no longer on your computer. This is the way it is supposed to work. If you delete a song on the computer, it gets deleted from the phone. Since your music is no longer on your computer since you had to reinstall Windows, well, it gets wiped from the phone too since iTunes will only sync whats on the computer.

You will have to contact iTunes to see if they will allow you to donwload the music once again. Their policy states that it is your responsibility to backup all downloads and purchases are a one time download. They may allow an exception.

Restoring your iPhone won't bring back the music once it is gone and especially since it is not on your computer.

I have not plugged the phone into the computer yet. I haven't even installed iTunes on the computer yet. So the content on the phone disappearing is completely independent from my pc problem.

Again, the files are still on the phone somewhere because I still have the same hdd space the phone as I did before. It just isn't seeing them for some reason.