iTunes outrage

I'd heard stories of this happening to other people, but I didn't know it would happen to me so soon....

I started buying songs at iTunes less than a year ago. I felt pretty good about it. the songs were pretty cheap (I got many of them from discounted gift card auctions on ebay). and I could pick what songs I wanted from new albums that came out since, inevitably, a "good album" only has 3-4 decent songs on it nowadays.

so after reformatting my hard drive this week, I had a startling discovery - a couple HUNDRED songs were missing. they were all songs I'd purchased on iTunes (again, these were discounted itunes gift cards, or ones I'd received as gifts - just so you don't think I blow a couple hundred $$ on music in one sitting).

I keep all my mp3s on an external hard drive. I have iTunes load them directly onto it so that when it's time to re-format, or if my computer crashes, I'll have it backed up already.

but iTunes counts how many machines you save your files onto. you're allowed only a max of 5 machines on which to keep your songs. i'm guessing it thought my newly re-formatted computer was a 'new machine' and wouldn't even copy the library onto it. fine - i still had the originals i'd downloaded on my external drive, right? nope.

when I searched on the external hard drive for the missing songs (I can't remember all of them, but there are entire albums missing), they're gone. itunes erased them off my external hard drive. i double checked my ipod, which hadn't yet been updated since the re-format and... all the songs are there. specific albums that are presently on my ipod, that I purchased from iTunes, are no longer on my external hard drive.

this is infuriating. I know there are people who are suffering in this world a lot worse than I am, so I'll simmer down. but I'm never buying a song from iTunes again.

if anyone knows of a respectable online store where individual songs can be purchased and loaded onto an ipod, please let me know. until then, limewire, here we come....