recover itunes

[#1]

Hi
Last evening my son's laptop  (a 13 month old Gateway) stopped booting.  It went through a repair routine, but couldn't boot, not even into safe mode.  So today I ended up booting from the system disc it came with, and re-installing Vista.  That all went ok (surprisingly), but unlike XP, when you re-install Vista, you lose everything on your hard drive (programme files are saved to a "windows.old" folder for what that's worth, since you still need to re-install them.
Now, he has a lot of tunes stored on his Ipod, and wants to recover them on to his laptop.  For some reason Apple only syncs one way (from the computer to the Ipod, but not back)  Is there a way to recover the tunes? 
John

[#2]

This question has been asked before in this forum and I pointed them to the following article:-
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/11/72132
I can't remember which of the programs mentioned in the article was used - only that it worked.

[#3]

Thanks Ruslyn.  I've forwarded the link to my son.  He'd found another piece of software, which costs a few quid, so he can make his choice.  He's got a PC laptop at the moment, but when he goes to uni next month, he's buying himself a Mac (he's studying Audio and Music technology, so apparently a Mac is the way forward) and I noticed that there are a couple of free Mac utilities on the list, so he may wait.
Thanks for your help.  
John

[#4]

Just for interest.  My son had another look at the "windows.old" folder, and found all his old files were there under the "user" sub-folder.  So he got everything back (but still had to re-install all his software (so it could have been worse)
John

[#5]

I was tempted to ditch itunes for media monkey. I think this has the ability to synch both ways if you fiddle around enough.
www.mediamonkey.com

[#6]

Restoring your tunes from an iPod is really easy TBH. You don't need any bespoke software, in fact you don't need any software at all!
Make sure your iPod is being treated as an external drive and make sure that you've selected the option in your folder options to 'view hidden files and folders'.
Once done, browse to the <IPOD_NAME>\iPod_Control folder.
Copy the 'Music' folder to your hard drive.
Right click the 'Music' folder on your hard drive and select 'Properties'.
On the 'General' tab remove the tick from 'Hidden'.
Open iTunes.
Go to 'File' > 'Import'.
Select the 'Music' file on your hard drive and click 'Open'.
That should do it. I've provided those instructions off the back of my head though so I might have missed a few steps.