iPod Switching from PC to Mac... what about iPod and iTunes?

Ok here's my situation. I've got a 30GB 5G iPod with about 15GB of music on it. It's currently formatted for a PC since that's what I connected it to when I first got the iPod. Now I have a Mac and am giving away my old PC to a family member after I format the HD and do a fresh install of the OS. But before I wipe the PC clear, I want to make sure that I have my Mac ready to play nice with my iPod.

I've heard that an iPod is either formatted for Windows or Mac, but not both at the same time. I've also heard that the only way I will be able to use my iPod with my Mac is if i format it for use with a Mac, which would in turn erase everything I have on there.

Of my 15GB of music, about 5GB are from mp3s that I have burned on data CDRs and about 10GB are ripped from my CD collection. I know it will be easy to load my 5GB worth of mp3s into iTunes on my Mac and I don't mind re-ripping all my CDs on the Mac either since I want to encode them in a higher bit rate this time around.

So my questions at this point are...

1) How do I go about copying my purchased iTunes songs from my PC to my Mac?

2) Do I format my iPod for use with a Mac on my Mac itself or can I do it right on the iPod itself?

3) Is there anything else I'm missing that would make the process easier?

Thanks so much for any advice and help you can offer!

rvaro said:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173

this site will give you step by step instructions on how to transfer using ipod



http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93041

this site will give you step by step on how to transfer over a network, which to me is much easier to do.

hope this helps a bit
cheers

Click to expand...

Thanks, that second link is exactly what I am looking for. Since I'm not worried about my music which I can import into iTunes from my burned CDRs and the CDs that I want to re-rip at a higher bitrate, I'm really just concerned that my purchased iTunes music makes it over to the Mac.

Thanks again.