Reformat Help- Macbook + iTunes + iPhone

Hi all,

So, my dilemma is rather specific, and from what I have searched on these forums and on the web in general, I'm not getting this exact answer, so I thought I'd see what you all had to say.

I want to re-format my Macbook because it has been running slow and I haven't done it for a year (and I want to re-organize all my files, so I like to start with a tabula rasa, if you will). I also own an iPhone (3GS) that's Jailbroken, and I would like to un-jailbreak it (which is easily done through restore, I believe) and get it formated and set-up right with my formatted Macbook.

The problem I'm running into is this: how the heck am I supposed to reformat without losing some sort of data from my iPhone? The main thing I'm concerned about with my iPhone is the texts I have on there, all of which I'd like to keep.

Say I went home and re-formatted my iPhone first, and backed it up during the re-format and then re-loaded the backup (obviously un-jailbroken). Would I be able to locate the iPhone backup and would I be able to backup iTunes when I reformatted the Macbook?

So, essentially, how do I reformat both the laptop and the phone without losing any information from iTunes or the phone itself.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Thanks!
~Elyaas

harry*333 said:

to back up itunes simply go to 'Music' and copy the iTunes folder over the whatever your backing up to, once everything is reset make sure you have the same version of itunes and copy the new folder somewhere temporary such as the desktop (incase something messes up), then copy over the original folder and start up iTunes
as for backing up your iphone i'm not sure what to do

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Yeah, the problem with that is it that it will reset my iPhone. Hummm.

Primejimbo said:

would getting an external hard drive and using Time Machine work?

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I'm not exactly sure, hehe. That's the dilemma. 🙂

I think the problem with Time Machine is that it literally backs up the whole system, which is great and all, but I have a lot of stuff that I could really care less about. Besides iTunes, I already have everything else off of it, so I just need a way to wipe it and get everything running like it is right now.

I think It's sort of a lost cause. Maybe just using the iPhone backup will work.