Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

kntgsp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2004
781
0
So I just get my new macbook pro. I put all my data and music on my firelite drive, get it all loaded onto my computer. I go back to my pc computer (which has had booting problems - freezes once it gets into desktop) and it freezes.

This happens sometimes and I just reboot it and it'll be fine, but it won't quit. It freezes every time now.

I can't deauthorize the computer.....great.....thanks BILL. I hope you choke on your mountain of money.

Anybody know of an app that'll let me convert all my aac music to mp3 format?
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
iTunes will convert your music from AAC to MP3. Still, I suggested just switching to the MP3 encoder in iTunes and re-encoding all of your music. Once you hit 5 authorized machines you can reset all of your authorizations. Until then just live with having that machine tag along.
 

WildCowboy

Administrator/Editor
Staff member
Jan 20, 2005
18,390
2,829
kntgsp said:
Anybody know of an app that'll let me convert all my aac music to mp3 format?

iTunes. Go into the Preferences and make sure it's set to MP3 in the Importing pane. Set appropriate bitrates. Go back to your iTunes Library, highlight all of the songs you want to convert, then either right click (or control-click) and choose "Convert Selection to MP3" or choose that option from the Advanced menu.
 

mrzeve

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2005
617
1
Why would you put your data on a computer that you know has booting problems, even if they do not always occur?

Put in another windows HD or take that one to another computer and just use it as a slave drive and get the data off of it.
 

kntgsp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2004
781
0
Eidorian said:
iTunes will convert your music from AAC to MP3. Still, I suggested just switching to the MP3 encoder in iTunes and re-encoding all of your music. Once you hit 5 authorized machines you can reset all of your authorizations. Until then just live with having that machine tag along.


Wow, I've been away from apple too long. So you're saying I can convert everything to mp3 IN iTunes? and remove the stupid authorization garbage? or at least reset it? Because the last time I had this problem the apple customer support tech basically told me it was my fault for not deauthorizing an account (even if the music was deleted off the computer and no longer even existed or the computer didn't exist anymore). It took me dozens of complaint emails to get them to reset it and then they said don't expect it again.

I just don't want to deal with this crap again. I WOULD deauthorize if I COULD, but thanks to little billy my machine won't boot up for some idiotic reason.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
kntgsp said:
Wow, I've been away from apple too long. So you're saying I can convert everything to mp3 IN iTunes? and remove the stupid authorization garbage? or at least reset it? Because the last time I had this problem the apple customer support tech basically told me it was my fault for not deauthorizing an account (even if the music was deleted off the computer and no longer even existed or the computer didn't exist anymore). It took me dozens of complaint emails to get them to reset it and then they said don't expect it again.

I just don't want to deal with this crap again. I WOULD deauthorize if I COULD, but thanks to little billy my machine won't boot up for some idiotic reason.
If you bought the songs off of the iTunes music store then...

Well I'm not sure if I can tell you how to get around the authorization.

iTunes is defaulted to encode songs off of CD's in .m4a (AAC) songs off of the iTunes music store are .m4p (Protected AAC)
 

kntgsp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2004
781
0
mrzeve said:
Why would you put your data on a computer that you know has booting problems, even if they do not always occur?

Put in another windows HD or take that one to another computer and just use it as a slave drive and get the data off of it.


Ha, I didn't put it on there KNOWING it had boot problems. It didn't, only recently. Problem is, 3 virus prog scans, spybot sweepers, and nothin. When it does boot, I've tried Ashampoo Winoptimizer to weed out garbage and registry stuff.

And I don't have a spare hd laying around, and I don't want to spend even the 50 dollars for an el cheapo. I refuse to sink more money into my former gaming rig. It's just been giving me alot of problems lately. But anyway I already got it all backed up on my firelite drive (great btw), so I'll just use the iTunes prefs.

It's just been so long (2 years) since I had a problem with that authorization issue I had no idea you could do that.

Sorry if this is inviting flames. I really just had absolutely no idea.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
What kind of authorization problems are you having? Is it just de-authorizing the old machine or trying to reset them since you've hit the 5 computer limit?
 

kntgsp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2004
781
0
Eidorian said:
If you bought the songs off of the iTunes music store then...

Well I'm not sure if I can tell you how to get around the authorization.

iTunes is defaulted to encode songs off of CD's in .m4a (AAC) songs off of the iTunes music store are .m4p (Protected AAC)

Right, but I've converted things to .m4p, like movies so I can watch them in front row. Why wouldn't the reverse then be possible? I just don't want to have to burn aaaaalll my .m4p music to cd's and then re-import it.

That would literally take a hundred cd's.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
kntgsp said:
Right, but I've converted things to .m4p, like movies so I can watch them in front row. Why wouldn't the reverse then be possible? I just don't want to have to burn aaaaalll my .m4p music to cd's and then re-import it.

That would literally take a hundred cd's.
Movies would be converted into .m4v or .mov. If you have the proper codecs you can watch DivX/XviD video to in Front Row without conversion.

You can convert them into MP3's but be warned you're getting a drop in quality from lossy audio format to lossy audio format.
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,366
979
New England
As has been pointed out lots of times here and elsewhere if you have used up all five autorizations and can't deauthorize certain machines (they don't work, or you no longer have access to them) you can deauthorize ALL of your machines and re-authorize only those that work or are in use as you will. Chick on the first link and log on to your iTMS account from within iTunes. More info at the second link.

itms://phobos.apple.com/accountSummary

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/musicstore/authorization/

EDIT: Nothing you have encoded/ripped yourself will require authorization of any kind, and you can play this content on however many machines you'd like. Music will by default go to M4A, and movies etc.. will wither be MP4 (do not confuse MP4 with M4P!) or M4V formats. I have plenty of M4A files on my work computer, but it's not authorised to my iTMS account.

B
 

kntgsp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2004
781
0
balamw said:
As has been pointed out lots of times here and elsewhere if you have used up all five autorizations and can't deauthorize certain machines (they don't work, or you no longer have access to them) you can deauthorize ALL of your machines and re-authorize only those that work or are in use as you will. Chick on the first link and log on to your iTMS account from within iTunes. More info at the second link.

itms://phobos.apple.com/accountSummary

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/musicstore/authorization/

EDIT: Nothing you have encoded/ripped yourself will require authorization of any kind, and you can play this content on however many machines you'd like. Music will by default go to M4A, and movies etc.. will wither be MP4 (do not confuse MP4 with M4P!) or M4V formats. I have plenty of M4A files on my work computer, but it's not authorised to my iTMS account.

B


Right. I just didn't know you could reset it by yourself now. The last time I had to do it, it was a major hassle. Thanks for helping even though it's been said a billion times before. I was just frustrated having to deal with it on a new laptop.
 

jhu

macrumors 6502a
Apr 4, 2004
854
1
sounds like you have a hardware problem. but have fun finding out where it is!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.