iPhone user data between OS X and XP

[MACsimus19]

Not sure if any of you have had experience with switching over iPhone/iTunes profiles from an OS X machine to an XP machine but I've got a small problem and was hoping that some of you could help me out.

My powerbook has essentially bitten the dust and no longer boots up (its a hardware thing-one fall to many, sounds like a didgeridoo every time it turns on).

The problem is all of my iTunes user data, songs, movies, iPhone preferences, etc are in the laptops HD. I'm planning on taking out the drive, purchasing an enclosure and using it as an external HD for whichever machine I decide to use as my main computer (until the new rev MacBook comes out).

I was just given a new work HP laptop and I'd like to use that (for now) as my main iTunes syncing machine for my iPhone. Is there any way to use my powerbooks external HD setup to copy over all the data (other than songs and movies) into the PC version of iTunes. I'd ideally like to be able to plug in my iPhone 3G into the HP laptop and have all my previous iPhones' contacts/playlists sync up.

Is this even possible, or should I just use my fiances MBP in the interim.

-Evan

 

[philgilder]

it will be possible using something like this:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/
with the hdd in a caddy

you should be able to simply copy over the required data

 

[MACsimus19]

Yes, but is the data the same...are the preferences and address book formats, etc, etc interchangeable from mac to pc? I don't think that they would be given the integration of all the different applications that iTunes has to aggregate on a PC vs a Mac .

 

[philgilder]

well, you may need to plug in the hdd into a mac, open up the contacts databse in address book, export a vcard, then open this on the pc
same with calendar etc

preferences are probably the same format, but it may be better to start afresh as some preferences may depend on mac/pc etc

 

[DenniZ]

If you set it to manually manage music...

then you would be able to instantly sync normal stuff (contacts, mail and etc) i believe. Then music and etc can be done using one of the ipod music copier programs. ( Sorry don't know any for windows).