Issues Archiving iTunes Library

[surfrjohn]

I will try to make this brief, but in my attempt to backup my Mac iTunes library to a shared network drive (so I can then load it on my PC...) I have run into multiple issues. So here's my deal...

I have a very old G4, running 10.3.9 (no, it won't take a 10.4 upgrade for whatever reasons), but it has 6k+ songs in iTunes plus some shows and personal videos (.dv). I also have a new PC, Windows 7, with a fledgling iTunes library. I want to move my Mac lib to my PC. I figured having a shared network drive would make this easy, but of course not.

First problem...
Because iTunes (very stupidly) doesn't let you backup everything to a network drive, I tried to copy the iTunes folder directly to the drive. But the dirve is formatted for my PC, so I get an error that some filenames are too long, or some required items are missing, etc. Dead end. So I figure, hey, I'll archive the folder and then copy it over.

Second problem...
When creating an archive of the iTunes folder the operation failed because of a single file error, 'insufficient privileges to copy the file'. Well, I don't care about that file so I used iTunes to delete it, and yes I told it to move the files to the trash. (I have not however emptied my trash because I don't actually want to lose those files, but that shouldn't matter). But when I try to archive the iTunes folder again, it keeps stopping at that file!!! WTH??? I've restarted iTunes multiple times, watched it "update the iTunes library", but it still tries to include the deleted files.

This is where I'll stop. Thanks for any help.

 

[balamw]

Can you try sharing the iTunes Library directly from the Mac? Access it from the PC and copy it to the shared network drive from that? samba may help "normalize" and funky paths and filenames so they are compatible with Windows.

Also, it shouldn't really matter what the files are named, when you re-add them to a new library on the PC the tags will make everything work out right.

B

 

[surfrjohn]

Next issue

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm trying that now but having some trouble...

1) I don't require a login for my G4, so I'm not sure how to find my account info to login from the PC (I **was** able to share the G4, so proud of myself there - haha, sorry, been a long time since I've used my G4 regularly)

2) How do I change the permissions on my music folder to make it accessible too?

Both of these I can probably find easy answers to, so here's my issue with my original approach...

I was able to archive the iTunes folder, move it to the shared drive, then copied it to my PC. But now my PC says it's an invalid file!!?? I've never had issues moving archived/zipped files like this before, but presumably it's because I'm going form Mac to PC.

Thanks for any additional help!

 

[balamw]

Try starting here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1812?viewlocale=en_US

I presume you have admin access and can create a new user account, but if you don't recall your password you might have to change it in single user mode.

http://lifehacker.com/278898/reset-your-lost-os-x-password

B

 

[surfrjohn]

ugh

Thanks for the pointer bala, but it's just not working. I even went and turned off password protected sharing on the network (via my PC) but that didn't help.

Any idea why I can't unzip the archive I moved to the PC?

Thanks again.