I used to own a PC and was able to simply copy all my iTunes music to a portable HD for backup. Is their a way to do this on my Mac as I tried and it doesn't want to let me do it.
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iPod Making a backup on Mac
- Thread starter pkagel
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Can you tell us what exactly you tried? You should be able to drag your music folder, or iTunes folder to something like like a external HD and have it copy over. Are you the admin on the computer? and is the music from the admins home account? You could try using carbon copy cloner or some other back up software.
I just tried dragging it and then I tried copy and pasting it. It's my computer and I'm the only user so does that make me the admin?? Do I need to start my computer up a different way to be an admin if not??
yes, if you're the only one on the computer, you should be admin and you should have all the permissions necessary, which was the only reason I asked. So you have have your music in the "music" folder in your "username" directory (which is what iTunes does by default)? You tried dragging this folder to an external hard drive which is mounted on your desktop? Does it give you any pop-up warning? I'm 99% sure this should work. I'm not on my computer at the moment, so I'll try when I get home, but if that doesn't work, click "get info" for the music folder and make sure it's not locked or anything (allows read & write). How big is this folder? Is it just taking a really long time to think about copying? Is your external drive the same one you used on the PC? Has it formatted in such a way the Mac can see it?
I'm not at my computer at this moment so I'll have to check but no, the hard drive isn't formatted for my Mac. It was the one I used on my PC.
Can I use the hard drive for both time machine and also use it to store an independant copy of my itunes music?
Can I use the hard drive for both time machine and also use it to store an independant copy of my itunes music?
When you have your drive plugged in to your computer, open "disk utility" in the Utilities folder in Applications. You should be able to see the drive there, and format it. After formatting, you can partition it to have one piece for Time Machine and the other as empty space. (it will look like 2 different drives but this will limit the size Time Machine can use to your desire) or you can just have it as 1 big disk, and use it for both time machine and data. Like this, Time Machine will continue to grow and you might not be able to add data if Time Machine takes up all the room.
Thanks. That should help me quite a bit. I only have a 320g external right now but I figure that it should be good enough for the time being for what I want to do.
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