New MacBook arrived- iPod question

[Skippy440]

Hello all, new to this forum.

Received my first Mac laptop on Monday and the data was transferred by the Apple store yesterday. One thing that they indicated was that when I first connect my iPod to it (which was originally setup on a Windows XP machine), it will ask to reformat the iPod and then all I need to do is resync the songs and all will be good to go.
When I plugged it into the new macbook, because I had the Windows based iTunes set to manage manually, it didn't ask for any reformatting or resyncing on the mac as it carried over the itunes setting from before. It connected and displayed the music/playlists.
I tested by dragging and dropping an album that was not on the iPod and it worked perfectly.
Sorry for all the detail, but know I'm confused as to whether I should set the iTunes to sync upon connection and reformat the iPod anyway or just leave it as is.
Does "if it isn't broke, don't fix it...." apply here?

Any recommendations?

 

[spinnerlys]

Your iPod is formatted with the FAT 32 filesystem, used most prominently with Windows based PCs, as it was formatted with iTunes using the Windows Operating System.

An iPod formatted with iTunes on Mac OS X will be formatted with HFS+ as a filesystem, which makes it unreadable for Windows based PCs.

If you still use a Windows PC to manage your iPod, it is best to let it be the way it is.

If you only use a Macintosh computer to manage your iPod, it might be wise, but not necessary, to re-format the iPod.

But that means, that you will lose all the music stored on your iPod.
If you don't have any backups of your music, you can either use expod or Senuti to copy your iPod's music to your HDD.

 

[Eric S.]

If you don't have any backups of your music, you can either use expod or Senuti to copy your iPod's music to your HDD.

I'm curious about these - do they also preserve metadata (play count, last played, etc.), or do they only copy the music?

 

[Skippy440]

Thanks for the info. That was the way that I understood it from talking to the rep's at the Applestore.
I got the one on one when I ordered the Macbook so they transferred all my files, including my iTunes folder so all 16,000 songs are transferred to the new machine.
I guess I'll leave it as is for now and decide whether I will reformat the ipod for just mac.
If I may pose a second question, I will be buying an ext HD to use the Time Machine feature for back ups.
What is the best way to format the HD for use with Time Machine? Can I partition the HD with xxxGB for Mac and the remainder for any windows requirements?

 

[spinnerlys]

I'm curious about these - do they also preserve metadata (play count, last played, etc.), or do they only copy the music?

I just checked with music copied from my iPod, and it didn't show any play count. I don't rate my music, so I can't answer you that one.

Thanks for the info. That was the way that I understood it from talking to the rep's at the Applestore.
I got the one on one when I ordered the Macbook so they transferred all my files, including my iTunes folder so all 16,000 songs are transferred to the new machine.
I guess I'll leave it as is for now and decide whether I will reformat the ipod for just mac.
If I may pose a second question, I will be buying an ext HD to use the Time Machine feature for back ups.
What is the best way to format the HD for use with Time Machine? Can I partition the HD with xxxGB for Mac and the remainder for any windows requirements?

You can partition your external HDD via Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) into one HFS+ (Mac OS X Extended) formatted volume and one FAT32 (MS-DOS) volume.
Then you can use the HFS+ volume for Time Machine and other stuff.