iPod Questions Regarding iPod and Moving Music from PC to Mac

[chimi]

Hi all, I´ve done some searching on this topic but still am a little unclear and want to figure it all out before trying anything. Can you experts read through my situation and offer any answers or advice? Thanks!

I have all my music on iTunes on a Windows PC. I had a 4G iPod but it broke a few months back.

I recently bought a 5G iPod and MacBook (will be arriving shortly).

From what I understand, I will have to format the new iPod as a Windows iPod, then load it up with the music that is on my Windows machine. I then want to move all my music and put it on my new MacBook. It seems that there are two ways to do this...
1) Set the iPod to manually update, then plug it into the MacBook and drag the music over manually. OR....
2) follow the directions at this link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173 which seems a little more complicated (e.g. looks like you have to copy your music twice onto the iPod??)

First question - which is the correct or best way to transfer the music to the MacBook? I don´t care about playlists or playcounts, but I DO want to preserve artist and album info, etc.

Second question - I want to use my MacBook as my primary machine in the future. Once the music is transferred over, will I ever be able to set the (Windows-formatted) iPod to Automatic synchronization again or will I always have to keep it on manual synch?

Thanks! Sorry if these are dumb questions, but it´s a little confusing and I just want to do everything correctly on the new Mac!!

 

[pianoman]

on your windows computer, go into iTunes and under iPod prefs, click "enable disk use" - this will make your iPod work like an external hard drive.

copy all of your music (drag and drop) from the iTunes folder to the iPod (now a hard drive).

when you plug it into your mac, it will show up as an external hard drive and you can access the folders/files there. copy them into the iTunes folder in the "Music" directory.

you will be able to set your iPod to automatically update if you'd like. just go into iTunes (on either computer) and uncheck "enable disk use" - this will turn off the setting that makes the iPod act as an external hard drive. in this case, you can unplug your iPod without having to eject it each time (after it is finished updating).

good luck with everything and enjoy your new mac and iPod. MR is the place to be when you have questions!

 

[benthewraith]

Hi all, I´ve done some searching on this topic but still am a little unclear and want to figure it all out before trying anything. Can you experts read through my situation and offer any answers or advice? Thanks!

I have all my music on iTunes on a Windows PC. I had a 4G iPod but it broke a few months back.

I recently bought a 5G iPod and MacBook (will be arriving shortly).

From what I understand, I will have to format the new iPod as a Windows iPod, then load it up with the music that is on my Windows machine. I then want to move all my music and put it on my new MacBook. It seems that there are two ways to do this...
1) Set the iPod to manually update, then plug it into the MacBook and drag the music over manually. OR....
2) follow the directions at this link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173 which seems a little more complicated (e.g. looks like you have to copy your music twice onto the iPod??)

First question - which is the correct or best way to transfer the music to the MacBook? I don´t care about playlists or playcounts, but I DO want to preserve artist and album info, etc.

Second question - I want to use my MacBook as my primary machine in the future. Once the music is transferred over, will I ever be able to set the (Windows-formatted) iPod to Automatic synchronization again or will I always have to keep it on manual synch?

Thanks! Sorry if these are dumb questions, but it´s a little confusing and I just want to do everything correctly on the new Mac!!

Connect via Windows sharing and just transfer the files over?

 

[MaggieR320]

on your windows computer, go into iTunes and under iPod prefs, click "enable disk use" - this will make your iPod work like an external hard drive.

copy all of your music (drag and drop) from the iTunes folder to the iPod (now a hard drive).

when you plug it into your mac, it will show up as an external hard drive and you can access the folders/files there. copy them into the iTunes folder in the "Music" directory.

you will be able to set your iPod to automatically update if you'd like. just go into iTunes (on either computer) and uncheck "enable disk use" - this will turn off the setting that makes the iPod act as an external hard drive. in this case, you can unplug your iPod without having to eject it each time (after it is finished updating).

good luck with everything and enjoy your new mac and iPod. MR is the place to be when you have questions!

I did this (hopefully correctly), but I'm not sure how to add it to my iTunes library now.

Someone should really start a business where they come and transfer your files from PC to Mac for you -- I'd pay big bucks.