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Reformatting HDD, do I need to back music up?

A

Acoustica

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 22, 2004
39
0
Washington, USA
Hi everyone. In order to bring some order to my jumbled PowerBook, I'm going to be reformatting the HDD tomorrow and I had a question in regards to iTMS purchases.

I've bought about 1.5GB worth of music so far from iTMS and have it all on my computer because sadly I don't own an iPod yet. What I'm wondering is, is will it be safe for me to format this computer and then upon reinstalling, be able to go into iTunes, check for purchased music, and downloading all the music again? I haven't found anything addressing this in the support pages but I'm not that good at finding things, thanks in advance for your help!
 
I'm pretty sure that using the "Check for Purchased Music" command, you can download any songs that you have purchased that aren't currently in your music library.
 
I don't believe that you can do that.. Anyone else?

Hmm.. maybe you can. WHo can argue with Dave Chappelle's Avatar? :)

Can't you make a couple data CDs with your iTunes music on it, just in case (assuming you have a CD writer)?
 
NO!

iTMS only allows the "check for purchased music" tab to download songs that you have not previously downloaded to your computer. You will NEED to backup your files if you want to keep them.
 
appleretailguy said:
iTMS only allows the "check for purchased music" tab to download songs that you have not previously downloaded to your computer. You will NEED to backup your files if you want to keep them.
Click to expand...

this is true. you must back up, I would avoid backing up to CD, copy them as files perhaps but don't burn them as music...

paul
 
Backup to a Data CD. iTunes has a setting for that in the prefs. Just burn your "Purchased Music" playlist after changing your burn preference to Data CD, and voila :D
 
Wow. 1.5GB from iTMS? Impressive. And expensive. You might want to consider making a couple of copies, given the value of your collection. If you've got a SuperDrive, it'll all fit on one DVD.
 
1.5GB, that's huge! How much have you spent on the iTMS? As to your question, as everyone here has said, you MUST backup your music before you reformat. You get one successful download from the iTMS each time you purchase a song. The "Check for Purchased Music" feature is there to download songs that were interrupted during downloading for one reason or another (like a failed dial-up Internet connection). You've got a superdrive, so burn all the songs to a DVD (you can use the remaining space to backup other music, too), or burn 3 data CDs.

edit: 500th post! Better go find myself an avatar.
 
jsw said:
Wow. 1.5GB from iTMS? Impressive. And expensive. You might want to consider making a couple of copies, given the value of your collection. If you've got a SuperDrive, it'll all fit on one DVD.
Click to expand...
Duff-man says...very good suggestion. I know when I periodically archive stuff to cd (old fils, installers etc) I always make a couple of copies just in case....oh yeah!
 
You need to back up for sure.
Good thing you asked here first.

The ITMS does not ever allow for double downloading. Its not really Apple's fault but an RIAA restriction according to an article I read back when it was new.

Like a real CD (which you can backup) you need to protect the original and back them up.

Best of luck,
 
Thanks everyone for the advice, sorry I didn't respond sooner as I was at the state Renaissance Faire with my g/f for the past two days. I think I've spent around $300 or so at the store in the last couple of months (just started buying from the store in May) so my collection is coming along nicely now. :) I'll be backing up to DVD tonight but I have a question. It was said I should burn my song files as a data DVD and then burn my purchased music playlist. My question is, how exactly do I get the music back into their original folders with album art and such? And how does one go about burning the purchased music playlist and returning it to iTunes? Sorry for the rather newbish questions, but this is my first time doing any reformatting and I'd like to make sure my 359 songs are back on the comp and in working order. :D
 
Make a playlist with all your purchased music. Your purchased music folder should have it all, but make sure. If your whole library is purchased music then you can just put everything into a playlist. Make sure youre burning preferences are set to data CD/DVD. Highlight your playlist and click "burn." Insert a disk when prompted and wait a while for the disk to burn. When you have the new system ready to go you can tell iTunes File > Add to library and then navigate to the CD and pick the highest level directory you can (i.e. all the folders containing music are inside this folder) and click ok. iTunes will import all the songs and will automatically put them into the right folders, etc. It's pretty painless.

You could also just go to the CD in Finder and hit command A to select all and drag all the folders into iTunes. That usually works but with a lot of files sometimes I haven't had the best experience. I'm not sure if what you have qualifies as "a lot" so I gave you the foolproof way.
 
Welp, everything is installed and running great! Did the new playlist option and everything transfered beautifully! I just had to authorize the computer and then everything was golden, thanks for all you help everyone! :D
 
Acoustica said:
Welp, everything is installed and running great! Did the new playlist option and everything transfered beautifully! I just had to authorize the computer and then everything was golden, thanks for all you help everyone! :D
Click to expand...

hmmm looks like maybe you should have deauthorised first.
 
BACK UP BACK UP. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD PURCHASED MUSIC AGAIN. I had this problem many times and have finally caught on, even if you contact apple(like i did) they will say that you can only download the songs once and no matter what the circumstances of the reformat they will not give them back to you again. YOu need to burn them on a cd first. Again if you format your drive without backing up the itms purchased music than you will have to buy them again



Acoustica said:
Hi everyone. In order to bring some order to my jumbled PowerBook, I'm going to be reformatting the HDD tomorrow and I had a question in regards to iTMS purchases.

I've bought about 1.5GB worth of music so far from iTMS and have it all on my computer because sadly I don't own an iPod yet. What I'm wondering is, is will it be safe for me to format this computer and then upon reinstalling, be able to go into iTunes, check for purchased music, and downloading all the music again? I haven't found anything addressing this in the support pages but I'm not that good at finding things, thanks in advance for your help!
Click to expand...
 
mpopkin said:
BACK UP BACK UP. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD PURCHASED MUSIC AGAIN.
Click to expand...
A real Johnny-on-the-spot.

Apple says that reinstalling the OS or replacing the hard drive won't give you a "lost" installation. This seems to be true. I got a little worried a couple weeks ago when I replaced the hard drive in my Cube. I was prompted to reauthorize it, which I did. But iTunes tells me I'm using 5 authorizations and that's how many I should be using.

I do wish you could see/control all of your authorizations from within iTunes though--similar to seeing all your computers in iSync.
 
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