Transferring iTunes files to new hard drive.

[newyorksole]

Thanks for the help in advanced.

I'm using Windows XP and my hard drive is having problems so I need to transfer the files to an external hard drive and from there onto a brand new hard drive.

My question is how to I copy over the files so that the iTunes and all music and info and backups on my current computer transfer to the new hard drive and look exactly the same?

I want iTunes on my new hard drive to be set up the saaaaame exact way as it was on my old one.

 

[skybolt]

Copy the entire iTunes library file -- all the .xml files and all. Should be good to go.

 

[newyorksole]

Alright because everything I looked at on Google seems like there is so much to do and there are all these steps and formats of files to copy.

Anyone else can confirm that what skybolt said is all I need to do?

 

[JediMeister]

Is your library consolidated to My Documents/My Music/iTunes? If you copy that whole folder, including the Album Artwork, iPod Games, iTunes Music, Mobile Applications, Previous iTunes Libraries and the various files within that folder, to the external drive, and then put them all back in the same location on the repopulated hard drive you ought to be good to go. If however all your music is scattered about, from being downloaded from multiple sources, you'll want to have iTunes consolidate the library from File menu to put them all in the iTunes directory, THEN copy that to the external for backup purposes.