General Questions about iTunes & iPod on XP

[1337_Like_ThaT]

Okay so i recently purchased an iPod 80GB Video (Totally awesome BTW, worth every penny:)) and am rather new to iTunes. I've imported about 50 CDs into my iTunes library and they have all been synced to my iPod.



I'll be reisntalling Windows in the near future, obviously iTunes will be reinstalled. Will I have to import all my CDs again into my library, or when I sync freshly installed iTunes with my iPod for the first time, will the iPod transfer those songs back into my iTunes library?

If iTunes is reinstalled again, will all my purchased content from iTunes Store have to be purchased again? Or I can just redownload the content back onto my computer


I think those are the only questions I have for now. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

[1337_Like_ThaT]

Okay I think I may have answered my own questions. Basically for either the library or iTune Purchases, I would have to back up onto CD/DVD or just make a copy of the iTunes folder in which my music is saved into and reload the folder after I reinstall iTunes. Give me any suggestions if i'm wrong about this. Thanks :)

[einstein_314]

All you have to do is backup your iTunes music folder (found in My Music by default). Then just restore it when you reinstall iTunes and it will find it automatically. I myself have my music stored on a separate hard drive so I don't even have to back it up. It just works :thumbsup: When you start iTunes for the first time after reinstalling, it will "update your library"...I'm not sure what it's doing...maybe checking to see if it's all there? Once it finishes that, everything will be a-okay.

And for your purchased music, it's stored in the same folder as all your other music. So it will work fine as well. You'll just have to authorize your computer before you can play it again. You might want to de-authorize your current computer before formatting so that you don't use of one of the 5 maximum authorized devices.

Oh and I just thought of something...make sure all your music is in the same folder. Do you have iTunes set to "copy music to iTunes folder when adding to library"? If not, enable that in Preferences > Advanced and under the Advanced menu, pick "Consolidate Library". This will move all your music that's in your library into the iTunes music folder. If the music in your library is all imported from CD's through iTunes then this shouldn't be a problem. But if you had some imported from before that you just added, it may not have copied them.

[1337_Like_ThaT]

Einstein thanks for all the device, I was able to successfully restore my library after I thought I had deleted it all by accident :p

[six_storm]

You might want to de-authorize your current computer before formatting so that you don't use of one of the 5 maximum authorized devices.


+1

Where I've been through a few PCs in the past 3-4 years, I had no clue about authorizing and deauthorizing computers with my purchases music. If you wanna cheat the system though, burn your purchased music to a CD and turn around to rip it to a PC that isn't authorized. The music WILL play!

I d/led an album and burned a CD for my fiance last year and got this idea, thought I would try it just to see what happened. Sure enough, the music ripped and played perfectly, heck it even went on her iPod Mini! Just a small idea when talking about backing up your music . . . :D

[einstein_314]

+1

Where I've been through a few PCs in the past 3-4 years, I had no clue about authorizing and deauthorizing computers with my purchases music. If you wanna cheat the system though, burn your purchased music to a CD and turn around to rip it to a PC that isn't authorized. The music WILL play!

I d/led an album and burned a CD for my fiance last year and got this idea, thought I would try it just to see what happened. Sure enough, the music ripped and played perfectly, heck it even went on her iPod Mini! Just a small idea when talking about backing up your music . . . :D
Yeah the problem with that though is that as soon as you burn it, it loses all track info (ie song name, artist, album). So when you import it again you have to manually edit it all. Too much of a pain for me.

And you dont' really HAVE to deauthorize your computer. Just when you use up all 5 "licenses" you just have to reset it which makes all devices deauthorized. Not that big of a deal. Although I've heard (I think from another thread here somewhere) that you can only reset it once a year? Don't know if that's true or not...