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Removing and re-installing iTunes - Help!

Polly
Polly Posts: 898 Forumite
Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
I'm replacing my desktop with a laptop and am nervous about removing and re-installing my iTunes. Can someone help or give me a link to a guide please?

Comments

  • 4743hudsonj
    4743hudsonj Posts: 3,298 Forumite
    why are you nervous exactly?
    Back by no demand whatsoever.
  • macman
    macman Posts: 53,128 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Polly wrote: »
    I'm replacing my desktop with a laptop and am nervous about removing and re-installing my iTunes. Can someone help or give me a link to a guide please?

    You don't have to remove anything. Just install iTunes on your new laptop, export your old music library viaCDDVD/USB stick, then reimport back in on your laptop. It's all explained very clearly in the iTunes Help menu.
    No free lunch, and no free laptop ;)
  • Polly
    Polly Posts: 898 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I'd like to use a USB stick to export/import the music but iTunes help only suggests transfer to CD and advises that I'll need 21 discs. How do I get it to transfer to a USB stick - copy and paste? I suppose this is why I'm nervous - I would hate to lose my stuff in the changeover.
  • macman
    macman Posts: 53,128 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    21 CD's indicates you have around 13.5GB to move. Too big for USB stick in one go (not many are more than 8GB). Do you have a DVD drive on the old PC, if so use that, should fit on 4 DVD's. At worst just buy a stack of CD's, at about 7p each it's not a lot.
    There is a way of transferring it using your iPod as the transfer device, that should also be explained in the iTunes help, but it's more fiddly.
    Not really any way to lose your stuff, it will still remain on the old PC. you're just exporting a copy. Worst that can happen is the export fails.
    No free lunch, and no free laptop ;)
  • almillar
    almillar Posts: 8,621 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Easiest way to do it is this, using a portable hard drive.
    Copy 'iTunes Music' folder from inside My Music onto the portable hard drive. Install iTunes on the new computer and run it, don't let it search for new music. Close it. Copy the 'iTunes Music' folder into My Music on the new computer. When you run iTunes now, it'll have the library exactly as you left it on the old computer. Artwork, play count, ratings and everything.
  • Hi Polly

    I agree a portable hard drive is a good way to transfer your files. If you are getting rid of your desktop by taking it to the tip you could recycle the hard drive by dropping it into a hard drive caddy that connects to your laptop via USB, caddies are a lot cheaper than buying a new portable drive. This would enable you to copy across your files, save you the cost of a new portable drive and once you've formatted the old hard drive, you could use it as a backup drive for your music.
    Alternatively (and it's a bit more complicated), if you use a router to connect to the internet, and you can connect both your desktop and laptop to the router using an ethernet cable (I'm suggested the cable for speed as it's a lot faster than wireless); you could set up a network and copy the files over this way. If you have XP on your old PC the network wizard will assist you or for Vista (on your new laptop?) the network and sharing center does the same job. On our home network I find it's easier to pull the files from the XP computer over to the Vista computer rather than the other way round. The only other thing you would have to do on the XP machine is either share your music drive so the network can see it (by right clicking on the folder and 'sharing'), or copy the files into the shared documents folder which should be visible in 'my computer'.

    sandwichgirl
  • Polly
    Polly Posts: 898 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Whew! I'm exhausted after reading all this! :eek: I'm not remotely techie so it all sounds very complicated but will let you know how it goes. Desktop not being scrapped but being returned to my employer as a swap for a laptop so got to get the stuff off (not sure if I'm allowed iTunes so want to erase all traces of it just in case). Thanks for all the advice :T
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