Fresh Mobo...Getting Data from Old to New?

[jjblanche]

I'm gutting my brother's computer, and need to wipe the hard drive in the process. However, he has about 15 gig of music in iTunes that he wants to hold on to, for obvious reasons. Is there a way he can get an external hard drive and copy everything he needs to that, and then just plug it back in when I'm done with the refit?

Somehow I think it's probably more complicated than that (isn't it always?), but I figured I'd ask before I make any moves.

 

[valis]

"Is there a way he can get an external hard drive and copy everything he needs to that"

Yes.

 

[jjblanche]

Cool. Is it just drag and drop? For iTunes, what files should he be looking to copy?

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

you can just plug the old drive into the new board.

 

[jjblanche]

I was told that creates errors and BSODs.

 

[Kamrooz]

If you plan to use it as a operating system drive, and just pop it into a new board without formatting, yes, it will BSOD.

Just nab a external drive, and copy over the files, or just burn them to a dvd. It's only 15 gb's, like 4 dvd-5's should do it fine. If you don't have a dvd burner, but are getting one for this new rig update, just pop it into the old rig first, burn the discs, then gut it.

Either way it should work, it also saves you from buying an external hard drive if you really don't need it.

 

[DJ_Jumbles]

Just do a search on your HD's to find all the files with a AAC file extension. Once you find one, you'll find the rest if he has never changed the destination drive. Just drag and drop onto your external HD and then hook it up to the new computer and do the reverse. iTunes has a default destination folder that you can find in the options of the program. If you look it up, it can save you some time using the search option (but not by much).

 

[go1ge]

I'm gutting my brother's computer, and need to wipe the hard drive in the process. However, he has about 15 gig of music in iTunes that he wants to hold on to, for obvious reasons. Is there a way he can get an external hard drive and copy everything he needs to that, and then just plug it back in when I'm done with the refit?

Somehow I think it's probably more complicated than that (isn't it always?), but I figured I'd ask before I make any moves.

 

[go1ge]

Sorry for empty post, I thought I was just logging in!

I suggest you call iTunes support (if they have any) I'm not sure as I've almost never used iTunes, even for my wifes and brother's ipods (there are better and free alternatives unless you want to buy stuff from iTunes).

As far as I know iTunes and songs you buy from them and iPods get into a weird wedding like relationship. e.g you can not use one iTunes with as many iPods as you like, or you can not connect your iPod to as many computers as you wish. In a similar way, most probably, you may not be able to move your songs to other computers as many times as you wish. Even if you keep most parts of the old computer, a new installation will be treated like a new computer by iTunes, then there'll show up limitations.

I maybe totally wrong, as I have always stayed away from iTunes (because of marriages between devices and some more), but I am quite sure that you must be careful with DRMed stuff when moving them around.

Once I reinstalled my win2k, and then noticed that I've encrypted some files in the previous installation (on the exact same hardware). Only thing that had changed was reinstalled win2k in the c: partition, encrypted files were on another partition, or maybe even hard drive.

Since then, I could not even delete those files (with full admin privilages), let alone reading or copying them.

THG forums may not be the best place, go check iTunes related forums as well. There must have been many in your boots.