Music files

[lizziegrace]

Hope someone can help. I have at least 4000 songs on two different computers and an external hard drive. I own 95% of the music on CD and the rest were downloaded from iTunes. For several years, I used Music Match Jukebox and then Windows Media Player. Then I downloaded iTunes. Some of the music imported into the iTunes library on both machines but not all. (A 6 year old Gateway desktop running XP and a laptop running Vista)

My desktop is out of hard disk space and the laptop committed suicide a month ago but is still on life-support for now.

I want to find *all* my music files and move them to my new laptop. I know that all the music in the iTunes library is now in a different format than MP3 or wmv(?) I've tried and tried to copy the iTunes files to a USB drive but this is a hopeless mess. Also, I can't drag and drop the songs I have on my daughter's hand-me-down iPod to my new computer.

Is there a shareware program? Is there a utility?

Help! This is too complicated.

I know, I know. Buy a Mac. Can't afford one and none of my accounting clients use them.

[Syrinx]

1. hi! I've never used iTunes myself, but

I seem to recall reading that iTunes files have an extension of "m4p." So do a file search on "*.m4p" and see what it turns up.

By the way, if you want to get a new hard drive for the desktop, Friday would probably be a good time to do so. I recently bought a 1 TB drive for about $90, and you'll probably find an even better deal on "Black Friday."

Good luck!

[lizziegrace]

2. Thanks for the info about the hard drive

I have 5 years of tax software on the current drive, as well as lots of client files. I think I'm going to just let it sit and concentrate on migrating files from the laptop that tanked a month ago and only the music files from the old desktop.

I searched on the m4p file type and came up with 800 files. I've tried every way to Sunday to try and get them on to a flash drive. I'm not having much luck. Also, I need to convert these file types to MP3 or WMV so I can move them (eventually) to the Droid I've ordered. Apple makes things very complicated. :-/

[Why Syzygy]

3. Will this help you?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751

[CK_John]

4. Here is a device that comes with sortware and works with sata 2.5 inch (laptop)

hard drives.

I would get 3 HD's on ebay or newegg large enough to hold a copy of your currrent drives and make clones for backup. The software is the most important feature it is Vista ready and easy to use.

Other adapters are available for PC hard drives, both ide and sata but this solution just easy.

This solution is low tech(low learning curve). Just connect to device, plug into a usb port and boot software and clone drive.

Link to Amazon:

<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_8_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=apricorn+sata+wire&x=16&y=18&sprefix=apricorn>

[trotsky]

5. iTunes has a built-in backup utility

that you can use to burn a copy of all your music to CDs (not playable CDs, mind you, but a format that you can then import into your new computer). On new versions of iTunes, this is under File, Library, Back up to disc.

Just make sure you De-authorize your old computer after doing the backup (and verifying you can restore to the new one) before powering it down for good.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. This is one time when Mac people won't tell you to buy a Mac

Mac drives crash, just like yours.

iTunes won't work any easier on a Mac than on a PC with respect to moving things off an iPod.