Backing up itunes for a c drive format?

[Northy]

Now then guys, time has come to format this pc and start afresh, I know how to backup/save everything apart from itunes.

How can I save everything so I can put it back the way it is now on the new installation?

Can you have itunes on more than one pc at once? Will it think I'm trying to use two pc's? The Mrs said when she tried it on our other pc it moaned and said you can only connect it to one pc, but I didn't look into it.

So guys, what's your advice?

Cheers,

G

[deepdale11]

I think, never done it but if you go into file, library,organize library and then consolidate files, this puts everything into one place the itunes folder which will be in "my music" I think if you back up the itunes folder which should be x amount of gigs depending on how much music you have and then copy in back......

can't be too sure??

[i4n]

G,

2 ways to do it mate.

1) Copy the entire iTunes folder (including the sub-folders - mines under "music" in my documents ) to an external hard drive. This does the library and everything so when you've done your format you install iTunes again and copy everything back to where it was before.

2) Open iTunes and goto file | Library | Backup to disc and then keep feeding the DVD or CD into the computer until it finishes. Once you re-formatted and installed iTunes again you open iTunes up and put the first backup disc in and it does the rest.

I've done both ways and prefer the hard drive method as you just set it off and let it go rather than having to pop back every few min to feed another disc to the computer.

If you want to use the same music on two PC you have to have all of iTunes on an external hard drive, tell iTunes to look at that drive (on both machines) and just move the hard drive around between the two. If you have two separate libraries on iTunes the iPod will recognise it and say you can only synch to one library, this way fools it as it is the same library being moved around. I used to do this when I had a desktop and a laptop.


Ian