If all you are doing is copying your library you can’t lose it. DD just did this and so I do not know why the other programs and info make it seem so hard. She was up and running on her new computer in no time. Transferred the library, loaded items on her new computer, deactivated the old itunes and imported the library into itunes. Of course everything was still on her ipod, too, so it was backed up in 3 places, the old computer, the hard drive and the ipod. You do have to change the computer that is registered for itunes and deactivate the old one. Maybe the other programs do all the steps for you.</p>
<p>I strongly second fireandrain’s (and others’) comments re the need for an external hard drive for backups. They’ve been a godsend for us when a couple of our computers died rapidly and unexpectedly. </p>
<p>fireandrain may be referring to a firewire cable, which worked great in the past for transferring data between Macs–but the new Macbooks don’t have a firewire port, which would present a problem for MommaJ. She should be able to connect the external hard drive to the Macbook via USB cable, and then transfer the songs that way. As Singersmom07 said, daughter may have to de-activate her itunes account on the old computer and re-activate on the new one.</p>
<p>Well, it’s not technically a hard drive but it acts like one for your music because it’s another place to store your music. So, if your computer dies, you’ve still got your music files on your iPod, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Maybe the problems people are referring to occur between PC’s and Macs? I think you can “share” the music on your iPod with other computers, so that might be another way to do it. I’ve never done it myself, but I saw directions for it in the “Help” on the iTunes toolbar.</p>
<p>Actually, the iPod Touch can’t be used as a hard drive. The older iPods can, but apparently Apple decided to suspend this feature for the newer models.</p>
<p>My younger son just did this about 1/2 hour ago. He transferred older son’s itunes onto older son’s new laptop. He used a usb memory key and it took a very short time. I wish I could give you the details but I was very confused when I watched him. It was easy for him but he did the clicking so fast that I couldn’t process the steps. I do know that he highlighted all of the songs and saved them onto the usb memory key. Then he stuck the memory key into the new laptop and that’s where I got lost.</p>
<p>The first thing he did was save the itunes onto the usb memory key. Then he stuck the memory key into the new laptop, openned up the files that are on the memory key, copies them all and pasted them into the music folder that was on the computer. After that, he openned itunes and selected all of the files that he put into the music folder and dragged them into the itunes library.</p>
<p>Old laptop is a windows xp and new laptop is windows vista home premium 64 bit.</p>
<p>Agree with everyone who says to use the USB drive. We tried a lot of other methods last year, and ended up doing a couple of passes with the USB storage due to the quantity of files involved. This worked to get the music from PC to Mac, so will work for Mac to Mac, with ease. </p>
<p>This turned out to be one of the more challenging tasks surrounding “leaving for college.” kids these days…</p>
<ol>
<li>If your old computer has firewire and/or ethernet, you can network the two together and transfer files. You can, for example, hold down the T while starting up the old one and it will show up as a firewire drive on the other computer.</li>
<li>You need to authorize the new computer under itunes and will probably want to deauthorize the old one.</li>
</ol>