So, I picked up my hard drive.

Western Digital 250 gig model. Im happy with it. Read good things.

Now I wanna move all the music from my Ipod onto the new drive.

I do not keep my songs in my Itunes library. ( I know I run the risk of losing everything should I lose my ipod or it craps out.)

One option seems to be: Load Itunes onto my new drive, and simply plug my ipod into the doc station and bring them over there. Then move them from the itunes file library to its own directory on the drive.

But that doesnt seem right? All I want is to have this new drive, just hold folders upon folders of these records...

Whats the plan? thanks.

good luck getting the files off the iPod. You'll need special software for that.
There is no need (or way) to put iTunes on a drive. You just need the files on the drive. iTunes doesn't care where the folders are located, just as long as you point it to the folders.

This is where the idiot in me comes out....

but....what?

does this mean i can or cannot do it? i know my way seems far fetched,

so am i fucked?

I don't have itunes, but couldn't you just:
1.)Map your external drive
2.)change the itunes library settings to save to external drive
3.)load all your files from your ipod into your library?

You need to get some software to extract the files from your ipod. It's a security feature of the ipod so you can't just plug it in to any of your friends computers and unload all the tracks. You will notice in iTunes that you can only drag and drop tunes from your library onto your ipod and not from your ipod onto the library (aka the hard drive).

There are ways in windows where you can see all the files, but they are not in any logical order and the file names are most likely shortened or abbreviated with numbers. iTunes just makes up random folder names and drops various tracks into whatever folder it wants, so only it knows where they are located.

Moving tracks that are already on your computer to your new drive is simply a matter of dragging and dropping in Windows.

Someone on here should be able to suggest a program (i don't think there are any for free.)

I just went ahead and re-ripped my entire collection so it would be organized the way I want it.

So should I get an iPod or a PowerBook?

I say wait for the PowerPod.

lol

ugh, there is no way Im re-ripping my entire collection.
ugh ugh ugh


may have to rrey that re-mapping deal, and have itunes run from ym new drive...and then that way, i can leave all the files on my itunes library, all organzied and stuff...

accomplishing this will be a task in its own right

is this a solution?

in itunes, if i click on file, there is an option to 'export library'..

so if i hook up my ipod.. transfer all my files back tothe library... then export it to the new drive....

do i got something there?

uhh, why?

Hook up Ipod, set it to rip, come back in a few hours

Only issue I forsee is reogranizing things into folders

How do i set my ipod to rip?


i thought he meant by re-ripping, is to load every cd into my drive again, and rip em individually.

you need to dl the software listed above, ephpod. If you try to pull your files from your ipod to your drive otherwise, they will be unrecognizable.

use software above (ephpod). It basically takes the contents of your ipod and moves them to your hard drive

Sounds like you already got good help, so follow the others' advice. I'm just piping in here for a bit of background: you keep saying this -- software runs on a computer, not on a hard drive; the hard drive is just where it is stored; adding an external drive just gives your computer access to more storage, but you don't need to do anything with most software to get it to continue to run. It'll still run, you just need to figure out (possibly) one or two things: how to get the software to read from the new drive (File->Open) and how to get it to write to the new drive (Save or Save As...). iTunes is a different beast, so my above advice doesn't really apply fully (unless you fully understand it), it's more of a generalization that I'm hoping will help clarify things a little bit.

You're basically just trying to figure out how to copy files from one hard drive (the iPod) to another (the new external hard drive). Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

Dusty, youre right...

after setting up the hard drive, it all started making a bitmore sense to me...for a time there, i was thinking of the new drive almost as a whole different computer with a different operating system. silly me...

im gonna try the ephod thing tonite....I shall be the happiest of campers should it go thru smoothly.

thanks everyone for their input. i shall keep ya'll posted.